It’s a bit of a drawn-out way to start the season.
Ray shows up and hears her out as she pleads with him to dosomething.
As Novak gets desperate, Ray steps out to call Winslow (played bySusan Sarandon).
Credit: Jeff Neumann/SHOWTIME
Ray heads out to pick up some reliable cover-up supplies and tells Novak to sit tight for a while.
Before moving that story along, the episode checks in with Bridget.
Bridget freaks out, yells at him, and it looks like they’re headed towards disaster.
Eventually, though, Smitty calms her down and Bridget explains herself.
He finds a hardware store and loads up his cart with the goods.
“What are you doing, cutting up a body?”
Ray ends up leaving without the merchandise though, as he gets a call from Mac.
He’s in a panic, sayingTheNew York Timeshas the racial profiling story now.
But, once he agrees to help Winslow out, it’s like flipping a switch.
He becomes commanding and forceful, back to his old self in no time.
Bad guy or not, it’s still a dirty play from Mac.
But Ray sees an opportunity here.
He deletes the file off the phone, and then he makes a call to the Samoan.
So, the Samoan shows up at the apartment to collect, and that’s it for him.
Ray shoots him in the head and then plants the gun and cocaine on the scene.
All of this just looks like a drug deal gone wrong.
Back at the hospital, it turns out Mickey isn’t as bad as he’s letting on.
He goes across the street, buys a hammer, and then knocks the guard out with it.
And what does Darryl do?
He calls Ray because that’s what everybody does.
Nobody else can handle their own problems.
This one though, Ray doesn’t give a damn.
As the episode winds down it’s clear that Ray is fully back on board as a fixer.
He’ll get $100,000 a week up until the election, and then double after that.
That’s tough to turn down, so Ray doesn’t.
