Volcheck Recap: Ray Donovan

Last week in Snowflake, Ray Donovan tried to do major damage control after his daughter, Bridget, witnessed a double homicide, but by the end of the episode a lot of people knew about it. Ray put Avi and Lena on the case and had to tell Ezra Goldman about it. Bridget told her mother Abby despite Ray’s advice not to. Abby told her boyfriend, Jim Halloran, a homicide detective. Who else will find out tonight?

When the episode began, Ray wakes up at the Ashley’s beachhouse where he obviously spilled his guts about the murders to Steve Knight. We don’t know if he mentioned that Bridget saw it happen but he told Steve about Abby’s affair, too. Steve Knight spots Ashley’s stalker Bob and jumps over the railing to chase him down and beat him up. Ray stops him and Bob insists he has to be there to protect Ashley from Steve’s abuse. Ray makes a threat that he makes a lot if he lays another finger on Ashley — “I’ll bleeping kill you.”

After getting the rights to Re-Kon’s and Marvin Gaye Washington’s music and hiring Ezra and Lee as his attorneys,  Cookie Brown told Ray that there are rumors that  there is a video out there of the murder and Ray needs to find it. He will pay whatever it takes. Bridget told her brother Conor that she was in the car when the shooting went down, and then they discussed the possibility of living with Abby’s boyfriend while sharing M&Ms. In the meantime, Abby has been having nightmares and goes to Jim to persuade him to kill Cookie Brown. Ray pays a visit to Marty Grossman, who is still angry because Ray ruined his boyfriend’s life (in Road Trip, S1E9) by breaking his femur. Despite that, Marty agrees he will sell Ray the video if he gets his hands on it for a million dollars and a year’s worth of exclusives on Tommy Wheeler.

After losing all his money and the watch he got from Ray at the casino, crooked parole officer Ronald Keith wants more money to keep Kate MacPherson away from Mickey Donovan.  Kate gets to Mickey before Keith gets there but Mickey gets rid of her himself. Mickey offers Keith $5 grand to turn off his ankle bracelet on the night of the heist he is planning. He doesn’t have the money yet but assures Keith he will get it. He and Shorty go off to the Fite Club where Mickey asks Terry to spot him $5 grand. Terry won’t do it and Mickey moves on to Daryll, trying to patch things up by giving him that Cadillac  for $5 grand. When Daryll blows him off, Mickey wants to cut him in on the robbery. Daryll says he is full of shit and he stomps off. But Terry has overheard and wants in on the robbery because he wants to pay his own way to Ireland.  He has already told his girlfriend he won’t go along with her plan to take $40K away from her son’s college education. After Mickey pays Ronald Keith half of the $5 grand, the parole officer wants to know what he has to do to get more money out of this. Now the robbery crew consists of Mickey, Cherry, Terry and Ronald Keith, and Shorty if he doesn’t die before it goes down. He’s been having an awful lot of trouble breathing. By the way, without Shorty, they can’t crack the safe and that takes two and a half hours.

Avi has confirmed that Kate is in L.A. and thinks that Ray should leave it alone. Ray punches Avi in the mouth and says that they will all go to prison if Kate is not stopped. Ed Cochran has also found out about Kate and summons Ray to his office. Ed has gotten a call from the President of the United States confirming his appointment as head of the FBI in Washington, D.C. and Kate is a threat that he wants Ray to take care of. Ray won’t consider killing Kate even though Ed threatens to have him killed too. Ray shows Cochran the Scrabble Night video showing the Cochrans and Volchecks engaging in wife-swapping. Ray says if Cochran comes after him or Kate, the video will go viral. Cochran has already put down Tom Volcheck’s hopes of going to D.C. with him, or alternatively, taking over as head of the FBI in L.A. Now he figures out that Ray had to have Volcheck’s cooperation to get that tape. He storms into Volcheck’s office and tells him that he has been with Volcheck’s wife, Megan, far more times than on Scrabble night and she will leave him now that Ed has arranged for Tom to be transferred to Bismarck, North Dakota, where he will be investigating illegal elk-hunting on the reservation.

Abby decides to take matters in her own hands and gets her gun, Ray shows up and tries to reassure her that everything will be fine and he won’t let anyone hurt her or the kids but Avi calls with Kate’s location and he has to leave. Jim Halloran has decided to “be a man”. He goes over to let Abby know he will do what she wants and get rid of Cookie. They seal the deal by making love in his car.

Ray waits outside Kate’s motel room and she splits her burger with him when she gets back. She tells Ray everything she knows and presses him on the sex abuse issues in his family. Ray warns her that she is going to get herself killed but tells her as much as he is able to. Kate almost gets herself killed by Ray when she pushes him too far about the priest’s abuse.

Ed and Donna Cochran have dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Travis when Tom Volcheck shows up and points a gun straight at Cochran’s head. He looks at Donna as she pleads with him not to do it. Suddenly he turns the gun on himself and blows his own brains out.

The episode ends where it started out — at the beach. Ray goes for a naked swim in the ocean while Steve Knight cheers him on from the balcony. By the end of the episode, 7 or 8 people know Bridget witnessed the murders of Re-Kon and Marvin (not including her), and did we mention that Cookie got a bad vibe off Ray when he said he wanted to buy the video to bring the killer to justice?  Besides the members of Mickey’s team, Daryll knows about the robbery and Terry’s girlfriend Frances got a bad vibe when her man called up to say he was getting money. Another Donovan family member will find out about the robbery before it happens next week.