Something happened this evening that, frankly, you’d think would’ve happened before now: Ray ran into someone he knew while he was “on assignment.” Hell, maybe it did happen before now; I’ve been drinking wine all day, so my memory can’t really be trusted. But I’m pretty sure that, aside from the near miss with Jessica, he’s been pretty lucky when it comes to not crossing paths with friends, acquaintances, or, as was the case here, former students. Flustered by the combination of meeting Logan and believing her to be his client for the evening, Ray comes within an inch of outing himself as a gigolo…s o close, in fact, that he enters a perpetual state of anxiousness over the possibility that his secret sexual identity might be blown. Sure, he pulls it together in time to have sex with his client, but it’s obvious he’s distracted.
Calling to complain to Tanya proves a waste of time, however, as she’s pretty distracted herself. She’s in the midst waiting for Charlie the pimp to emerge from lock-up. Yeah, that’s right: she couldn’t help herself. But you can’t really blame her for bailing out the one person other than Lenore who can actually relate to what she’s going through in her profession. Oh, and speaking of the she-bitch, Jason manages to send Lenore into crazy mode, which, in his defense, is turning out to be pretty fucking easy to do, by telling her that Sandee’s pregnant, instantly inspiring her to hunt Sandee down at her mother’s house. Uh, stalk much, Lenore?
Elsewhere, Jessica’s gotten herself a gig at Dr. Matt’s office, but it’s tough at first to know how long it’s going to last, given that, very quickly into her employment, she proceeds to drop the bombshell that her soon-to-be-ex-husband received a handjob from Dr. Matt’s soon-to-be-ex-wife. Ouch. Plus, when Mindy (the soon-to-be-ex-wife in question) swings by the office and gets an earful from Dr. Matt about the incident in question, she throws a conniption fit and storms out, stopping only to insult Jessica, who gets so upset that you’d reasonably expect her to quit. But, no, Dr. Matt really likes her… and, as is indicated by Ray in his voiceover later in the episode, Jessica has a fondness for doctors. So it’s win-win!
As much as I get the idea behind Tanya bailing out Charlie, it’s clear that she has no idea how to handle the criminal aspects of their relationship. She’s constantly slipping into power plays and reminding him that she bailed him out, and he’s clearly amused at first, but by episode’s end, it’s clear that it’s wearing thin for him. Can’t say as I expected Lydia to turn up as part of their storyline, but it was certainly a nice twist, one which will hopefully make Lydia into a more interesting character. (Otherwise, she strikes me as a one-note joke.) As for the Lenore / Sandee confrontation, so much for Sandee being the wounded innocent. If she’s willing to trade her love for an HDTV, more power to her.
This week’s episode felt a bit more frantic than the episodes that have preceded it, but that’s not a complaint, as it also kept all of the existing storylines moving forward while throwing a few new things into the mix, most notably the Logan situation. I figured it wasn’t just going to dissipate after their initial meeting at the top of the episode; Ray was way too flustered for that to happen. But I enjoyed the way they fleshed out Logan’s story a bit, offering up what Ray had written in her yearbook. Prior to that, I considered the possibility that she could’ve been a plant by Lenore, especially given that Ray didn’t really recognize her, but, no, she seems to be for real, and from the looks of it, it seems as though this could be an ongoing thing… even if it’s ultimately a relationship spawned more by Ray’s mid-life crisis than anything else.
Random observations:
- It’s been a pretty light season for the kids thus far. Not that I’m necessarily complaining. If I had to make a list of my least favorite plotlines of past seasons, theirs would pretty consistently turn up at the top.
- My favorite part of Logan’s introductory scene was her offhanded comment about how she used to stare at Ray’s hands in class. Given her eventual pronouncement when she finally unleashed his trouser snake (“I knew it!”), she’d clearly been theorizing about what he was packing below the belt for quite some time.