Watching Showtime

Cath’s trying to sort through the stuff in her extra bedroom so they can turn it into a nursery now that she’s expecting. Michael agrees to go look at paint swatches with her so they can figure out what color to paint it. Not at the moment, though, because Michael has to go be a gangster first. Over at Tommy’s house, he and Eileen are eating in silence, so we know everything’s back to normal there. She’s still dissatisfied and can’t talk about it, and Tommy’s trying to pretend nothing’s wrong.

Michael and Colin are dumping gas all over the cars in a used car lot while Deco and Freddie sit in the car to keep watch. Turns out it’s Freddie’s lot, and he’s torching it for hte insurance money. While everything is exploding, Michael figures out it might trigger his siezures, so he asks Colin to drive for him. Smart move on his part! At the bar that night, the boys have a few hookers screwing each other with strap-ons for their enjoyment, while more walk around naked to dance on and screw with the guys. Classy guys, these gangsters. After the party’s over, Freddie and Michael are talking about baptizing their kids and why Freddie’s not upstairs sleeping with one of the hookers like all the other guys. Notice Michael’s not up there either? He’s acting just as married as Freddie is. Outside, Deco’s so drunk he’s falling all over the place, so they send him back upstairs to sleep it off. Despite their bonding moment, Freddie’s still punishing Michael for his fuck-up with the body dump last episode we find out, as he cuts into his profits once again before heading home for the night.

The next day, Tommy’s stopped by a relative’s house to help her fix her air conditioning. Turns out she’d just turned it off and not realized it. Looks like this relative is so old she’s getting senile, and the neighborhood she lives in is falling apart. Looks like Tommy’s got himself a project on his hands, as this neighborhood is definitely in his district! While he’s dealing with that drama, Eileen is hanging out with Judd’s wife and a few other wives of government officials. Looks like they’re all getting together to talk about their sex lives, dishing on all the drama in their lives. Eileen’s surprised to find out she’s not the only government wife who’s unhappy in her marriage. While Eileen’s lunching, Tommy’s still with his mistress, who is laying down the law as usual. She doesn’t want to hear anything about his problems, instead fixing him lunch so they can eat naked. And then he calls what they have together “nice” and she freaks out. She wants it to be called “naughty, naughty fun” and nothing more. Someone’s a little sensitive!

That night Michael’s meeting with Rudy, Deco’s buddy on the force. He wants to turn state’s evidence, give them enough information to put Freddie Cork away for a long time. Not that I think Michael’s going to go legit when all’s said and done. I’m pretty sure he’s just doing this so that Freddie can stop pilfering from his take. With the new baby on the way and his seizures not going anywhere, he needs to save as much as he can, and Freddie’s not helping him out any. After his meeting, Tommy heads to the bar to talk to Michael, make sure he doesn’t have anything to do with the drug dealers in Eileen’s aunt’s neighborhood. Before Tommy leaves, Michael asks him if he baptized his kids, too. Clearly the new baby is weighing heavily on his mind.

Looks like Eileen’s not the only lady who lunches! Rose is having dinner with a few of her girlfriends. While they’re eating her friend Evelyn has a stroke or heart attack or something, and passes out at the table! Next time we see the ladies, Rose is at the hospital bringing flowers to her friend. I guess Evelyn had a stroke, and is just going to be helpless until she dies, hooked up to machines for breathing and all that. Rose is pretty much ignoring her, having decided all she needs is a little peace, quiet and rest. Her other friend wants them to unplug her from the machine, let her go quietly into death, but Rose freaks out at this idea.

Back home, Tommy and Eileen hunker down in bed for the night, not having sex as per usual. When Tommy tries to make a pass at her and she turns him down, Tommy starts talking about how all the guys he work with have mistresses and visit hookers and all that stuff. It would seem that he’s trying to threaten her, remind her that she’s not the only place he can get his rocks off.

Back at the station, Deco shows them a file of Colin and Michael burning down the car lot. Turns out they can’t say Michael was there, because Michael has turned state’s evidence! Deco gets pretty pissed off, but before he can storm out the chief threatens that if Freddie finds out about this newest development, they’ll blame him. Despite all that Deco’s going through and all the dirty shit he’s involved in now, he still fancies himself a good cop and takes SERIOUS offense to that!

While Michael and Colin are out collecting debts for Freddie, Colin (who doesn’t seem to ever shut up!) tells Michael he thinks that Michael should be in Freddie’s position, he should be in Michael’s, and Freddie should be six feet under. I’m thinking that’s Michael’s plan, but now that Freddie’s cutting into all his financials, it’s probably going to happen even sooner. And if Michael can get Freddie pinched, that leaves The Hill wide open for him to take. This doesn’t mean Colin should be telling him how to do it or when to do it, though.

Rose is taking Mary Rose dress shopping (maybe for homecoming) and still won’t talk about her friend Evelyn. She’s also trying to get Mary Rose to get a sexy dress, all the while telling her that she should trust her instincts when it comes to thinking a boy is less than admirable. They decide on a little black number, and it turns out she doesn’t even have a reason to have the dress! Then Mary Rose insults her, saying “if you were my age, you would be a hipster”. Poor Rose, she still fancies herself a hipster and doesn’t like reminders that she’s getting older. So to spite her, she tells Mary Rose the dress isn’t really going to work for her after all, that she doesn’t have the bust for it. What a bitch!!!

Tommy’s still trying to get the neighborhood cleaned up, and the police are just telling him that he should get Michael to clean it up for him. When he reminds the cops Michael doesn’t work for him, they tell him they’ll help him clean up the neighborhood if he can work out a way for them to get 300 kevlar vests. He tells them he’ll try to pass through a budget ammendment to get the the police the vests they deserve. Meanwhile Michael is at the bank, dropping off money to be laundered through the restaurant. He then tells the banker that the three of them (him, the banker, and Freddie) should sit down to reorganize the portfolio in order to make them all much happier. Poor banker man is super scared he’s about to get whacked. At the coffee shop the next day, while Freddie and the banker are meeting to discuss plan, Ralphie is watching from the window across the street. Phase one of setting up Freddie is in place. They’re even recording it!

Now that the cops have their kevlar vests, they waste no time making a big show of arresting all the shady types down in the neighborhood. One of the policemen makes a point of telling Tommy it’s pointless, however. Within a week they’ll all be back, business as usual. Who wants to bet he takes his development company in there and works his magic? Speaking of, Eileen shows up at a function just as Tommy’s new business partner is getting done with a speech. She sees Judd and his wife, and goes over to talk to them, Judd rambling on semi-incoherently about getting older and the price you pay for all the greatness you strive for when younger. He thinks he’s there to get some sort of award, and when he figures out he’s not, his wife says she’s exhausted and so he’s saved. And now Eileen knows Judd is sick.

Looks like the Mayor is taking action against Tommy’s desire to clean up the neighborhood, giving a press conference about the racist police that raided the neighborhood, saying innocent Latino bystanders were hurt and arrested, and so he’s going to weed out the bad apples that caused the ruckus. He immediately goes into the Mayor’s office to freak out on him, only to find the Mayor is also now not going to support his bid for re-election, as there’s about to be more Hispanics on the Hill than Irish. Looks like he’s looking for a new candidate to support!

Back at the police station, Deco turns in his revised report and asks why he’s still crawling through the gutter if they’ve got Michael in their pocket and Freddie’s as good as cooked. The chief tells him that’s all he’s good for! Low blow Chief, low blow. That statement is going to come back to haunt him for sure, as Deco knows Michael better than they do, and has already tried to warn Ralphie that he’s being used for Michael’s ends rather than acting in control like he thinks he is.

Over at Freddie’s house, Michael finds out that even though Freddie and the banker have worked out their differences, he’s still going to get the short end of the stick when it comes to the restaurant. When the doorbell rings, he asks Michael to get the door. Before he can even get it all the way open the police are barging through, arresting Freddie in front of his kids. And where Michael should be happy, he’s strangely saddened that the kids had to see all of it go down. Painting that night at Cath’s house, it looks like they’ve decided on yellow for the room instead of green. Cath is talking about the pregnancy, and Michael is super distracted by everything that went down at Freddie’s house. And that’s when he drops the bomb that he’s not up for being a father after all. I guess it was seeing Freddie’s kids scared like that that convinced him.

Tommy’s over at his mistress’s house, breaking the no sex while looking at me rule. Turns out she’d called earlier to apologize to him for getting all crazy the other day, and says that she thinks the relationship is nice, too. And Tommy reminds her that he meant the moment and not the relationship, and she gets all hurt. Which is when Tom gets up to leave, because he told Eileen that the meeting he was supposed to be at would be over at 9pm. Dana’s super pissy about the whole thing, and suddenly Tommy’s got some sort of conscience about it all, reminding her that Eileen being his wife means something.

Rose is not doing so well with the whole aging thing, clearly, and when Mave shows up at her house to tell her Evelyn has passed (because she signed the papers) Rose freaks out on her. Turns out the reason Rose wanted to keep her on the machines was because she didn’t want the doctors giving up on Evelyn. The services are the next day, and Rose is so worked up about it all that she says she can’t even make it.

Tommy’s back at Eileen’s aunt’s house, and he sees Colin collecting from little Irish boys in the same way the Dominicans were earlier in the week. This time Tommy doesn’t call the cops and ask for a shakedown again, he simply asks Colin to make sure no one bothers Eileen’s aunt. Way to let your true racist flag fly Tommy! Once he gets home, it turns out Eileen’s left him some food to warm up, but while he’s trying to get it taken care of she comes downstairs and warms it up for him. She’s being strangely kind to him; must’ve been all that crap Judd said about him needing her!

At the bar, Michael is fielding questions from Freddie’s lawyer, and it turns out he’s not going to get any bail because he’s considered a flight risk. Michael immediately takes charge, and when Mo gets mad that he’s the one in charge now, he reminds him Freddie’s put him in that position. And Colin knows Michael had something to do with Freddie suddenly being gone, which won’t turn out well.

Catch up on old episodes:
season one recaps
One Too Many Mornings (s2, e1)
Down In The Flood (s2, e2)
The Lonesome Death Of … (s2, e3)
Not Dark Yet (s2, e4)
Dear Landlord (s2, 35)

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