Previewing Ray Donovan: Season Three

For seven years fans of Justified were hoping that Raylan Givens would run into his alter ego's nemesis Al Swearengen. Unfortunately all we got instead was a dreadful Michael Rappaport season. We may have never gotten the Deadwood reunion we wanted on Justified but we will be getting one on Ray Donovan with Ian McShane showing up on his favorite prostitute's show. He plays a very powerful (and kind of shady) billionaire in need of Ray's by any means necessary approach when his son is held for ransom. That one favor turns into two and when Ray needs a favor, McShane then completely owns Rays (but it is a really big favor).

I had some big problems with the first season of Ray Donovan. It really epitomized what I considered the post-golden age era television is currently in: the acting is ghe writing is good, but something is just missing, and in this case, the show just was not entertaining. The show did improve in its sophomore outing as it found its humor; the Conner birthday was a highlight of last season. Yeah it did still have some rough spots; Bunchy was still a useless character (well so are the kids, but that was the case even during the Golden Age). The show also would have been better off had they just killed off Micky at the end of the first season instead of Sully. But Wendell Pierce was a great addition as Micky's parole officer.

Unfortunately we may not be see much of Pierce this season as apparently his parole expired in between seasons (he does show up in the third episode) and Micky has moved on to babysitting a five year old girl (seriously). Instead we get a recurring Katie Holmes as McShane's sports agents daughter which disappointingly brings Ray back to his first season self where Ray finds himself bailing athletes out of sticky situations that the lower half of their bodies get them into. And it does not happen early in the run, but it seems safe to assume Ray will forcibly have sex with her at some time and will disturbingly like it.

Much like Ray himself, the show is seriously flawed but is working hard at what he does. It is not clear if the third season is where the show can finally turn a corner but at the very least, it will be nice have l Swearengen back on a channel where he can say his favorite word (which sadly, I doubt will chance, a lot has changed in the decade since Deadwood) but it will be interesting if the writers can figure out a reunion with Trixie. But at the very least the second episode is worth checking out just to hear Terry's (who is absent in the season premiere) cellmate sing his favorite Huey Lewis and the News song.

Ray Donovan airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime. You can also download previous seasons of Ray Donovan on iTunes.