May 22, 2007: The Math of the Wrath
With only three episodes left in this season, this week we get our setup episode for the final two. Dialogue-heavy and bloodshed-light, we get some more insight into Shane and the Armenians and find out that Hernan is not dead after all.
Shane's in the middle of this gas-station murder and is talking to the daughter of the Armenian mob boss. Shane's talking to her like she doesn't know anything, but clearly she's more on her game than he thinks. And soon she might be in charge herself, since Pop is on his deathbed. Meanwhile she's paying Shane to look into some apartment robberies and he finds a nice hooker who's able to give him a little bit of intel on the people who broke into her place. He gives it to her and she takes care of the problem herself. She seems to have Shane wrapped around her finger now. Man, Shane just can't lay low for one minute and stay out of trouble, can he?
After all this time, we finally see Ronnie's reaction to Shane in this one. Vic tells him about the documents Shane drew up and that he burnt them all. But then later Shane tells Ronnie about the very first paragraph, which talks about Vic murdering Terry while Shane stood there. Ronnie was certainly a little more rational than Vic when talking to Shane, but it seems like he's mostly worried about getting caught in the crossfire and taken down as well. Ronnie's in trouble now, too. There's just no way this is going to end well. In the end, Ronnie wants to know from Vic when they can put everything behind them, but you have to hope he realizes that's just never going to happen.
Speaking of trouble, the San Marcos murderer hunt is not going very well, is it? Hernan sends a girl to meet Vic and tip him off about a gun-store robbery. The strike team sets up surveillance and everything works smoothly right up to the point where the robbers hijack Shane's truck. Except now, Hernan doesn't show up at Vic's checkpoint meeting and everything they did was for naught. Hernan has been leading them down a dead-end path. Vic seems to think that Hernan is in so deep that he's truly in the gang now, and that does make sense. Part of Vic's rationale is that Hernan probably killed the supposed snitch earlier in the day and dumped his hacked-up body to cover his own butt. Ronnie's then very quick to point out that killing Terry was the exact same thing. How right he is.
Then there's the side story, with three guys stabbing a socialite shopping for knock-off purses in a bad neighborhood. This story led to some great moments with the ladies of the show, including some rare bonding time. Dutch and Billings just can't understand why this woman with money wants to travel to a bad neighborhood to save a few bucks, so Tina has to explain the pleasure the lady takes from knowing that she spent less than her friends every time she can pass a fake purse off as real. I for one, completely understand this. My wife and I have a knock0off store down the street in the local farmers' market. We call the purses "Prudu." They look, feel and smell like Prada, but for $20 you certainly know you're getting a Prudu instead. And this is always the busiest store in the market. Anyway, trying to explain it to the guys led Danny to say what could go down as the funniest line of the season: "It's like trying to explain why you guys love your balls so much that you have to play pocket pool all the time." In the end, the girls get a little time together as Tina takes Corinne to the store to get the purse she wants and Danny is already there: right before they are going to get raided. Nice.
Our other lady, Claudette, had some good moments in this one, too. When the agent tells her that if Hernan is dead he's holding the Barn responsible, she says, "10:42 am, in case you need a time stamp for your ass-cover memo." I also love the scenes where Claudette shows she's in charge. The scene with her and Hiatt was great. Hiatt went against her orders with the gun-store robberies and she ripped him a new one for essentially being just like Vic. This also leads to Hiatt telling Vic that he's out and being played by Claudette. Guess it's a bit of Hiatt getting on Claudette's bad side but also a sign that maybe Hiatt doesn't quite think that Vic is that bad of a cop and is on his side. Obviously Vic isn't happy but seems to respect Kevin for telling him straight up.
And that's where we are as we head into the last two. Now that Vic knows he's a goner, I can't wait to see what mischief he gets himself into. No reason to hold back now, right? Brace yourself, folks.
Until next week, friends.
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