KEEPING THE DEMONS AT BAY: Liev Schreiber scores a hit with his first regular series role as the lead in “Ray Donovan.” (
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Do you remember the first time you saw “The Sopranos,” “Breaking Bad” or “Six Feet Under” and you knew you were watching something you’d never seen before?
Get ready for that to happen to you again.
Showtime’s “Ray Donovan” is every bit as good as any of those other “What the hell did I just watch”?
It is about an LA “fixer.” OK, that doesn’t sound that original — right?
I was thinking “Michael Clayton” lite, and I was wrong.
Ray, played quietly yet frighteningly by Liev Schreiber, is a fixer of the violent-when-need-be kind. Think Tony Soprano, but without the belly or the grunting.
That said, “Ray Donovan” is no more a pure action show than “The Sopranos” was.
Ray, who is one of the most complex characters to come along on TV in a decade, is married to Abby (Paula Malcomson), and together they have two kids.
Ray also has two — make that three — brothers, and one father, the slick and horrible Mickey (Jon Voight).
On the premiere, dear old dad is getting out of prison after 20 years. Ah, freedom is a good thing, and Mick’s got his mind set to move to Cali to be with his loving family—which hates his guts. Even Ray wants him dead.
Not to worry. Mick hates Ray equally, and is out to kill him for framing him anyway.
But first Mick has to kill a priest in Boston.
Next thing you know, we’re inside the Beverly Hills bedroom of a world-famous athlete, Deonte (Mo McRae), and he has found a dead woman next to him in bed.
Hysterical, he calls his lawyer, Lee Drexler (Peter Jacobson), who, it turns out, is the primary source of income for Ray.
Meanwhile, another celebrity, Tommy Wheeler (Austin Nichols), an action star with a giant movie coming out, has just been sent a cellphone video of his oral sex adventure the night before with a tranny hooker.
And at the same time, the movie’s vile exec producer, Stu Feldman (Josh Pais), who is screwing around with a former Disney star (Ambyr Childers), demands that Ray find out if she’s screwing anyone else.
What Ray finds out is that she wants to screw him — and that she’s got a stalker, thus episode title, “The Bag or the Bat?”
Into the mix are Ray’s brothers — boxing gym owner Bunchy (Dash Mihok), who has Parkinson’s, Terry (Eddie Marsan), a recovering junkie/alcoholic, and the newly discovered sibling Daryll (Pooch Hall).
We also learn that Ray has moved his wife and their very complex kids, Bridget (Kerris Dorsey) and Conor (Devon Bagby) to Cali from Boston and nobody’s real happy about it.
Ray’s colleagues are an Israeli tough guy, Avi (Steven Bauer), crazy Ezra (Elliott Gould), who lapses into Yiddish, and lesbian right-hand woman Lena (Katherine Moennig).
Everyone is great, but Jon Voight? Brilliant.
His character snorts coke with Terry as if he’s sharing a beer with his boy, and gives his grandson advice you’ve never, ever heard on TV. Ever.
Great acting, writing and direction. Ray, baby! Where you been all my life?
Twitter: @lindastasi