INTELLIGENCE REVIEWS-SEASON ONE
Just when we were beginning to think that Jimmy really was going soft, Jimmy pulled the rug out. And he got away with it for the most apart--aside from that creepy cliffhanger with Dante at the end. Meanwhile, Mary's good fortune fell apart as she found out exactly who Royden had in mind to take over her new position--himself. And Ted--well, that's a whole other murky story. More on that later.
The ep begins much as the last one ended--with Jimmy and Co. finalizing their bank sale in the Bahamas and Reardon's allies south of the border getting busted with 2.5 million dollars of Jimmy's money in the safe. Jimmy's "I love the wood" American contact from last time blusters, but caves fast to George's persuasive style of "fifty years" for selling dope and later tries to lure Ronnie down south with a pitiful phone call as George listens in. The story he sends up north is that he's been robbed. Neither Ronnie nor Jimmy is sympathetic. Guess George will have to up the pressure in some other way.|
Later, the banker rushes off to Kristina's arms for a snort of coke and a big brag about finalizing the bank deal for Jimmy. See, the boyz don't have enough "clean" money to front the 15 million for the bank, so Jimmy is putting up Reardon Shipping as collateral. We then get an ongoing bit between Ronnie and Jimmy in which Ronnie keeps fretting about Jimmy doing that, Jimmy reassures him, then points out that it's his business, not Ronnie's, that he's risking, Ronnie agrees and frets some more. It starts out cute and gets a bit tiresome. I like Ronnie, but the whininess gets to be a pain. Ronnie is always coming up with reasons why Jimmy shouldn't do something (and we've already seen that Ronnie is being accurate about the risks). Problem is, Ronnie doesn't have any good ideas of his own. He just wants to keep doing the same-old, same-old, which would get him and his friends killed and/or pushed out of business eventually.
Fortunately, this rut in the Ronnie-Jimmie dynamic gets blown wide open in the very last scene. Dante shows up in a car--with what looks like Phan's friend in the backseat, beaten and gagged. Ronnie looks sick; Jimmy is stone-faced (an interesting contrast, there). I'd feel sorry for the guy if we hadn't seen him earlier trying to persuade Phan (who has unwisely returned from Hawaii) to set Dante and Jimmy on each other and benefit from picking up the pieces, later. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, in other words. Anyway, Dante swears that if he finds out Jimmy was involved in any way with his nephew's death he'll "start burning some shit down." Ah, well. For a brief, shining moment in the last ep, Dante was acting as if he had a brain. That brief, shining moment is over. And the Ronnie-Jimmie dynamic has just been jump-started. The mutual "Oh, hell" look on their faces at the very end is a hoot of a cliffhanger, despite the ugliness of the situation.
Dante, of course, is under the delusion that Jimmy is soft and weak and stupid. Dante doesn't have any reason to believe otherwise in this ep, but if he saw what Jimmy is up to elsewhere, he might be a lot more cautious about poking that wasp's nest. Hell, if he was thinking more clearly about the sequence of events that led to his nephew ending up dead with the gun that killed Jimmy's Island buddy Colin in his hand, he might take a vacation before proceeding any further. Jimmy may be, underneath it all, a decent guy. But the dynamic of his own gang is deadly toward all external threats and is very efficient in eliminating them--mad dog skinhead bikers included.
So, what is Jimmy up to now? Well, for a start, the banker may be blabbing to Kristina, but she's scarcely home free. She's been irritating Ronnie by showing up late for work. When she does show up, Jimmy knocks on her door and has a chat with her about that. He also asks her if the banker is letting anything slip. She denies it and he appears to believe her, but as this ep amply shows, that means jack. Ever since Da Vinci's Inquest, Ian Tracey has proven himself a pro at playing characters who are pros at faking Dumb Blonde Moments. As God is my witness, no matter how many times I saw Mick Leary widen his eyes and smile inanely in the face of complete bullshit, I still bought it, even though I knew from the dozen times he'd done it before that he was totally playing whoever was trying to shine him on. I knew it and yet, I still bought it. Tracey gives Jimmy the same ability (which, at this level, must constitute some kind of superpower). I seriously doubt that Kristina is fooling him in the slightest--especially when he later has an amicable car-to-car chat with Mary about the gunrunning and Mary offers to help him with his money troubles by...helping him buy a bank. The man would have to be a complete moron not to make the connection. He even wryly asks Mary, when she mentions his foray into bank machines, "You know about that?"
Then, there's Winston, who is not shining Jimmy on nearly as much as he or Ronnie thought. He "pops in" on Jimmy at Reardon Shipping right after Jimmy gets the news from down south about the phony rip (the cover story for George's raid). Jimmy is all smiles and asks for another shipment. He also presses Winston to sell his coke from last week to Dante. As soon as Winston leaves, though, he drops the smile like a used rubber and makes a phone call: "He's coming out now. Stick with him a couple days." Winston soon discovers he's got a tail. He tries to tell George that things are going sour; George doesn't want to hear it. And just why is Jimmy pushing Winston so hard to sell to Dante when he clearly suspects him of being a narc? Gee, could Jimmy be trying to set Dante up? Heavens forfend!
But it's Francine who really finds out what Jimmy is capable of this week--or not, which is entirely the point. Ronnie keeps warning Jimmy (as he did all last week) that Francine needs to be contained, rather like nuclear waste. Jimmy assures Ronnie that he has everything in hand, though Ronnie is skeptical. Then, disaster strikes--Francine goes over to a guy's house to score some coke. At the last moment, she decides to abstain, but this doesn't help her much when cops burst into the house and bust both her and her dealer. The head narc (played by the weasely "Teddy Bear" guy from DVI's "Banging on the Wall" and "Ugly Quick") threatens her with major jail time.
"What's the deal?" Francine says, looking shaky.
The deal is: you testify against your ex, you walk," the narc replies.
Francine's response? "Kiss my ass! I'm not testifying against anybody!" This actually makes sense--she's obsessed with Jimmy and with being Mrs. Reardon again. She'll sacrifice anything, including her own daughter, to achieve that goal. Of course she'd rather do twenty years than give him up for good. All of her threats and ranting have been one big bluff.
And here's the kicker--later, we see Jimmy having a drink with the narc, who turns out not to be a narc at all. Jimmy has hired him to put a scare into Francine, call that bluff, and see which way she'd jump. The guy reassures Jimmy that "she passed with flying colors...Francine's a tough chick, Jimmy; you got no worries, there." As he leaves, he laughs that "it was fun playing the cop for a change." Jimmy has cleverly outmaneuvered the Queen of Manipulation. The best part is that she doesn't even know it. Not only is the crisis over, there never even was a crisis. So much for the authenticity of Jimmy's Dumb Blonde Moments.
So, what's happening with Mary this week? Well, the senator gets nervous and sends her batwoman to tell Mary to back off with Royden into some sort of "long game". Seems somebody leaned on her to hang Mary out to dry. Figures. Mary, naturally, has no intention of letting Royden poach her new job. She calls in Martin and tells him, "We're going black on this" before filling him in on the target. Martin is stunned, but assures her he's on board. She gets him to arrange an office for Katharina to back up Katharina's businesswoman cover story. "You obviously don't need me to tell you how to bullshit," she says after Katharina outlines the one she made up on her own. "I invented it," Katharina says with a smile.
Katharina assures Mary of her loyalty and I'm pretty sure that she means it. Mary has come through for Katharina in a big way, bringing her mother and daughter over from Odessa. Katharina's gratitude has a solid base in reality and appears to make Mary almost family to her, now. This contrasts greatly with the graceful, smooth and cynical way she seduces Royden over dinner. Katharina has a lot of genuine love and loyalty in her, but she reserves all of it for the woman in her life and none of it for the men. But you sure couldn't tell that from how she presents herself to Royden, who shows a vulnerable and lonely side with her. I almost feel sorry for him. Okay, that's stretching it, but he sure is headed for a huge fall.
Meanwhile, Roger spills the beans about Royden to Ted, who is stunned, and asks Ted if he ever found out who was backing Mary in Ottawa, which Ted still doesn't know. If things work out, Roger says, "She may get my job. You may get her job. And I may retire with a pot of money if we don't fuck things up." Which way will Ted go? Hard to say, but surprisingly, Roger doesn't cut Mary down to Ted and Ted seems less than thrilled about the idea of Royden taking over Mary's job to be. Royden and Mallaby have a little conference to see about getting someone into Mary's current job who is more amenable than Mary (thus cutting her out completely). But would that someone really be Ted? I doubt it and it's looking like Ted is finally beginning to doubt it, too. Roger warns Ted shut down his project against Reardon: "We'll swing from the rafters if she finds out about that little plot." Ted looks unhappy. No surprise, since George is unlikely to stop just on Ted's say-so now.
To be honest, I've been finding the Ted and George sting on Jimmy a bit tedious and predictable, since we can already see the obvious checkmate for George: George wants to protect Falcone so that Falcone can run guns. Randy is the middleman working for Mary. And Mary wants Jimmy protected so that Jimmy can provide the transportation for Falcone. If George arrests Jimmy, his entire gunrunning operation goes sideways. So, obviously, he won't be able to hold Jimmy even if he does manage to arrest him or he will screw himself and his own operation over. And he's only really doing this for Ted in the first place.
Then, there's the whole thing with Dante and Jimmy trying to foist Winston (and later Randy, who tries to sell coke to Jimmy as well) on Dante, who does sell hard drugs. And Dante is shooting people right, left and center. Maybe he'll even shoot Winston and go down for a cop killing. But either way, it's looking like Dante will be going down for Jimmy's sins and Jimmy will be getting a free pass due to the gunrunning--unless, of course, Haddock subjects us to a cliffhanger at season's end.
Speaking of Ted, we finally get something intriguing about his personal life...maybe. He sets about trying to nail down what's going on between Mary and Royden through another cop source. As he's waiting in the bar for the guy, a young man with an obvious street-hustler look starts eyeing him up. Ted is weirded out. He follows the kid into the john and accuses him of spying on him, which the kid denies. They go back out and the kid keeps giving him the cow-eyed look, which gets a very strange reaction from Ted, both freaked out and kinda intrigued. We never do find out the kid's agenda--is he really spying on Ted or on some revenge kick for some past wrong or are we finally getting some personal background on Ted? Is it possible that Ted is actually gay?
While his brother turns the tables on his enemies (or not), Mike and his new partner discover that their buyout of the bar has hit a snag. Seems the former owner, Ray, who was supposed to meet with them and hand over the keys, has done a runner. Well, you just knew that was going to happen, didn't you? They track Ray down to his mother's house and bust in bats first, but don't threaten or abuse her (which was kinda cool). She tries to assure them that Ray is "a good boy". "No, he's not," Mike retorts. "He's been a very bad boy." Mike can be very irritating, but I gotta admit that Bernie Coulson always delivers those kinds of lines really well. The woman playing Ray's mum is also perfect in a broad and hilarious way. I love the bit where she goes out with the rolling shopping cart and calls her darling son on the cellphone to tell him the coast is clear. Of course, the coast isn't clear--Mike is waiting in the backseat of his car to have a chat with Ray. He was going to scarper off to Vegas with a boatload of money meant for the bar's upkeep. Mike and his partner relieve Ray of the cash and leave.
Finally, we get a look at the Reardon moles. First, a young blonde woman shows up at the bar to run money for the boyz. Later, Sweet has a heart-to-heart with Jimmy. Jimmy tells her point blank that they can't put her name on any deed for a condo serving as a stash house because of the risk of things getting back to them if it goes sour. She allows this, but insists that she needs to get something out of it, too, in case Ronnie dumps her. Jimmy concedes her point, but only says, "You're gonna have to work that out with Ronnie." The fun part here is not so much the dialogue, but the body language. Jimmy treats Sweet as an equal who has legitimate concerns and he is willing to compromise where possible in exchange for her contribution. This is part of Jimmy's genius as a leader. He has no problem letting Sweet get a piece of the action if she's willing to do the work. That she is a woman, or black, or a stripper seems of no consequence to him whatsoever. And the fact that she is his best friend's girlfriend only serves as a confirmation of her loyalty.
Next week: Eps 12: In the penultimate ep of the season, a freaked out Jimmy and Ronnie drive around trying to find Dante before he can whack their Vietnamese buddy. The preview is short and heavier on style than content, but the gist is clear. Jimmy calls up the cops and tries to get them to find Dante and at least catch him in the act. Meanwhile, Jimmy says, "You think he'll talk?" "Everybody talks eventually," Ronnie says. "You think he talked?" Jimmie asks again nervously at the end of the preview. "Guess we're gonna find out pretty soon, aren't we?" Ronnie replies, just as nervously.
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This page was last updated on 1/10/2007
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