Poker Recap: Ray Donovan

The 11th episode of Ray Donovan’s Season 3 was called “Poker,” a reference to the Varick Strass murder weapon, we suppose, but a better title might have been “Chess,” as a tribute to Mickey’s checkmate of Ralph, no, Randy. (“Don’t take it personal. It’s the Alzheimer’s”)

Ed Cochran put the screws to Andrew Finney to frame Ray for Varick’s murder. Finney did offer to make Cochran a multi-millionaire but sending Ray to jail for a murder he didn’t really commit was just “divine retribution.”

Avi spies on Cochran, as he eats Jiffy Pop at Ray’s place where he is tightening the noose he’s trying to put around Ray’s neck. Learning that Cochran knows the location where Varick’s body is buried, Avi alerts Ray before a detective shows up. Ray won’t let him in but agrees to go to the station for questioning. Det. Barker doesn’t get much out of Ray (who does?) and Lee Drexler shows up to put an end to the interview. On the way out, Ray gets a call from Lena that the poker is gone and Cochran probably has it.

Ray knows Cochran didn’t give it to the police yet, so he is waiting in Cochran’s pad with a gun he uses to shoot an uncooperative Cochran in the leg. Avi comes over to help get the poker location out of Cochran who remains defiant despite the injury.

“What did you think was gonna happen? Really, did you think you’d be sitting at the Super Bowl in a skybox with the Finneys, sipping Cristal, while Beyoncé shakes her ass for you down on the field.”

He scoffs when Avi threatens to turn him into a eunuch with his bolt cutters but when Ray aims a baseball bat at his head, he gives up the info. It’s in the heating vent in Ray’s bedroom and he has already told the cops. Cochran continues to insult Ray while Avi knocks him out with an ether-soaked rag.

Ray manages to get the poker out with the police at the door. He throws it off the balcony to Lena, looking like a ninja and waiting on a motorcycle to whisk the evidence away to a safer location. Ray tells Barker that he doesn’t recall why the vent is open. The lack of the murder weapon and the body doesn’t quite end it for the police. Finney prevailed upon Paige to corroborate his story to the police. Ray intercepts her on her way in to make her statement.

Everybody knows Paige has a thing for Ray. Even her father realized she was training Ray to be the next Varick. And the fact that Paige can’t trust her father has been demonstrated in very creepy ways. Paige tells Ray that she doesn’t want to be known as the girl whose father slept with her husband and then killed him. Ray informs her that her father is going down either way because he has the body, the weapon and Cochran. She asks Ray who he thinks has more power, him or her father. Ray says he doesn’t know but if she does the right thing, she can have it all and she must think that includes him because she threw her pappy under the bus.

At the same time, Team Ray is pulling a van into the Finney premises. (That lax security thing again). OMG! Nothing in this entire season was funnier than Cochran regaining consciousness in the back of the van. The first thing he sees is the decomposing body of Varick Strauss. Ray and Avi haul the corpse off to a dumpster on the Finney grounds where Lena sets it on fire. The poker was in there too. Paige stopped by to tell her father that, on balance, he was a good mentor. She kissed him goodbye and drove off as the dumpster exploded. Finney’s goose is cooked now but Ray let Cochran go, dropping him off in the parking garage at Dybek, where he works. Avi will probably email that compromising “dick pic” to Cochran’s co-workers now.

Supporting Cast of Poker

Being suspended and grounded didn’t stop Bridget from going over to Greg Donellen’s house again. Uncle Terry alerted Abby. Donellen told Bridget she had to leave so he wouldn’t have to go to jail for 10 years and be a registered sex offender. Right after he shut the door, Abby pulled up and took Bridget home. Terry tried to talk to Bridget but that went nowhere. She told him if anyone lays a finger on Greg, they’ll never see her again. Why the hell doesn’t she just transfer out of that school and leave Donellen alone till she’s 18?

Finally, Mickey turned the tables on Ray by telling the family members (Daryll, Bunchy, Teresa and Connor) that came to his “goodbye” party that he had to leave because Ray was going to have him committed, now that he had Alzheimer’s. He had the guardianship papers with the diagnosis to convince them that he was on the up and up. Mickey throws that up in Ray’s face, how the family will all hate him if he makes Mickey leave or commits him. They love him because he makes them feel good but Ray just makes everyone feel small. And, you know, this is another Ray Donovan enigma — how does he inspire such loyalty in Lena and Avi that they will do anything for him. We mean, damn! Digging graves, then digging up the same grave to move the body somewhere else. Maybe Ray should put his family on his payroll if he wants to get rid of Mickey so bad.