User Reviews

Hell, I still think Walk this Way is better. Or, at least more definitive; the first episode introduces the whole series, Walk This Way is a centerpiece, and this brings that centerpiece to a conclusion. In a sense, these three episodes form an unofficial trilogy. This episode merges several different things all at once, and the fundamental conflicts come to a head, albeit in an A Story/B story kinda way. Ray Donovan goes/helps his father with a shootout, and the brilliant ambiguity of the series begs the question: "How did Ray acquire these skills"...I gotta tell ya, in that moment, Ray Donovan becomes Raylan Givens! And unlike that series, where its protagonist became a lawman to avoid his father's legacy (but still had that anger in him, which made him very morally questionable), Ray Donovan follows in his father's footsteps. We are constantly on his side, even when he beats the crap outta that teacher in the motel, but what his daughter tells him afterwards is the real reason she went with him; the need for a father figure. And the most incredible thing is, during Ray's confession, EASILY Liev Schreiber's greatest acting moment, a rare emotional break (this time, in tears/confessional, unlike his explosion in Walk This Way), he confesses that he got close with the priest who molested him because HE needed a father figure.

So the deeper reason he beat up the teacher: because Bridget was going through the same cycle Ray went through as a kid: an un-attentive soulless father driving her into the arms of an older man...revelatory, yet heartbreaking...but, ya gotta admit, Ray's still a badass and that teacher's actions were awful and I was glad he got beaten up. As any audience member reacts to his character: we're with him ANYWAY. Even though he's got a hole in his haht (heart 😁😁).

At this point, I wonder where Bridget is gonna go. A nice cliffhanger.

Ray follows in his father's footsteps...drifting his family away in the same way his own father did to him...with Terry in the hospital, Benji traumatized...and in that first season, Mickey is so clueless he took for granted the molestation of the priest..."it was what they did all the time"...unbelievable...And in that way, Ray is different. A vicious, tragic cycle, but a vicious, TRUE cycle.

There is the stuff with Benji & his Mexican fiancee, the one who makes him man up, which I won't get into here...But overall, a fantastic season finale & one of the series' best episodes.

Okay, this is the episode where I finally said: "Really?" and "Enough." The level of machismo and stupidity that Ray Donovan displays is mind-boggling. By the end of the third season, one realizes that a sea of dead bodies has followed in the wake of this character...and it's making less and less sense and the killings are now happening en masse. And after all that fighting for his daughter's "safety" - he drops her off at home, alone, without any watchfulness? Really? And goes on and on with a gunshot wound and significant blood loss? He's a "fixer" not Tarzan or the Incredible Hulk or whichever SuperHero that you want to fill in the gap with. And how he and 2 others wipe out a significant number of Armenian Mafia (eyes roll) Also, Terry coded in the hospital. Yes, that happens. About 1% of people who code in a hospital actually leave the hospital. Coding is a very serious event. I was a physician. Okay, so he's one of the lucky ones. But, people who have coded do not usually have reasonable conversation as he did with Abby minutes later...or even a few hours later...which the plot's timeline supports. While many people seemed to have given this particular episode a higher rating than other episodes, this episodes is where this entire series begins to "jump the shark." The first 10 minutes of Season 4 Episode 1 are painful to watch. I really enjoyed the series and the characters - surprisingly, Jon Voight and his character - but the writing is getting poor from this episode onward.