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With Michael’s birthday looming near the whole family sets their sights on a party that will make up for seven lost years. While Michael heads out of town on a business trip with a former flame, Tommy struggles to find a new place in government after he’s passed over for the promotion of his dreams. For the full recap, keep reading!

In an effort to get herself clean and her life back on track, Eileen flushes all her drugs down the toilet. Later that day Mary Kate comes over and asks if Eileen called the doctor she’d recommended. She says she didn’t because she stopped feeling bad, and then makes all sorts of excuses for her behavior the other day.

Rose is cooking breakfast for Michael, and she makes him promise to be back from his excursions the next night at 7pm sharp. Turns out Rose is planning a surprise party for him, and she enlists the whole family to help with everything from the cake to the decorating.

When Tom shows up to his office, Judd is there waiting for him with news that the Speaker was arrested the night before for exposing himself to a fourteen year old boy at Disney World. Rather than face a media maelstorm, they let him retire quietly and announce a new Speaker. Based on the interchange, it sounds like he thought he’d be getting the job, but they gave it to someone with more experience.

At the store, Michael tells Pete he’s going out of town for the night, and it turns out he’s taking Cath (his ex) with him. He’s still with Shannon, the college student, but he’s wanting to spend some time with someone his own age, and since Cath’s husband is out of town and her kids are with her mom, she’s going with him.

It looks like the new Speaker is wasting no time in screwing the Hill out of money that was promised him by the former Speaker. While he’s trying to get it all straightened out, Rose calls and claims to need help with her car, but in reality she needs a ride to pick out Michael’s present. He takes the time to talk to her about his fears for the Hill with him as their representative.

It doesn’t take Cathy ten minutes into their road trip to start hitting on him, try to give him a hand job. When he turns her down, she straddles him a bit and starts to get herself off, telling him if he’s not going to do it for her she’ll do it herself! After she’s done with that, they stop to get some food at a convenience store on the road, and she tries to get away with stealing a candy bar down her pants. Michael stops her, and they have this slutty little moment. It can’t be too long before they’re naked and slutty!

Tommy’s trying to break into a more powerful spot on the State Senate, and so spreads a false rumor about the Majority Leader vying for the Speaker’s job!!! By the time he’s done spreading rumors, they make it back to him and he acts like he hadn’t heard a thing! It sets the current Speaker into a tizzy, and he asks Tommy to see what he can find out!!

Eileen heads to Michael’s store to pick up the liquor for the party, and she gets a little too excited over the hard stuff behind the counter. Before she can grab some, Pete helps her carry the stuff to the car and tells her how he’s sober again. And then he asks her if she’s okay, because she’s so obviously depressed even almost strangers can tell there’s something wrong!

Tom finally makes it home for the night, but before he can make it into the house his mother waylays him and asks him to help her hang the birthday banner. After Tommy leaves, Rose calls Michael to make sure he’s going to be at the house at 7pm … while he and Cathy are getting busy. She tries to distract him by giving him head, but he pulls her off of him (by her hair!) so he can talk to her a little longer. Rose is nervous to be home alone, which is strange considering she was that way for all those years before Michael came back.

The next day the Majority Leader has a meeting with the Speaker, telling him he’s shocked the Speaker would think he wanted to take his job. Bob claims the Speaker can trust him with anything, and finally the Speaker believes him, but after Bob leaves, he tells Tommy he thinks he’s lying and then asks for Tom’s help in getting rid of him. Tom tells him he can’t help because Bob’s got too many friends and worries about losing. To sweeten the pot, he tells Tommy if he can get rid of Bob he can have the job of Majority Leader. To sweeten the deal several other men have agreed to support his bid for Majority Leader, and then agrees to make Gerald the head of the committee he’s been chairing.

After leaving Cathy at the hotel (super pissed, I might add) Tommy goes on the trip Freddie sent him on. He’s supposed to pick up 100k from these Russians, but it turns out they weren’t expecting to give up any of their money. Instead they smack Michael around a little bit and send him on his way. Once he’s back in the car he calls Freddie, and finds out it wasn’t a pickup it was a collection, which means he should have brought muscle.

Tommy gets stopped by Judd in the hallways, and asks him not to fire Bob. The only reason he’ll give is that it’s a personal favor, but Tom turns him down which pisses Judd off royally. Turns out he was stopped on the way to the meeting to fire Bob and hire a new Majority Leader. Tom gets nominated and no one else does, so the group votes all but unanimously. Rep. Silk opposes, pointing out the ward politics that were the underlying factor in the whole affair. Tom, however, gets elected Majority Leader anyhow.

Michael heads back to pick up Cathy, and she’s ready for him to take her home. On the way, Cathy gives him crap for living with his mother and her calling so much, and then he pulls the car over to finish the job he went there to start. When she gives him shit, he finally comes clean to her, tells her he is a criminal, that it’s not fun or attractive like she thinks it is. He sneaks back into the Russians’ house and kills all three of them and takes the money Freddie asked him to collect. When he gets back out to the road, it looks like Cathy’s left him there, but she shows back up with the car to pick him up, and they head back to Rhode Island.

Meanwhile Eileen is back in her bathroom, obviously regretting tossing all her drugs. Rose shows up, asking where the cake is, and when she sees it she has huge issues with it. It’s not spongey enough, it’s not the right kind of strawberry. She freaks out, telling her she can’t believe Eileen could have let her down like that. Eileen snaps, grabbing the cake out of Rose’s hands and throwing it against the wall.

As Tommy’s trying to leave for the day, he runs into Gerald, who reminds him to watch himself. Judd’s mad at him and he’s pissing people off, and he shouldn’t try to win every battle at risk of making everyone think he’s untrustworthy. Back at Rose’s house, she’s running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, all the while talking smack about how Eileen ruined the cake and now there won’t be any. Pete shows up looking all nervous and the first thing Rose does is insult his tie. Mary Kate asks Eileen to have Tommy take Jimmy back. Eileen panics and starts to binge drink, and just then Pete walks into the pantry and offers her help. Tommy pulls up just in time to see Michael showing up with Cathy. When he walks in with Cath, Rose freaks out … obviously there’s some bad blood there!

Catch up on previous episodes:
Mark 8:36 (ep. 1)
Genesis 27:29 (ep. 2)
Matthew 15:37 (ep. 3)
Matthew 5:6 (ep. 4)
Matthew 12:25 (ep. 5)
Samyutta 11:10 (ep. 6)
Genesis 27:39 (ep. 7)

Showtime, Brotherhood, Michael Caffee, Jason Isaacs, Thomas Caffee, Jason Clarke, Eileen Caffee, Annabeth Gish, Declan Giggs, Ethan Embry, Freddie Cook, Kevin Chapman, Rose Caffee, Fionnula Flanagan