S04.E04: Tank

[formerlyfreedom]

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Smurf's increasingly unnerving behavior shows up in unexpected places. J realizes he needs to set his own plans in motion if he wants to lead the family. Deran gets disturbing news from an old friend; and Pope struggles to resist Angela.

Airing Tuesday, June 18, 2019.

[Laurie4H]

My guess is rabbit guy is Pope’s father.

[mxc90]

I jumped for joy when J threw out Mia's belongings and changed the locks. Good riddance! I'm thankful the writers didn't let her hang around him any longer.

J doesn't have a burgular alarm?

Don't forget to wash your hands J! 

Deran listened to Pope and threw out the meat. Small victory for Pope. I can see him using his share of the money and buying a new fryer.

What was Smurf's plan: have the room painted, get Pope angry and have him kill her before the cancer gets her? 

That heist was absurd. Aren't there ususally police at construction jobs?

If Smurf is killed off, I hope the decision isn't for Frankie to replace her.

Angela is a little creepy.  She has a way of mysteriously showing up.

Edited June 19, 2019 by mxc90

[SuzieQ]

This was a solid episode.  I was actually getting a little bored with this season, until now.

Frankie is going to screw Craig.............we all saw that coming.  The heist was entertaining.  

Renn!!  I wish that they would have showed her telling him the baby is his, but I guess we have to wait until next week.

Flashbacks weren't overdone this week, so I was happy to see that.  The guy that killed the rabbit has to be Pope/Julia's father!

Edited June 19, 2019 by SuzieQ

[Shriekingeel]

Poor Craig. He didn’t want to be the Fredo of the family (“I’m smart!”) so he planned an ingenious heist of the statue...but never saw Frankie coming to steal the money. 

Mia has got to die, and soon. Not that the Codys are much better but she is pure evil.  

[missbonnie]

Seriously hating these flashbacks over here. I just don't care about any of that stuff. 

[tennisgurl]

The rabbit guy is totally Pope/Julia's father, isnt he? I dont hate the flashbacks or anything, especially if Smuf really is dying, but I wish we could get some flashbacks from when Smurfs kids were young, I really want to know what that family dynamic was like. 

The heist was fun, but we all know that Frankie is going to screw Craig, and not in the way he likes to be screwed! He finally has a decent idea, and it goes bad because he has no control when a hot chick is involved.

Smurfs story about her mom only having two things to sell "and she wasnt selling the car" sure does give her parenting skills a lot of context.

[Dowel Jones]

3 hours ago, mxc90 said:

That heist was absurd. Aren't there usually police at construction jobs?

Not to mention that if you hang a 'hazardous materials' sign on a truck, it's required to have a placard (the diamond shaped ones with a number) on all four sides of the truck.  Absent that, and the PD or CHP will pull you over for sure.  Game over.  And those security guys should get fired, too.  Your job is to watch out for things that could go wrong.  You're going down the road and a random biker guy sitting all by himself on his motorcycle looks directly at you, puts on a helmet, and pulls in behind your car, and then pulls around and blocks you out of the caravan.  Situational awareness, gentlemen!

What was the relevance of the cat named Tank to this same named episode? There was one brief mention, unless I missed anything else, and then it was forgotten. 

What was the substance the J cut loose in the truck?  Was it supposed to destroy everything inside?

3 hours ago, mxc90 said:

J doesn't have a burgular alarm?

I think the police are the last people J would want in his apartment.

[walnutqueen]

9 hours ago, mxc90 said:

Aren't there ususally police at construction jobs?

I've never seen cops at any road construction site.

I don't think I want to know what happened to Tank ...

[Raja]

10 hours ago, mxc90 said:

I jumped for joy when J threw out Mia's belongings and changed the locks. Good riddance! I'm thankful the writers didn't let her hang around him any longer.

J doesn't have a burgular alarm?

Don't forget to wash your hands J! 

Deran listened to Pope and threw out the meat. Small victory for Pope. I can see him using his share of the money and buying a new fryer.

What was Smurf's plan: have the room painted, get Pope angry and have him kill her before the cancer gets her? 

That heist was absurd. Aren't there ususally police at construction jobs?

If Smurf is killed off, I hope the decision isn't for Frankie to replace her.

Angela is a little creepy.  She has a way of mysteriously showing up.

Mia killed Baz, they can't just let that drop, assuming there is not a surprise cancellation. 

Angela is a little creepy but she just might save Pope, until Smurf gets Andrew to kill her too.

1 hour ago, walnutqueen said:

I've never seen cops at any road construction site.

I don't think I want to know what happened to Tank ...

Normally at Caltrans sites on the freeway a CHP officer, on overtime status, sits in escort. I figure that it is part of the Caltrans workers contract as the truck that they use as a barricade would save more lives than the CHP car just sitting around.  About the only other static guard force police that I have seen outside of government buildings or Presidential visit are retired and off  duty motorcycle cops at a filming location.

[Laurie4H]

8 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

The heist was fun, but we all know that Frankie is going to screw Craig, and not in the way he likes to be screwed! He finally has a decent idea, and it goes bad because he has no control when a hot chick is involved.

Smurfs story about her mom only having two things to sell "and she wasnt selling the car" sure does give her parenting skills a lot of context 

Is Frankie hot?  I guess it’s all a matter of opinion.  

Do we know Smurf’s story about her mother is true?

On a random note,  have they ever stated the age of the Cody’s.  Or the difference in their ages?  My guess was Pope is early 40’s,  Craig early to mid 30’s and Deran late 20’s to early 30’s.   They kind of the leave the flashbacks timeline up in the air also.  But most likely sometime in the 70’s. 

Edited June 19, 2019 by Laurie4H

[Novel8]

Did Mia's boyfriend urinate on the safe?  If he did, there was no reaction from J when he opened it. This is not the end for Mia...she is going to get her comeuppance eventually.

I have a feeling that Adrian is going to warn Darin about the cops on to him, when Darin confronts him.

BTW, is this the last season?

[Chaos Theory]

I don’t know.  Frankie may not be screwing over Craig but just showing him another way to do business like she says. The insular “trust no one” way the Cody’s have been doing jobs versus the “find the best crew for the job” way Frankie does business.  It will be interesting if the Cody’s get paranoid about getting paid and jump to soo. Only to find out Frankie had every intention of paying them.

During Adrian’s scene with Smurf I was thinking that he was wishing for the good old days when Deran was deeply in the closet and snuck in for sex in the middle of the night.  The good old days.  Right?   That scene was creepy.   Welcome to the family Adrian.  

I am still loving crack head  Bones.  

Edited June 19, 2019 by Chaos Theory

[Raja]

43 minutes ago, Laurie4H said:

Is Frankie hot?  I guess it’s all a matter of opinion.  

Well Craig started with Ren, but when presented with the opportunity both Nikki and Frankie were just fine with him. We haven't seen any larger women on the show so we have the old standard thin is hot. But in that case Dichen Lachman's days are numbered judging by the way the dresses fit around her hips

2 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

I don’t know.  Frankie may not be screwing over Craig but just showing him another way to do business like she says. The insular “trust no one” way the Cody’s have been doing jobs versus the “find the best crew for the job” way Frankie does business.  It will be interesting if the Cody’s get paranoid about getting paid and jump to soo. Only to find out Frankie had every intention of paying them.

I was thinking the same before reading others comments. What Frankie is doing is just what the brothers were fighting with Smurf about. The wild card here though is J

[Chaos Theory]

1 hour ago, Laurie4H said:

Is Frankie hot?  I guess it’s all a matter of opinion.  

Do we know Smurf’s story about her mother is true?

I find Dichrn Lachman very good looking. But again that is just me.  I am always glad to see her on my shows.

I tend to believe what characters say on this show mainly because we get no real evidence otherwise.   Baz was J’s father.   The conspiracy theories otherwise always seemed silly to me.   Smurf’s story sounds true enough plus we did see another early flashback with very young her swimming in a motel pool so I am guessing she didn’t have a very stable upbringing.  

[iMonrey]

I'm getting increasingly annoyed with the flashbacks. I suppose we'll find out one of these guys is Pope and Julia's father, but up to that point, these flashbacks aren't really telling us anything important. I think it would be much more informative if they flashed back to when Pope and Julia were little kids, for example. 

As usual the heist portion of the story was entertaining. But don't these guys worry someone will recognize them? From what I can gather the Cody gang is fairly well known in Oceanside. Wouldn't someone drive by and go "Hey, isn't that J Cody holding up that stop sign? Is he working road construction now?"

The Cody men are surprisingly clean. Not an episode goes by without at least one of them emerging from the shower. 

I fully expected Mia to break into J's place but weren't there any neighbors who heard all the windows breaking? Or passers-by? She must have spent at least an hour smashing every piece of glass in that house.

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What was the substance the J cut loose in the truck?  Was it supposed to destroy everything inside?

Bleach bomb. We saw Craig making them when Smurf showed up at his house. They clean all the DNA evidence away.

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Do we know Smurf’s story about her mother is true?

Yes because we saw a flashback back in Season 1, when she killed that car collector guy who abandoned her and her mother after her mother got shot in a botched hold-up.

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I find Dichen Lachman very good looking. But again that is just me.  I am always glad to see her on my shows.

She's exotic looking for sure. My issue is that she seems to play the exact same role in every show she's on - the elusive, exotic, mysterious woman who is always one step ahead, always a mystery woman. It's tedious. I groan every time she shows up.

She feels especially shoe-horned into this show. She showed up with the least trustworthy person we've met thus far. Then he just disappeared and left her and she's still hanging around. It's not like the Codys don't know a grifter when they see one. Why the hell would they want anything to do with her? Yes, even Craig.

[Joimiaroxeu]

Yeah, only J was smart enough not trust Frankie from the jump.

No fury like a scorned woman's, huh? Wonder why J thought Mia would just take getting dumped like that?

I don't get why is J still going to school. Is he casing those rich kids so he can rob their parents?

Craig is a fool. Frankie was guaranteed to play him and play him she did. Idiot.

So was Smurf trying to get Pope upset enough to kill her? Too late.

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My guess is rabbit guy is Pope’s father.

Well the show certainly seems to be telegraphing it awfully hard. I think some fans will be pissed if it turns out they've been trolling the audience.

[Raja]

3 minutes ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Yeah, only J was smart enough not trust Frankie from the jump.

No fury like a scorned woman's, huh? Wonder why J thought Mia would just take getting dumped like that?

I don't get why is J still going to school. Is he casing those rich kids so he can rob their parents?

J  is like Stringer Bell on The Wire, after taking down Smurf he plans on leaving this robbery stuff behind. His books in the safe were all that really mattered.  Its a good thing that an assassin Mia wasn't prepared to rip it out of the wall like a high end burglary/armed robber Cody would have been

[Broderbits]

44 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

The Cody men are surprisingly clean. Not an episode goes by without at least one of them emerging from the shower. 

And I would like to personally thank the writers for this very welcome feature!

[patty1h]

I was a bit surprised when Smurf asked Craig if he had any coke.  I know she was taking pain meds recently but I didn't think she partook of more recreational substances.  She just got some bad health news but I she didn't seem the type to now decide to smoke/drink/snort anything because her time is running out.   Smurf seemed like the ultimate control freak so seeing her now doing blow with her son seems out of left field.

Edited June 19, 2019 by patty1h

[iMonrey]

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Yeah, only J was smart enough not trust Frankie from the jump.

Well Smurf distrusted her from the jump too but as usual played it coy to see what kind of information she could get out of her. If Smurf had been in on this heist she wouldn't have wanted to go along with it any more than J did.

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I don't get why is J still going to school. Is he casing those rich kids so he can rob their parents?

I want to say that J still plans to "go straight" once he has a degree, but I think it's more likely the writers just want him interacting with these rich kids for story purposes. It doesn't really make a lot of sense for J to be in college. He's running at least 2 different businesses now, and laundering the family's crime money. When would he have time?

[luckylou]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Well Smurf distrusted her from the jump too but as usual played it coy to see what kind of information she could get out of her. If Smurf had been in on this heist she wouldn't have wanted to go along with it any more than J did.

I want to say that J still plans to "go straight" once he has a degree, but I think it's more likely the writers just want him interacting with these rich kids for story purposes. It doesn't really make a lot of sense for J to be in college. He's running at least 2 different businesses now, and laundering the family's crime money. When would he have time?

Maybe J actually likes school.  Of course it will serve as a means of meeting rich kids...except where is he going to school?  San Diego State?  Are there are a lot of ultra rich kids there?  Or only rich kids who can’t get into some posh private college?  Statistics could be useful if he plans to gamble, I guess.

Edited June 19, 2019 by luckylou
Mistake

[topanga]

15 minutes ago, luckylou said:

Maybe J actually likes school.  Of course it will serve as a means of meeting rich kids...except where is he going to school?  San Diego State?  Are there are a lot of ultra rich kids there?  Or only rich kids who can’t get into some posh private college?  Statistics could be useful if he plans to gamble, I guess.

J has been shown to be a smart kid who generally likes school and does well. When his mom was alive, school was probably the only escape from his chaotic home life. 

And it wasn’t till he started living with Smurf and doing jobs with the brothers that his teachers pointed out that he was missing a lot of school. Even then, he went often enough to pass his classes and graduate. Can’t say the same for Nikki. LOL 

Maybe he’s running a long con on his college friends, or maybe he’s planning for the future. I never can tell with J. 

Do we know what’s in those ledgers in his safe?

[HollyG]

51 minutes ago, luckylou said:

Maybe J actually likes school.  Of course it will serve as a means of meeting rich kids...except where is he going to school?  San Diego State?  Are there are a lot of ultra rich kids there?  Or only rich kids who can’t get into some posh private college?  Statistics could be useful if he plans to gamble, I guess.

There are a few universities in San Diego County. 

San Diego State (SDSU),  University of California at San Marcos (UCSM),  University of California San Diego in La Jolla (UCSD),  University of San Diego (USD private),  Point Loma Nazarene University (private).  UCSM is the closest 4 year university to Oceanside. (about 15 miles)

Edited June 19, 2019 by HollyG

[Dowel Jones]

3 hours ago, topanga said:

Do we know what’s in those ledgers in his safe?

Probably the real books for the apartments and the other money laundering schemes, as opposed to the show books.

[brudy]

As the father of a young daughter who has watched a ton of kidTV, I recognized Jake (Jon Beavers), from Smurf's flashbacks, as a character from "The Fresh Beat Band".

In the last episode as Smurf is berating the guy, she says something to the effect that "you're just a bunch of Twitchy assholes with guns."  Beaver's character on Fresh Beat was named Twitch.  He even winces when she says it.

[mxc90]

On 6/19/2019 at 8:19 AM, Raja said:

Mia killed Baz, they can't just let that drop, assuming there is not a surprise cancellation. 

Angela is a little creepy but she just might save Pope, until Smurf gets Andrew to kill her too.

Normally at Caltrans sites on the freeway a CHP officer, on overtime status, sits in escort. I figure that it is part of the Caltrans workers contract as the truck that they use as a barricade would save more lives than the CHP car just sitting around.  About the only other static guard force police that I have seen outside of government buildings or Presidential visit are retired and off  duty motorcycle cops at a filming location.

I wonder how the truth will come out about Baz' death. I think Pope will be the one to tell and maybe about Cat too (with his growing animosity towards Smurf). I dont think Mia knows Baz is J's father. 

In New Jersey, there is always local police or state trooper at road constructions sites. I wasn't sure how other states handle it.

If Pope is like his father, Julia must have been worse. I would rather see some flashbacks of her than Smurf.

 

On 6/19/2019 at 5:29 PM, topanga said:

Maybe he’s running a long con on his college friends, or maybe he’s planning for the future. I never can tell with J. 

As soon as he heard the kid's father is in finance, that got J's attention very quickly. He'll own their house by the end of the season.

Edited June 20, 2019 by mxc90

[Raja]

41 minutes ago, mxc90 said:

I wonder how the truth will come out about Baz' death. I think Pope will be the one to tell and maybe about Cat too (with his growing animosity towards Smurf). I dont think Mia knows Baz is J's father. 

In New Jersey, there is always local police or state trooper at road constructions sites. I wasn't sure how other states handle it.

If Pope is like his father, Julia must have been worse. I would rather see some flashbacks of her than Smurf.

Its not LA but rest of the state is similar in having fewer police than eastern US cities of comparable size . There just isn't the manpower for escort/guard missions

[mochamajesty]

Mr. Majesty works security part time and he was assigned to many construction sites overnight.  

[Emily Thrace]

On 6/19/2019 at 12:05 AM, tennisgurl said:

The rabbit guy is totally Pope/Julia's father, isnt he? I dont hate the flashbacks or anything, especially if Smuf really is dying, but I wish we could get some flashbacks from when Smurfs kids were young, I really want to know what that family dynamic was like. 

Yeah and flashback Jake is probably the same Jake that showed in season two as Craig's father. Note the similar passiveness with flashes of emotional intelligence. So at some point Colin and Smurf split and Jake winds up back with Smurf again. Maybe Colin get his own head blown off. Or maybe He smacks Smurf around(he hasn't yet but he will) too many times and she shoot him in the back. (or get Jake too). It colours her relationships  with both her sons Pope was always a head case in her eyes and Craig is easy because their fathers were.  Which is the other point of the flashbacks not just to show how Smurf became Smurf but to show how her relationships with her boys fathers affected her relationships with them.

Speaking of father I had a though about the scam Jay is running with the rich kid. What if it not a scam? Before he died Baz mentioned some boyfriend of Smurf who raped Julia and was Jay's dad. I wonder if maybe the rich is actually someone Jay suspects is his father. There was something almost a little too eager about the way he was questioning the kid. 

Also a note about dating the flashbacks if Jake and Colin are Viet Nam vets then it can't be any later than 77 and its probably a fair bit earlier than that. The war did taper off on American recruits towards the end so it probably more like around 73-74.

[SuzieQ]

On 6/21/2019 at 5:40 PM, Emily Thrace said:

Also a note about dating the flashbacks if Jake and Colin are Viet Nam vets then it can't be any later than 77 and its probably a fair bit earlier than that. The war did taper off on American recruits towards the end so it probably more like around 73-74.

I can't find it now, but someone posted a link that stated the flashbacks are circa '77.

Edited June 23, 2019 by SuzieQ

[MrWhyt]

On 6/19/2019 at 10:58 PM, mxc90 said:

I dont think Mia knows Baz is J's father. 

I don't think anybody knows if Baz is J's father, there has never been any evidence to support it.

Edited June 24, 2019 by MrWhyt

[iMonrey]

Smurf told J that Baz was his father but you have to take it with a grain of salt. It's quite probable she only told him that to manipulate him (regardless of whether or not it's true). Nobody has ever confirmed it. J confronted Baz back in Season 1 and asked point blank if he was his father. Baz neither confirmed nor denied it. He basically said "What difference does it make now that you're grown up?"

[Cosmosgravitation]

In season 2, Baz told J that he wasn't his father.  He told him about a real estate mogul that was the target of a Smurf scheme and that he raped Julia and J popped out nine months later.

Makes me wonder if the father of his college acquaintance who is in finance might be the the same guy.  Finance and real estate can have some overlap, and I doubt Baz was an expert.