Ray’s not dead. The raven-man that shot him did so with riot bullets. He’s bruised, he’s in pain, but he’ll live. He did have a dream disguised as a near-death experience in which he chats with his (still-living) father while an Elvis impersonator sings “The Rose.” When backup arrives, Ray notes that the shooter took a camera and hard drive.
Frank and Ray meet at the bar – Ray is trying to stay off the phones. Uncharacteristically, he is drinking water, because he wants to hold on to his anger. Frank is pretty pissed himself – his financial trouble has given him erection trouble and he has a big fight with Jordan over his inability to fill the cup at the fertility clinic. In addition, Osip is pulling out of his deal with Frank, and then Frank’s guys find one of their own, Stan, dead in an obvious hit. Frank seems to have it in his head that this was all a plot that was set into motion way before Caspere’s death, just to get back at him. Nope, nothing delusional about that. (In this show, there may truly not be anything delusional about that.)
While Ray is out with Frank, Ani takes Paul to visit the mayor at home. Inexplicably, the mayor of a tiny industrial town lives in a Bel Air mansion that puts the Fresh Prince’s to shame. They are greeted by a mail-order Russian bride who has been partying for days and can barely put a complete sentence together, and a son who is probably a few years older than his stepmother, and who puts on a hardcore gangster act because it helps him in the event planning game. (Sure.) After that, Ani and Paul check out the mayor’s safe deposit box, where they find wads of cash, numerous documents of incorporation and other business papers, and a few blue diamonds.
Ani gets a lead on a license plate which leads her and Ray to a film set. The car was licensed to the production, but was stolen earlier in the week. They filed a police report on it. The producer knows Caspere, and admits that he helped them get the filming permits they needed, in addition to a little extra cash, in exchange for a producer’s credit. Nothing else seems particularly off at the shoot, but Caspere’s former assistant stops by the set to take care of some of the paperwork. One of transpo guys quit the week before the car was stolen, so Ani and Ray go check up on him. He promises he quit to take care of his mother. While talking to the guy, an explosion draws Ray and Ani away from the house. Just a block away, the same stolen car goes up in flames, and a person in a mask flees the scene. The cops chase him, but lose him as he dodges across the freeway.
Paul is sent to follow up on the prostitute angle. He finds a male prostitute who recognizes Caspere and takes him to a circuit club, where another hustler names a high-end Euro-girl named Tasha. She hasn’t been around the club in awhile. While there, he bumps into Frank – literally. Paul and Frank don’t know each other, and Frank continues to the back of the club to confront Santos and his crew. He wants them to check on Caspere’s associates and trace his monetary dealings backwards – something which Santos doesn’t want to do. The two end up bare-knuckle boxing, and Frank wins. He rips out Santos’s gold teeth as his “reward.”
All the procedural stuff is pretty run-of-the-mill and frankly, doesn’t seem to yield anything important. I assume it will all add up come the season finale, but in the meantime, it is dry. What is far more interesting is the personal stuff going on with the characters. In tonight’s episode, the personal stuff almost takes as much attention as the police stuff. Almost.
Let’s start with Paul. While never specifically stated, it becomes pretty clear that he and one of his Army buddies had sex while they were overseas. This explains the scene last week where Paul is looking out over the balcony at a young hustler leaning against a tree. His need for Viagra was clearly not a war injury. Paul’s buddy, Colter, comes to visit, and the two are having a good time until Colter tries to bring up what happened overseas, how he wish he could go back. Paul gets uncomfortable and when Colter puts his hand on Paul’s shoulder, Paul loses it. Later on, when he is speaking to the hustlers, he seems especially guarded. I hope he isn’t going to have some big coming out to clear his name with the actress.
We meet Ray’s dad, a former LAPD officer who retired early and drinks from a glass because drinking straight from the bottle indicates a drinking problem. Based on the conversation Ray has with his father, it sounds like the elder Velcoro took early retirement to escape corruption charges: he worked “tough beats under Gates” and “after O.J. and the riots, we couldn’t do the job right.” My first instinct is that father Velcoro was meant to be one of the officers involved in the Rodney King beating (which eventually led to the resignation of Chief of Police Daryl Gates), but the O.J. Simpson trial happened a few years later, so he wouldn’t still be on the force.
Since Ani doesn’t pick up on it indirectly, Davis spells it out for her: they think Ray is corrupt and want Ani to dig up dirt on him. While she doesn’t necessarily want Ani to screw him, she does want her to make him think she will, if that gets her what the state needs. Davis can’t put this in writing, but tells her it will be worth a promotion. She says nothing, but later, when Ray asks her what the state thinks they have on him, she answers honestly: she doesn’t know. Alicia visits Ray to let him know that the state investigators came to question her, asking if unexplained amounts of money moved through the house, or if she suspected retribution against her attacker. She is scared and offers Ray $10,000 to not contest the custody hearing, for fear of what might be dragged out about Ray in court. He refuses the money, which I think has Alicia relieved.
Talk to me, people: for those of you not familiar with Los Angeles, does this season bore you? Do you find it hard to follow? I was born and raised in Los Angeles; I remember watching the Rodney King riots on television because schools were closed for three days. I am familiar with the story of corruption in the city of Vernon, which this season of “True Detective” is based on. When Frank makes vague threats to a business associate, telling him he knows he lives in Tarzana, I know exactly where that is. But is it hard to follow if you don’t necessarily know all that history?
You can check out the promo for episode 2.04 of “True Detective” in the player below. Titled “Down Will Come,” the episode will air Sunday, July 12 at 9 P.M. on HBO.
