(S01E07) Genesis 27:29: Finally Isaac spoke again and said to him: "Ah, far from the fertile earth shall be your dwelling; far from the dew of the heavens above!"

Last week Tommy (Jason Clarke) asked Eileen (Annabeth Gish) point blank if she was "on something." Well she is, but her husband isn't the one she admits it to. She turns to someone else instead, and gets dealt a pretty intense initial reaction -- even for this twisted family. Those Caffee's are one cold bunch, but then, that's how they'ved survived this long, and change is tough, this episode seems to say. The show gets better yet again this week, and way various characters are confronted this time with their own shattered illusions, is just one example of how really well-written this is.
Speaking of cold, Mike gets Tommy to help grease the wheels of an old movie theater renovation project, which just happens to put money in Mike's pocket. He really is trying to do something nice again here for the neighborhood, but like everything else Michael Caffee touches, it turns to shit, and Freddie swoops in for his own payday. Well, security was a little lax at the benefit, considering the neighborhood.

Michael's right-hand-man Pete has a depressing subplot, and we see a lot of Declan this week, in a touching but tragic interaction with an old hood. I love how my least favorite character -- evil mother Rose -- ends up working at the same "big box" store where she trampled right through an employee's sweeping-up earlier in the episode. The store is actually called Big Box, so that there's no confusion. But the management is so hard-nosed and heartless, I even felt a bit sorry for Rose again, dammit.