"Chinese Algebra", the penultimate episode of this season of Ray Donovan, was the episode in which this season's several dangling plot threads came together, as Ray desperately tried to save Avi's life from the evil Russians. You would think this would be a good thing. From that description, this episode sounds like it was tense and fast-paced, an episode that would make this season's lazy plotting worth it. Well, if you thought this, you would've been wrong.
Penultimate episodes are important for every season of TV, as Mr. Robot recently demonstrated with its stellar episode last week. They traditionally serve to focus a season, thereby setting the table for a climax in the season finale. Some shows have been known to break this rule by placing a season's climax in the penultimate episode, but that practice is not very common. But while Ray desperately rushing against time in an attempt to save Avi's life sounds like a great premise for a penultimate episode, of any type, it most certainly was not.
Instead, "Chinese Algebra" was completely lacking in urgency, and effectively ground this entire season to a halt. The whole episode was a slog, and felt like a delaying tactic on behalf of the writers, who evidently didn't have quite enough material to stretch out over 12 episodes. They could have made up for this by focusing on the characters, perhaps some of the characters who haven't been in the spotlight much this season (I swear, I had forgotten about Bridget until she popped up in this episode). But the writers didn't do this, and instead passed the time by having the characters go on odd tangents, such as Mickey's trip to Vegas, or by having Ray arrested by his old FBI pal Frank Barnes and trying to make it feel natural.
I really don't want to spend too much time writing about the meat of this episode (this review is so late partly because of my dread of doing so), and so I want to instead write about this season as a whole. This episode has convinced me that the writers do not care about this season's over-arching plots with Hector and the Russians. Dmitri is written so broadly his character comes across as a parody of terrible Russian villains. The attempts to have Hector and Ray's respective journeys this season mirror each other thematically have been weak and lazy. And if the writers don't care about the plot, why should we?
I've written extensively about how this show is great at character drama, but not much else, and once again that fact is hurting the show in the final stretch of a season. This show, after four seasons, doesn't know what it wants to be, unable to decide between thoughtful character piece and hard-boiled crime fiction. This reminds me of the recently debuted Quarry on Cinemax, except its problem is the reverse of this show's, as it shines when focusing on the crime aspects but struggles when it tries to be meditative or thoughtful. But Quarry has only aired one episode, and so can be forgiven for this. Ray Donovan, however, cannot. And when a show can't figure out what it want's to be, it struggles to build to a climax living up to the build-up preceding it. Presuming that Sunday's finale will be unable to salvage this season, Ray Donovan will once again close a season with a whimper. I don't want this to happen, but I don't trust the show to do otherwise.
