“The family that drinks together sinks together,” Cousin Eddie Gavin once wisely said, right before drinking. To call this episode a shipwreck would be putting it mildly. Tommy’s been sinning all season, and his indiscretions have finally caught up with him: Just when he finally finds someone he appears to truly care about (partner in child grief Kelly), his world combusts around him. Ellie’s fatal drunk car crash is only the beginning of a virtual Tommy-propelled trainwreck, which, well, doesn’t end well for anyone involved. At episode’s end, Sheila is battered, shamed, and handcuffed to her bed; Janet is the victim of a kidnapping; the crew is trapped in the bar; Katie and Colleen are clearly watching amusing YouTube videos together (okay, well, that at least seems like normal sisterly behavior); and Tommy — well, we’ll get to him. At least we know there’s another season to look forward to!
Sheila and Janet
S: “I’m only gonna say this once. Sit down. Or I will kick you in the vagina. And you know I will.”
J: “Never, ever, reference my vagina again. Ever.”
Each of the ladies in Tommy’s life has a plan to come out on top and squash Kelly in the process. For Janet, it involves serving Tommy with divorce papers. For Sheila, it involves her usual “Joe Pesci with tits” routine (well said, Kelly), and the idea that she and Janet together should scare a little sense into Kelly. How surprised were we then when not only did the plan not work, but it ended in a street fight? Not at all!
Tommy
To Lou: “Okay, fine, it was like a religious experience. Yes. I had the biggest boner. It was weird. Like an empathy boner.”
It’s taken Tommy an unusually long time to realize what a conniving little man Damian is; thanks to Keefe the younger, Kelly’s piping mad and knows that Tommy hasn’t kept the secret of her dead baby to himself. Elsewhere, Tommy ropes Lou into a kidnapping scheme and debates Katie on the legality of said kidnapping (“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re kidnapping you”), and then begins a round of cheesy toasts with the crew at the bar … with unexpected results.
Teddy
To Tommy: “There’s this thing they call karma, I’m sure you heard about it. You live a shitty life; usually before it’s over, bad karma comes back and bites you in the balls. You seem to do whatever you want, and nothing bad ever happens. Everybody around you gets killed, or crashed, or burned up. But you, you always seem to survive.”
Teddy’s never been the most emotionally stable of the already teetering Gavin clan, so we worried when, at episode’s beginning, he refused to blame anyone but himself for Ellie’s death (especially after we learn that the family drank before, during, and after the funeral). Turns out, we were right: Like an Irish-Catholic vigilante left out of Pulp Fiction, he later proceeds to go apeshit on Tommy and the crew and, let’s face it — for a man usually somewhat jolly even when angry, he scares us silly, especially because he’s sober. Tommy’s finally paying for all his irresponsibility, all at once, apparently. Cue end of season, with Tommy slowly bleeding to death on the floor, the crew silently waiting, and Teddy wandering about with a loaded gun. See you in Season Six!
