‘Shelly Duvall‘ was easily the best episode of Ray Donovan since the very beginning of Season 5. It was truly a vintage episode in all the right ways. The show finally began to solidify what it wants to become for the rest of the season. Ray has a new permanent position, Mickey is motivated by a sole purpose and the rest of the family have their own side stories, but they didn’t overtake the main arc as they previously had throughout the earlier portion of the season. With everything falling into place, it allowed the show to thrive in the ways that had made the show great in the past. Ray was able to make deals, solve problems, and be creative in ways he hadn’t yet been able to this year. This show has always been the best when it allows Ray to do what he’s good at and not bog it down with superfluous plot points, and there were plenty of opportunities to do that after last weeks episode. Instead, they moved on and Ray actually learned from his mistakes. Which he actually can do quite readily when he chooses to do so.
The episode also continued to develop the prequel elements of this season and managed to contextualize events that we had previously seen in a whole new light. Whether that is Ray’s relationship with Abby or the relationship between Terry and Bridget ‘Shelly Duvall’ managed to highlight it in a way that was truly illuminating.
‘Shelley Duvall’ was also the true coming out party for Susan Sarandon‘s ‘Sam Winslow’. The episode finally gave the living legend the screen time she deserves and the episode was all the better for it. Her character is nuanced, ruthless and practical which is such a breath of fresh air for this show, especially this year. We were finally made privy to more of her motivations and desires while concurrently learning that she is capable of things that she might not want us to know about. Before the season started, I predicted that Susan Sarandon would be the one to watch on this season of ‘Ray Donovan’ and I’m hoping this is the beginning of my prediction starting to come to fruition. If season 5 closes out with four more episodes of this quality it might, just maybe make up for the awful sandwich shop shenanigans from earlier this year.
Ray Donovan airs Sunday nights on Showtime at 8 PM est.
