By Stacey Harrison
Gemma is back, amping up the crazy. She has Ray (Jim) meet her for a session with her therapist. She begins railing at him about what he did to her, and how his father’s money is like vomit in his throat. Ray tries to play along, giving as good as he gets, and Gemma storms out, pays him a nice bit of cash and goes on her way. Ray’s pretty happy with the arrangement, but Tanya feels there must be a protocol here.
Against Ray’s advice — he’s all for letting a good thing alone — Tanya confronts Gemma at her office. Gemma is, shall we say, dismissive, telling “Terry” that she’s just going to ignore her and keep scheduling appointments with Ray however she chooses. Tanya loses her cool and fires Gemma as a client, whatever that means. She also lets slip Ray’s real name.
Jessica pushes Ron to know the true state of their finances, but he’s still vague, settling on telling her they’re not rich but they’re not poor either. And that he would be happy to buy her something. Not satisfied, Jessica and her mother go snooping around Ron’s office at the house to try to get some answers. They ultimately find a document that shows Ron has lost more than $800,000 in the stock market.
Ray’s house is looking much better these days, but as everyone who visits him points out, it still smells pretty bad. Darby and Damon are over, looking at ads for used cars when Darby trots off to make a call to Hammer. Damon is flustered over the whole thing, but Ray’s recent experiences have mellowed him a bit, enough to give Hammer the benefit of the doubt. People are complex, he tells his son, like an onion. The more you peel, the more layers you find. To which Damon retorts, no, Dad, you just find more onion. Tanya walks in, and Ray is immediately unnerved by the convergence of his two separate lives.
That quickly turns to frustration with Tanya, though, when she mentions her unpleasant encounter with Gemma. She assures him she can fix it, and places a somewhat recalcitrant call to Gemma, telling her she will still be allowed to be a client, as long as she follows procedures. Cut to Ray and Gemma having a nice dinner where they are about to go from overlooking protocol to taking their relationship to an entirely different level altogether. She pushes him to tell her his real name, even offering to pay him. The more he refuses, the more turned on it gets her. He eventually tells her his name (which she already knew — I think she fell for him the second she knew he told her the truth) and that he’s a high-school basketball coach.
At his next game, the Wolfpack are getting pasted yet again and Ray just can’t get his head in the game, leaving most of the pep talks to his assistant coach. He looks up in the stands to see not only Jessica and the twins there, but also Tanya, who pretty much had nothing better to do. It’s also kinda apparent that Damon has a little thing for Tanya. Jessica is perfectly pleasant to Tanya, but is obviously curious as to her relationship with Ray. When Tanya replies, “It’s complicated,” Jessica presses. “How so?” But it’s not this drama that Ray is concerned with. He’s looking for Gemma, who inconceivably walks through the door as the team is down late. Suddenly, Ray finds a spark. He wants Gemma to see him win, dammit. He steps in with a nice rah-rah speech (though it doesn’t beat the pilot’s dung-beetle speech, for my money) and the team responds with a nice comeback to end their losing streak. Ray walks over and plants one on Gemma, who’s suitably swooning. He catches up with Tanya, who is livid that he has let a client into his life. Ray says he trusts Gemma, and leaves it at that.
He takes his new love interest around the school, shows her the trophy case, and says he might just have to stop charging her.
