S01.E06: It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City

[ohjoy]

Quote

Decourcy is a step closer to connecting the stolen guns to the Revere robbery when an insider agrees to talk. Jenny no longer can ignore Jackie's indiscretions after they show up on her doorstep. Money problems worsen for the Ryan family.

Original air date: 7/21/2019

[scrb]

Jenny finds a spine until Jackie outmaneuvers her again, though the unfortunate thing with the daughter causes her to cave.

Jackie can’t be around the home a lot, especially for the daughter.  So of course she sides with Jackie, the one who cheated and got some other woman pregnant.

So US soldiers brought home AK-47s from Vietnam as trophies and then sold them when they needed money.  But it makes tracking them fairly easy.

Meanwhile, Frankie sees his big score money dwindling and he has to pay for his mother.  So he is thinking of pulling another job.

Okay code of silence is one thing but when you see one family spending so much, it becomes obvious, even if they’re not using money for flashy things like cars.  They were also spreading money around too.

Cant see the Ryans evading justice beyond this season.  Unless the corners which Rohr and Ward skipped keeps Frankie Ryan out of jail, though that seems unlikely.

Then what’s going to keep Ward and Rohr working together?  Is the Coalition some separate plot or is it going to somehow get intertwined with the bank robbery plot?

They’re also giving more time to Michaela, who’s pestering and trolling members of the team.  She smells Jackie’s corruption.  Maybe Jackie really crosses the line to get revenge for his daughter and then all the other things he’s been up to comes out as well.

Of course his character isn’t going away or have his ability to work taken away.

[MrsRafaelBarba]

The Rev is coming undone.

Thought  Roach gave Benny a hot shot, leaving her to die.

Then the two Creeps strolled in, Yikes,

[Pepper Mostly]

So, the EMT's and police left Jackie's violated and grievously injured daughter in that hellish basement until he arrived? They didn't grab her and take her to the hospital? 

The accents are getting worse and worse. I've lived in the Boston area for all of my 65 years and have never heard anyone say "huh" for "her", or "wuh" for "were". 

Jimmy remains my favorite character. He's so unabashed about conning everyone, he does it like breathing. Everyone else is so tormented and cryptic. Its getting boring.  

[preeya]

3 hours ago, Pepper Mostly said:

So, the EMT's and police left Jackie's violated and grievously injured daughter in that hellish basement until he arrived? They didn't grab her and take her to the hospital?  

 

Yeah, when I saw that {↑} I assumed she was dead. That scene was really not done well.

And what's up with all the dark scenes? I couldn't even identify that Dean Winters was the guy Rohr met at the bar. 

Edited July 22, 2019 by preeya

[Pepper Mostly]

Right? Can someone turn a goddamn light on?

[roughing it]

Ok this is episode six?  So my husband and I watched the first 5 episodes, and when this was coming on, we decided, nah, let's watch something else, no interest here.  In spite of the talent.  If you can't get us somewhat hooked in 5 episodes, we're out.  

(so why am I posting if I didn't see the episode?  just wanted to keep tabs in case this thing does get legs)

[DoctorAtomic]

21 hours ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

Thought  Roach gave Benny a hot shot, leaving her to die.

So does he know she's Jackie's daughter? I can't tell. It would make sense he's doing it for revenge.

I do like Jackie pulling an end around on Hook with the brother to get him over a barrel, which was paralleled nice with Ward pulling the same thing with the guy's mother.

I can't say I'm interested in Jenny or the Asian babymama. Good for her getting an A+ though. As much as Jackie is awful, she's not the best mother either.

I'm not interested in the reporter either especially when the other lady investigator nailed her on sleeping with Jackie. Yeah, great credibility. She did a decent enough job getting Jackie's name from her source, and since, all she's doing is just pestering people. Granted, they don't have to tell her off all the time, and I think the other investigator was trying to be fair when he told her that the case was actually sensitive, but you need to find another strategy. Maybe investigate and find clues? Jackie's babymama is basically shouting to the rooftops that she has his love child.

And I mean, really, the 'state senator' said that and you're still here? Yes, because there's freedom of the press, and likely he didn't talk to you about anything anyway. So what?

I wasn't too interested in this one because it only solved the AK as a clue. They don't know the trail for the gun. The AK they found didn't match the bullet. Even the deposition with Hook was kind of flat. Though I did like "lawyer. lawyer" like Mike did on Break Bad/Saul.

I'm haven't been liking Ward's wife and even less now. Her smugness is going to backfire on her. She's just got it all figured out. Just telling all those other Coalition members what they should be doing. They're probably not going to back her because she's exhausting them. I think she's going to get herself into some hot water. The reverend may have been threatening Ward, but I don't think he was lying about having those connections.

Not for nothing (which they should be saying on the show much much more), but Decourcy wasn't "defending her" or whatever she claimed she was. The reverend barged into his office, threatened him, and physically assaulted him. Though I assume she's smart enough to figure out how he got the shiner.

Literally turning the other cheek and saying 'you want another shot?' was total gold. The reverend looked terrified.

On 7/21/2019 at 8:09 PM, scrb said:

 Is the Coalition some separate plot or is it going to somehow get intertwined with the bank robbery plot?

The only common thread I see here is the gun pathway. If they unravel who/how both groups are getting the guns. It would be kind of an awesome twist if somehow the reverend was involved. Like, perpetuating the violence so people can see him as the savior of the community. Unless their next robbery somehow intersects with them.

[MrsRafaelBarba]

Yes, Roach knows that's Jackie's daughter.

[LibertarianSlut]

I still think this show is as good as anything else that's on television, but a.) that's not high praise and; b.) my love affair with it is on hiatus. Good thing too, as I couldn't follow the plot this week, and I didn't feel frustrated that I was missing too much.

A couple of things

• If Decourcy only has one working eye, wouldn't he have problems with depth perception?  Also, would a fake eyeball look that good in 1992 (would it look that good now?)?  I never see Decourcy acting like he has anything but two perfect eyeballs.  Directing/acting/costuming fail.
• What is Jackie's job exactly?  I know he is a fed.  Is there a fed who never spends time with any other Feds, and only spends time with local law enforcement? Some type of liaison perhaps?  I've never seen anything like it.
• I never worked in Boston, but in Miami-Dade, usually the police come to the state attorney's office (they call the DA the SA in FL), not the other way around.  It seems like Decourcy--the DA of Suffolk County--is constantly hanging out in police stations.  It doesn't read right to me. 
• How in the world does that reporter seem to have unlimited access to the police station to the point where she is harassing police as they walk the corridors?  That's sillly.  When she approached the officer when he was playing basketball with his son on a public court, it was much more realistic.

I am getting a little tired of pretty much everything that's going on here.  Nothing is really coming together.  I'm a little disenchanted with the Ryan family.  What was the point of "Kick" having that black eye in the first episode, with her mom telling her to find the perpetrator and "break his dick"?  Was that just to show us that she is a tough Boston broad?  I think...we would have gotten that anyway.  I don't like Frankie.  I can't believe he's the smart brother.

Jackie was at least true to form when he was describing the way Indians used to throw their babies away in the opening while blowing smoke rings.  I enjoyed the way his scene was acted.  I enjoyed his MIL taking bribes to keep her daughter in the marriage.  

As far as the bald guy they hauled in, who kept saying "lawyer," Decourcy went on to ask him a question after he invoked his right to counsel.  No DA worth his salt will ever do that.  If they make statements that sound an awful lot like questions, that is more of a grey area, but any question the witness answered after he invoked his right to counsel would be inadmissible, as would any evidence gathered as a result of those answers.  They would be "fruit of the poisonous tree."  Even if Decourcy is just gathering evidence for the grand jury, he could lose his job (and probably get disbarred) for asking questions after a suspect invoked his right to counsel, so that was disappointing, as I don't believe he would have done that.

I don't think it's realistic that these suspects cooperate because the police or the state threatens them.  This is the same complaint I have about Billions.  We had this twice this episode--first, when Decourcy was questioning that kid who wouldn't talk until Decourcy threatened to put his mother in jail for selling out the back of the grocery store.  The realistic response to this is, "prove it motherfucker."  Now, once you've arrested the guy's mom and it looks like she's actually going to jail, that's when you deal.  Maybe.  You might let mom do a few springs and winters in the pen if the alternative is to talk to the cops and get your tongue cut out once everyone finds out.  

 We saw it again at the end of the episode when Jackie was threatening the guy and he was like, "I'm going to preface this by saying I'm a piece of shit.  I got your brother drunk last night, and I know he brought AK's back from Vietnam and he's selling them.  I'm going to bust him unless you talk."  And the guy started talking!  I didn't buy that story.  If my sibling was a fuck-up who was doing international arms trade, I wouldn't fall all over myself turning them in, but if we're both adults...chances are, I got my own family and situations to deal with, and I'm not going down for you.

Isn't Jackie's wife supposed to be a good mom, or at least trying to be?  How do you not know where your 16 year old was gone for 1.5 days during the school week?  My parents were permissive as hell--I got away with a lot--but there was no way I wasn't coming home on a school night.  That's kind of neglectful parenting right there.  I don't care, except that it doesn't really comport with what we've seen of the character.  I feel like that character would have screamed "fuck you" and thrown a picture frame, but when her daughter wasn't home for dinner, she would be calling Jackie's cell, asking him if their daughter was with him, calling friends, etc.  

Also, is there something wrong with Jimmy?  I am seriously asking.  He sounded like he was at the mental age of 12 this whole ep:  "they're gonna cut my ma's feet!"  Shut up, baby.  Hell would freeze over if I was that ex and I hauled my kids from Florida to Boston on his word, and without him paying for the tickets up front.  That mom appears to be over 65.  Wouldn't she have access to Medicare?  This whole "Ryan brothers need the money for mom's op" storyline doesn't ring true to me.  Even if the woman couldn't get Medicare or Medicaid or any state-run medical coverage, the hospital would perform the operation and bill her after the fact.  If she couldn't pay, she could declare bankruptcy.  It's not easy, and it's not fun, but people do it every day.  I work in an industry adjacent to this.  What doesn't happen--or doesn't need to happen--is for two morally corrupt fucked up brothers to suddenly grow a conscience about "ma's feet."  This is not their first rodeo.  They know someone else will pick up the tab.  So that felt like I was being taken for a ride.

This whole show is making me feel a little...stupid.  Maybe I am stupid for continuing to think Showtime is going to produce something with which I'm satisfied.  I did watch The Town over the weekend, and this is leaps and bounds better than that IMO.  The dialogue on this show is good.  The dialogue in The Town sounded like it was written by a drunk, nostalgic poet.  

[DoctorAtomic]

18 minutes ago, LibertarianSlut said:

Also, would a fake eyeball look that good in 1992 (would it look that good now?)?

It looked ok for Columbo in the 70s, so I can give it a pass. If Ward had it for a while, he likely could have learned to compensate for the lack of perception.

I got nothing on the reporter. I guess it's a public building so she can just go in there. I've walked into City Hall where I live unabated. It looks like she's everywhere though, which seems a little much. That could have been the case back then. It's a pre 9/11 world we're seeing. 

18 minutes ago, LibertarianSlut said:

What was the point of "Kick" having that black eye in the first episode, with her mom telling her to find the perpetrator and "break his dick"?

As we learned later, she actually started the fight, so I think it's a subtext of her having some ptsd of seeing (presumably) this Kinicki getting killed. I think she's going to be key in unraveling the entire case. Jackie still doesn't know that the CI is the brother. That shoe is going to have to drop at some point. The mother was furious about her going to see the counselor (as she said) to the husband that she doesn't know what she's going to say. So they must know she saw something. 

18 minutes ago, LibertarianSlut said:

I wouldn't fall all over myself turning them in, but if we're both adults...chances are, I got my own family and situations to deal with, and I'm not going down for you.

The brother was a Vietnam vet with some serious problems, as he told Jackie when he was drunk. Jackie threatening to throw him in jail, where he likely wasn't going to survive, is a real threat. It's a parallel with Ward threatening to throw the guy's mother into jail. They both threatened suspects with questionable records. What are they going to do? File a complaint? They still have credible evidence on the mother/brother to put them away. 

As for asking questions after counsel, which are inadmissible - so what? If they learn something new, they can find another way to prove it. Notice how they had the guy (with the mother) walk by the window where hook was? Ward was seeing if he recognized him. The point is Jackie/Ward are skirting the margins. The suspense is whether this is going to catch up with them to ruin the case or they get away with some seriously questionable tactics. 

They spent too much time on this episode with the domestic drama, which I'm not really interested in, so I hope the plot moves better next week. 

Edited July 23, 2019 by DoctorAtomic

[LibertarianSlut]

5 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

 What are they going to do? File a complaint? They still have credible evidence on the mother/brother to put them away. 

As for asking questions after counsel, which are inadmissible - so what? If they learn something new, they can find another way to prove it. Notice how they had the guy (with the mother) walk by the window where hook was? Ward was seeing if he recognized him. The point is Jackie/Ward are skirting the margins. The suspense is whether this is going to catch up with them to ruin the case or they get away with some seriously questionable tactics. 

Ok, a lot to unpack here.  Thank you for your explanation about Kick's role.  I didn't get the complexity of that.

As far as what the suspects taken into custody can do is...they can refuse to talk.  Of course they can file a complaint.  A complaint against Jackie literally becomes a federal investigation.  That was the point of my original post.  We don't know that the suspects know whether law enforcement has enough evidence to put their loved ones away.  Talk is cheap.  Show me some evidence.  If a cop threatened me, not only would I refuse to talk, but when I got out of custody, my first call would be to the ACLU and my second call would be to the Boston Globe.  If law enforcement wants my info, they will deal.  People from the street may not be smart in the traditional sense, but they know how these things work, possibly better than we do.

Take Decourcy's witness.  He has got to have some notion that Decourcy doesn't really want to put his mom away--a likely middle aged black woman working for minimum wage when Decourcy is part of the coalition. It would have been so much more helpful from a realistic standpoint for Decourcy to throw a folder on the table that had pictures of the mom selling food out of the back of the store, a rap sheet a mile long, and a witness statement corroborating Decourcy's allegations.  Then they should have ended the scene with the evidence, and us left hanging about whether the witness was going to talk.  We would be able to weigh the tension as viewers in that scenario.  I still wouldn't talk.  I'd let my mom go to jail.  I suspect many of us would.

Jackie's witness, yes, Jackie seemed to have a better hold on him, but I still don't buy it.  You need evidence to make a case.  There is very little evidence here.  A drunken confession?  Are we sure Jackie took the card from the brother when he was in his apartment?  And, like I said before, if I have a reason not to talk to the cops, which the guy apparently did when he said "lawyer" repeatedly, it's not going to change my mind if the police plant a seed in my mind that my sibling might go to jail if I don't speak.  I am aware of the danger people can face in state prison.  It just goes in the category of "not my problem" once we're grown.  It's not like the witness was rolling over on his brother; he just would have been refusing to incriminate himself, and the fallout from that could be a case against his felon brother.  I wouldn't incriminate myself for a sibling.  Maybe a spouse.  And absolutely no one until I had a private conference with my attorney.

As far as "so what" with regard to Decourcy violating a suspect's Consitutional right, I believe these interviews were recorded, even in the 90s, if Forensic Files is any indication.  As I said in my original post, Decourcy could face a huge fallout from that, including disbarment.  The magistrate judge who is signing all these warrants and subpoenas is already reluctant.  If Decourcy is caught doing this, the whole investigation goes away.  Decourcy goes away.  Even if it wasn't on video, the allegation alone could bring this whole investigation to a close.  There have been DA's who have been caught up in questionable enough conduct that all of their convictions have had to be reopened.  So I think it's a really big deal, and I don't think Decourcy would have done this, because he knows all this.  If he wanted someone roughed up with a rubber hose in a back room somewhere (which isn't really how Decourcy deals, but let's just say), he'd have removed himself by enough degrees to to figure in plausible deniability.

I get the concepts of what you're saying; I appreciate that they are skirting the margins, but I just think the show could have told the same story, but done it a lot better.  Show someone credible evidence that their child could go away for life if they don't talk, and maybe I'll bite.  That's just where i come from with the biases I carry from my experience.  Maybe people are far more naive than I thought, but I don't guess they got to be career criminals that way.  And hey, Jimmy Ryan, who I find extremely stupid, is a career criminal and a CI.  But I bet they had something on him that would put him away if he didn't cooperate, not just his parent or sibling.  Maybe we'll find out.

[preeya]

6 hours ago, LibertarianSlut said:

What is Jackie's job exactly?  I know he is a fed.  Is there a fed who never spends time with any other Feds, and only spends time with local law enforcement? Some type of liaison perhaps?  I've never seen anything like it.

1

This ↑ a thousand time this ↑.

This irks me to no end.

Edited July 23, 2019 by preeya

[Pepper Mostly]

On 7/23/2019 at 1:18 PM, LibertarianSlut said:

If Decourcy only has one working eye, wouldn't he have problems with depth perception?  Also, would a fake eyeball look that good in 1992

It was 1992, not 1892. I hear that they'd stopped using leeches by then too. 😉

 Peter Falk had a prosthetic eye. So did Sammy Davis Jr. 

Edited July 24, 2019 by Pepper Mostly

[Pepper Mostly]

I love Jimmy as a character because I love Mark O'Brien. He's the only one who nails the accent. And Jimmy is just such a fuckup! He's a druggie, a petty criminal, a total loser. The rest of this motley crew I cannot get a handle on! I thought DeCourcy and Jackie were going to be strange bedfellows united only by their common goal. DeCourcy was interesting  to me because he was supposed to be this straight arrow but he was willing to play dirty. Now he's just bickering with his wife while Jackie does all the heavy lifting. 

And I concur on Jackie's wife. She doesn't work. She just started back at school. And she has no idea what her daughter is up to? She has never had a teacher meeting or call from the vice principal because her bratty daughter is acting out? And they don't send her to Catholic school?? 

Speaking of Catholic, what happened to that nice priest? 

[DoctorAtomic]

Jackie issued a thinly veiled threat to the priest a while back. The wife was volunteering at the school but the priest said they had to let her go because of insurance liability, but she knew the deal. 

[Pepper Mostly]

No, I know that. Is that the only reason the nice priest was introduced? To throw him away again without a word? Just seems like bad storytelling.

[DoctorAtomic]

I guess to just add another schism in the marriage? It might be that the wife is the only person with an axe to grind against Jamie that would talk to the reporter. Even a news report about him fathering the lovechild might be bad for him at whatever is job is. 

[teddysmom]

On 7/23/2019 at 1:18 PM, LibertarianSlut said:

Isn't Jackie's wife supposed to be a good mom, or at least trying to be?  How do you not know where your 16 year old was gone for 1.5 days during the school week?  My parents were permissive as hell--I got away with a lot--but there was no way I wasn't coming home on a school night.  That's kind of neglectful parenting right there.  I don't care, except that it doesn't really comport with what we've seen of the character.  I feel like that character would have screamed "fuck you" and thrown a picture frame, but when her daughter wasn't home for dinner, she would be calling Jackie's cell, asking him if their daughter was with him, calling friends, etc.  

Not great writing, but I guess she could come home, sneak out later, and then maybe Mom left early before she did?  Agree, I would see my daughter first thing in the morning before I left if she wasn't up, just to check on her.

Maybe she thought she found her dad and went to live with him? They did have that big fight. 

[LibertarianSlut]

^^^ I agree it's not something to get all twisted up about when there are so many other things.  I did anticipate that the mom would think--escpecially since she had just cussed her daughter--that Daughter Rohr moved in with Jackie, which is why I wondered in my original post why Mom wasn't calling Jackie's cell phone when the kid didn't come home.  

Maybe she's not a particularly shitty mom; maybe she just has blind spots and was more permissive with her daughter than she should have been.  

[LoveLeigh]

I am lost. Who is Vito Lupo? 

[preeya]

6 hours ago, DakotaLavender said:

I am lost. Who is Vito Lupo? 

Lee Tergesen's character. I think he might be the "money guy"

[LoveLeigh]

4 hours ago, preeya said:

Lee Tergesen's character. I think he might be the "money guy"

He is a gangster who works for Jackie? I got lost with his character.