Sunny Recap: Ray Donovan

Last week in Walk This Way, Conor wanted the family, and he got the family in all its dysfunctional glory with a misspelled birthday cake to boot. In tonight’s episode, “Sunny” (S2 E8), Ray must deal with a situation he certainly helped create: his wife’s affair. However, we didn’t have to wait till the end of the episode for the title: it was the Marvin Gaye Washington/Bridget Donovan cover of Bobby Hebb’s 1966 hit song “Sunny”.

Ray has sent Avi out to tail Abby, an assignment Avi doesn’t want. He sees his boss’s wife meet up with Jim Halloran at a motel. She wants to go straight to the room and get busy but Jim wants breakfast first. He asks if she is serious but she can’t make any commitment because of her kids. Abby says she thinks she is in love with him and it’s gotta be enough. Take it or leave it. Jim takes it.

Cookie Brown and his thugs pay Lee Drexler a visit while Lee is in his pool. Cookie shoves Lee’s head underwater with his high-priced sneaker. Drexler calls Ray, afraid for his life. On his way over, Ray calls Harriet about possibly giving the gym to Terry. Harriet says they could all go to jail. Ray spots Bridget at the school bus stop. He asks her if she is okay and needs anything. She says no. He says he loves her and drives away. The school bus comes and goes and Bridget is still there waiting for Marvin to pick her up.

Parole officer Ronald Keith is back threatening Mickey and refuses to let him meet Debbie Gerson from Paramount so she has to come over to the flophouse. In Boston, Kate McPherson calls Ray for his take on her Sully article when a very angry Peggy Shaughnessy shows up, demanding to know what Kate found out about her daughter (Sully’s girlfriend). Kate can’t reveal her source but says she thinks Katherine is in Witness Protection. Mrs. Shaughnessy says her daughter promised to send her a postcard if she went into Witness Protection. “No, Missy, she’s dead,” she says and leaves.

Ray arrives at Lee’s and makes Cookie send his Glock and thugs away. Cookie gripes about the $30K he set Rekon up with. He wants Marvin Gaye Washington. With Ray there, Lee has suddenly found his balls and mouths off to Cookie: “You do know what contract means, Mr. Straight out of Compton?” Ray tells Cookie that he will take care of it in a couple of hours. He tells Lee to get a hold of Rekon.

After Abby enjoys and admires Jim’s lovemaking prowess, she gets a message that Bridget isn’t in school. Bridget claims she stayed home because she wasn’t feeling well but says Abby doesn’t have to come home. She sort of apologizes to Jim but he says he likes kids.

Rekon doesn’t want to give Marvin over to Cookie who will “bleep his head up” and Lee has decided that they are going to keep the kid because Cookie has no written contract, but Rekon concedes that Ray is right. This is “some street shit.”

When Debbie arrives at Mickey’s dump, she tells the parole officer he can work as a consultant on the film at $250 an hour, an irresistible offer to a compulsive gambler like Keith. Meantime, Harriet got the loan on the Trousdale house but she hates the interest rate. She also informs Ray that Terry sent his paychecks back.

Mickey pitches his script to producer Jerry. It ends with Claudette leaving Boston in the Cadillac with the money and baby Daryll as Mickey is hauled off to prison. Jerry loves Mickey’s script. It’s real men stuff like Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and Mitchum, but a prominent photo on the credenza makes Mickey uneasy. It includes Linda, the woman Sully killed and the ghostly voice of the dolphin. Later at the cocktail party, Mickey regales the guests with tales of his thieving days. Claudette’s husband Alan shows up with another woman, cops an attitude and throws a drink in Mickey’s face. Mickey tries to choke the shit out of him.

Ray pays Terry a visit to apologize but says he can’t stop using the gym to launder money. Terry tells him to get out. Ray leaves Terry’s paychecks and Terry closes the gym down for the day.

When Abby gets home, she gets a call from Ray who has something he needs her to sign. She finds out Bridget is not there and calls her. Bridget is at the recording studio with Marvin, doing something she likes with somebody she loves. Singing “Sunny” isn’t working for Marvin so they come up with a duet where Bridget sings it straight while Marvin freestyles.

Avi tells Lena that he would rather kill the cop than show the evidence to Ray but he must, and it brings Avi to tears. As Ray looks at the film, Cookie comes in, commenting on Ray’s emotional employees. Ray tells Cookie he is going to get Marvin and should take him away. Cookie realizes Ray just wants Marvin out of Bridget’s life and says he will take him to South Beach.

Ray pays Jim Halloran a home visit. After he sees Halloran arrive, he kicks in his door and Jim confronts Ray with a gun. How did Jim know who Ray was, anyway? Did Abby show him pictures? Ray tells him to stop seeing Abby but Jim says that’s up to her. All the while, Jim has a gun aimed at Ray and Ray tells him to pull the trigger. He doesn’t.

While Debbie is driving Mickey home, Jerry calls and says the film is off because of Alan. Mickey says they’ll get someone else to make it but Debbie sadly informs him that no one will touch it now.

When Ray arrives home, Abby already knows about his visit to Jim’s. Ray throws the photos of her extramarital adventures on the table, but Abby angrily asks how many pictures she would have if she had him followed. Ray gives her the loan papers to sign for the new house. Abby says “It’s too late, Ray.” He just doesn’t get it, it was never the house she wanted anyway. She refuses to sign the papers so he snatches them out of her hand, giving her a paper cut and she runs upstairs.

Lee Drexler calls to say they are keeping the kid. He sent Cookie Brown $150K, 5 times what the investment and if Cookie has a problem with that, they can go to court. Ray says he’s making a big mistake.

He follows Abby upstairs where she says she wants him to leave but he says it’s his house and starts throwing her clothes on the bed. They tussle and he tries to kiss her but she bites his lip and pushes him out of the room.

Supporting Cast of “Sunny”

Shorty asks Mickey how he made out when he returns home but Mickey says this Hollywood stuff isn’t for him after all. He starts taking out silverware settings worth $3K each that he stole from Jerry.

With Rekon at the wheel, Bridget and Marvin happily listen to their song. As the vehicle stops at a red light, suddenly Rekon is shot and Cookie appears at the passenger side window. Mysteriously, he does not see Bridget huddled in the back seat while Marvin pleads for his life. Cookie says he’s sorry, he tried and murders Marvin. Splattered with glass and blood, Bridget sees that Marvin is indeed dead and manages to get herself out of the car. She calls Ray.

Next week’s episode is “Snowflake”, a reference to Bridget who is now a witness to a double homicide and will have a conflict between how her parents want to deal with it. Terry is not the only one who wants a straight arrow life now.