Ray Donovan 2.4: The Bad Guy

If it wasn't clear already, we see in Ray Donovan 2.4 just who the bad guy really is this season.   Actually, it was pretty clear by now, but in 2.4 we see just how bad LA FBI Bureau Chief Ed Cochran is.  In a nutshell, he has one of his agents kill poor Tiny, and when Cochran gets the phone call that that's been accomplished, he's so buzzed that he grabs Megan's breast, in the kitchen, while her husband, FBI Agent Tom Volcheck, is sitting in the next room at the Scrabble board with Cochran's clueless wife.

About Tiny, we could say that his craving for a rotisserie chicken is what ultimately cost him his life. But speaking of cost, I'm wondering why Ray didn't keep an eye on him, seeing what Tiny witnessed, and help him out with a few bucks, so Tiny wasn't reduced to stealing a chicken?   The one flaw in Ray Donovan is that just about every character seems to have worse luck than they rightly ought to have, with the occasional exception of Ray. Or maybe that's the charm of the series.

Cochran, for example, caught a bad break when Tiny's fall injured a passerby, whom Tiny's killer - the corrupt FBI Agent Frank Barnes - then has to also kill to keep quiet.   How many killings in one night can Cochran get away with?   On the other hand, he got away with the breast grab - in a fine little piece of acting by Andrea Bogart, Megan seems a bit surprised but not unwelcoming about what happened in the kitchen.

The moral of Season One and the killing of Sully shows that the worst of the worst end up dead on Ray Donovan.  So the only question about Cochran, unless he changes his ways, is who will kill him?  My guess is it won't be Mickey and will probably be Ray, with an outside chance of it being Megan's husband.

Meanwhile, though it's good to see Abby perhaps starting a relationship with another man, that can't end well, either, for anyone.  And while Ray is no boy scout, and is enjoying sleeping with the Boston reporter a little too much, you can't really blame him, given that Abby let that idiot shrink talk her into thinking that Ray was raping her when he made love to her, albeit in his own way.

This season of Ray Donovan is shaping up as even nastier than the first - certainly Cochran is a more surprising monster than Sully, who was nonetheless pretty chillingly cold - and that's all to the good for this television series.

See also Ray Donovan 2.1: Back in Business

And see also Ray Donovan Debuts with Originality and Flair ... Ray Donovan 1.2: His Assistants and his Family ... Ray Donovan 1.3: Mickey ... Ray Donovan 1.7 and Whitey Bulger ... Ray Donovan 1.8: Poetry and Death ... Ray Donovan Season 1 Finale: The Beginning of Redemption


 also has some questionable FBI agents

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