Paul examines the stolen documents while Vera sleeps off her molly high in a motel room while Ani and Ray are in the room next door. Ani is worried that she is going to be arrested for killing that guard, and she starts to confuse real life with her abuse memories. Ray snaps her back to the here and now, and Ani comes on to Ray. Ray gently turns her down, and she blames it on the drugs she was given.
The stolen documents reveal Chessani and Osip purchased Caspere’s land parcels for pennies and redistributed them. But he pulled away when he gets a text message containing photos of him having sex with Colter, and a message that says “Say hi to Emily for me.” Paul becomes paranoid and rushes home. Emily received a call, suggesting she ask Paul about “some pictures.” He blows it off, saying it was from an undercover he did, but he takes Emily to stay in a motel outside of town for the next few days, for her own safety. And guess who she will be rooming with? Paul’s mom. Three days locked in a room with your mother-in-law-to-be. If both of them make it out alive I will be impressed.
Similarly, Ani is concerned for Athena’s well-being. She insists that Athena and their dad go up north to Oregon until they can close the case. Elvis escorts them up north, and he and Ani make amends. She even hugs him. As much as she doesn’t want to admit this, the molly seems to have had a therapeutic effect on her. It allowed her to “see” the face of the man who abused her, which she admits to her father. He is still wracked with guilt over her abduction, but Ani seems more emotionally present in this episode than any of the others. Elvis jokes that, as she says goodbye to her dad and sister, she hugs each one. “Three in one day,” he muses. “Must be a record.”
Ani talks to a now-sober Vera, shows her the pictures she got from her sister. Tasha, Caspere’s favorite girl, sent them to her. She was trying to blackmail him, but it didn’t work, and Vera believes it was Tasha whose blood painted the shack in the woods up north. But Vera won’t testify, and she doesn’t want out of the life – she likes her life like it is. she identifies one of the other girls in the photo as Laura, and she hasn’t seen her in at least five months.
Ray tells Frank about the papers from Catalyst, that his shares were sold to the junior Chessani and Osip, and that Blake helped put the deal in motion. Blake has also been running girls with the two men, behind Frank’s back. Frank is pissed, but promises to have for him the name of the guy who gave him the bad intel. Ray will “continue believing” it wasn’t Frank. Frank wasn’t the one who gave Ray the name; it was Blake, and Frank knows this. He calls Blake into his office, and anticipating that some of his extracurricular activities have been discovered, ponies up $15,000 for a private party he ran some girls for. Frank doesn’t take kindly to this and smashes a glass in his face. He beats the hell out of him and demands info on Osip. Blake admits that Osip intends to take over Frank’s clubs. He bought all the liens against them. He also says that the guy he sold out to Ray was just some meth head who was giving Blake some trouble. He offers to get Frank his money back when Osip and Catalyst have a hand-off of the money for Caspere’s shares, roughly $12 million. Frank relaxes and gives Blake a fresh drink, but then Blake suggests he can work on them from the inside, a triple cross. Frank shoots him in the gut and watches him die a slow, painful death.
Frank informs Nails that they are in a secret war, and wants him to take care of Blake. But first, he brings Jordan into the office. He wants her to see who he is, a test to see if she will stay. Jordan takes in the scene calmly and asks what she can do to help. This is what Frank wants to hear. He tells her to pack and he will meet up with her tomorrow. Frank has some loose ends to tie up. He makes a deal with a shady jeweler to change several millions of dollars into diamonds; he gets tickets to Venezuela (from a travel agent, of all places); he gets new identities from the bakery mobsters. He then turns up at the casino bar, sends a very drunk Chessani home, and greets Osip when he arrives. He confronts Osip about him taking over Frank’s businesses. Osip explains that he thinks they can do better. Frank plays contrite, and admits he was out of his element on the land deals. Osip offers Frank a salaried position as a manager.
Despite his play at humility, that is not the Frank way. After clearing out the poker room due to a “gas leak” (and killing one of the security guards who questions the gas leak) Frank cleans out the safes, pulls the gas lines, and lights the place on fire. He does the same with the second club, and sits on a rooftop miles away, watching the buildings burn.
Back on the detective side of things, Paul, being the only one in good standing with the police department, does a little research on the 1992 jewelry store robbery. Burris and Dixon worked the case, under Holloway, and they were working with Caspere. But Caspere’s death is what kicked off all this investigating, which puts Dixon, Holloway, and the others in the spotlight, so there is no reason that one of them would have killed him. It also seems like the shoot-out was all a setup. Feeling like he finally has enough to take to Davis, Ray takes the files and meets her in a large, empty lot. When he gets in her car, he sees she has been shot and he high-tails it out of there. Returning to the motel, he tells his partners what happened, and that whoever killed her used one of Ray’s guns. Paul gets pulled away by more blackmail texts, these accompanied by a request to meet that night.
With Paul gone, Ray and Ani look over the photos. Ani asks if Laura looks familiar; Ray identifies her as Erica, Caspere’s secretary. And Laura was the name of one of the orphans from the 1992 robbery. Ani calls around looking for Erica/Laura, but she has been gone for six weeks. Ray can’t get Paul on the phone, so they decide to just hunker down until morning. After some kinda-talking, and some non-admissions about their troubled past, the two end up in bed together.
The reason they can’t reach Paul is that he has gone to his meet, which turns out to be with Colter. He takes his gun, on instruction from his boss, and informs Paul of what is going on. Black Mountain was the security firm they were with in Iraq; it has now been rebranded and has only one client: Catalyst. Colter had to blackmail Paul like this. He was getting too much publicity and the head of Black Mountain was worried he would say too much. And the head? Holloway. Holloway admits he was having Dixon keep an eye on Paul; Colter reminds Paul that he should have been more honest about who he was – then no one could use it against him. Holloway wants the documents Paul stole, but he doesn’t have them on him. Holloway doesn’t believe him, and Paul offers to call Ray and get them. He wants to skate on any charges and get every blackmail photo. Paul assures Holloway that he doesn’t care about Ray or Ani. Paul uses a misdirect about not getting service deep underground, and uses the opportunity to take Holloway hostage with his own gun. He beats up Holloway (not sure if he killed him or not; I imagine he did) and leads the rest of the guys on a chase through the system of tunnels. He eventually kills all the guys, including Colter, who he uses as a human shield. He seems to mourn Colter briefly before making his escape.
Paul finally makes his way outside. Burris is there, hiding behind the door he happens to exit out of – and shoots him without a word. Paul desperately tries to get his gun, but Burris shoots him again. I don’t know how Burris knew that Paul would be exiting out of that specific door, but let’s just say he had a lot of surveillance in the building. In any case, Paul is dead.
This was a really good episode. A little dense, but it finally was more than just a basic procedural. At this weekend’s Television Critics Association confab, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo defended “True Detective,” promising that the series ending was “satisfying” and stating “you need to watch all of it.” While, yes, it is finally starting to shine, it’s a little bit surprising that Lombardo would feel the need to defend it in such a way. Of course we are going to watch all of it, but the way this whole internet thing works is that we tear things apart, week by week. When I get to an episode that is good – like tonight’s – I will gladly say so. No one is “rooting” for a show to fail. I don’t think a satisfying ending is of concern to anyone yet, considering we have not seen the finale. It worries me, though, that he is defending a finale that the public has not seen yet. I suppose we will have to wait until next week to see if it is satisfying.
I will tell you one thing though: if that raven mask doesn’t make another appearance, this entire season will have been a waste.
You can check out the promo for the season two finale of “True Detective” in the player below. Titled “Omega Station,” the 90-minute episode will air Sunday, August 9 at 9 P.M. on HBO.
