The skies are particularly friendly tonight, my friends… or that’s how they start out for Ray, anyway, as he enters the Mile High Club with Sharon, a stewardess for Marathon Airlines. Having him hop a flight to Chicago for a trick is a pretty long way to go to set up the episode’s premise (“At any moment, any place, it could all come crashing down”), but the dialogue in the scene was great and Sharon was hot, so I’m hard pressed to complain a heck of a lot, especially since, all told, this was probably my favorite episode of the season to date.
Over at Tanya’s place, Charlie’s having a spot of tea with Sandee, who’s reached such a point of fear and frustration with Lenore that she’s come by to plead with Tanya to take on Jason as a client. I loved the fact that Sandee called Lenore a bitch, apologized for her language, and then called her a cunt. That’s awesome. But despite the fact that you can see Charlie already counting the possible dividends of the situation in his head, particularly after Sandee sells out her fiancee’s heterosexuality, Tanya simply isn’t up for the idea. As such, it was hardly a surprise when Charlie informed her that if she wasn’t going to pick up Jason as a client, then he most certainly was.
Meanwhile, back at Casa de Drecker, Ray finds he’s gained two kids and lost $5,000, which, given the kids in question, hardly seems like a fair trade from a karmic standpoint. His son and daughter can offer no insight into the situation whatsoever, nor can his neighbor, Gail, but what she does offer is the realization that the goings-on at his house are under far more scrutiny that he may have been previously aware.
The absurdity of the conversation between Ray, Tanya, and the new tenants of Lenore’s old apartment was pretty funny, but no one could possibly have believed for a moment that Lenore had actually gone and killed herself. Then again, it seems almost as unlikely that such an awful person could successfully save people’s lives on a suicide prevention hotline. (I’d find it easier to believe that she asks callers for their addresses, then goes by and ransacks their apartments after they’ve offed themselves.)
I really didn’t know what to make of the conversation between Ray and Lenore. Even though her claims of ignorance about the whereabouts of the shoebox coupled with her reference to his burnt-out house would lead one to suspect her innocence, there’s certainly no reason to think that Lenore isn’t smart enough to offer intentionally out-of-date information in an effort to deflect guilt. As for Kyla, my first instinct was that she was responsible for Ray’s car suddenly not starting. Maybe she’d just come out of the office, but I didn’t actually see her walk out of the door, so who’s to say she wasn’t already outside? We’ll find out soon enough, I reckon.
Well, looks like Jessica is going to be looking for a new job sooner rather than later. I can’t imagine her generally neurotic nature is going to allow her to work comfortably in Dr. Matt’s office now that she’s convinced, rightfully or otherwise, that everyone knows A) that the doc slept with her, and B) he’s now kicking her to the curb in order to reconcile with his wife.
After a quick song by the Drecker twins, it’s time for another round of non-discussion between Ray and Tanya, with the latter getting so frustrated about the Jason situation that she blurts out a reference to Charlie as her boyfriend. Suddenly, we get the scene we’ve been waiting most of the season to see: a confrontation between Ray and Charlie, with the latter keeping it cool and preaching his gospel about “the economics of the situation” while Ray first gets frustrated and then realizes that there might just be something to what Charlie’s saying.
The game of charades was another fantastic moment, with Sandee spitting out every current pop-culture vampire in existence while staring blankly at Tanya’s reference to Dracula. It’s ridiculous, of course, that even someone as young as Sandee wouldn’t be familiar with Dracula, but it was still funny, anyway, especially when coupled with Tanya’s eventual admission, “Oh, my God, I’m so old.” Ray pops by to accept Tanya’s business proposal with Jason and then slips off to dance the night away with his new client, Kyla, but as we learn from Lenore in the final few seconds of the episode, there’s more to Kyla that Ray realizes…but, you know, somehow I’m guessing he’s going to find that out in the opening few seconds of next week’s episode.
Stray observations:
- When tonight’s episode kicked off, I was briefly of the mind that it should’ve been entitled, “I’m Ray, Fly Me.” Alas, not enough time was spent in the air to make it worth dedicating the entire episode to a quick and easy joke, but having the idea for the title was still enough to put this song in my head for awhile.
- “Those seatbelts are not going to help you. Nothing out there can help you. If we go down, we go down. You might as well fuck me.”
- “Her tits did help.”
- “Your fiancée, will he fuck men?” “Yes, I think that can be arranged.”
- “I think 69ing on the dock is strange, Ray, but what do I know?”
- There’s something perfectly appropriate about Tanya keeping her excess cash in a Wonder Woman lunchbox.
- In the realm of valuable supporting players, I have decided that Lennie James is to Hung what Giancarlo Esposito has been to Breaking Bad for the past few seasons: Whether he’s delivering a line or merely offering a look, he’s someone whose mere presence in a scene always guarantees that it will be one worth watching.
- “People who are going to kill themselves? They want to talk to me first.”
- “Your dick’s got an expiration date, Ray.”