Lucky 7 - Recap: Easy Money, Hard Living

Credit: ABC

The story centers on how everyone's lives have changed in response to hitting the lottery, in addition to the problems resulting from the fallout of last week's robbery. Like the premiere, much of "Inside Job" centers on the Kolzak brothers, Matt (Matt Long) and Nicky (Stephen Louis Grush). Matt is still wrestling with his guilt over his role in the stick-up and the resulting injury to Bob (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.), while Nicky insists that coming forward could ruin things for everyone. Throughout the episode, Matt is faced with the increasing suspicions of Det. Minetti (Jason Weinberg), who is all but convinced of the Korzak brothers' guilt, going as far as to try and guilt-trip Matt into confessing by forcing him to identify the supposed perp in a lineup. That doesn't go as well as Det. Minetti had planned, as Matt can't bring himself to accuse an innocent man, but Minetti still has evidence to go on, as he and his partner discover that Nicky's car was ticketed a block away from the Gold Star station on the night of the robbery, an hour after he had supposedly left to go on a date. "It's an inside job, just like we thought," the detectives confirm, though they still don't have much more than a parking ticket and Matt Long's sweaty brow to go on.

Credit: NBC

Naturally, the show spends all this time on the brothers' guilt only to morally exonerate them by revealing that had Nicky not broken a bottle over Bob's head, the doctors wouldn't have discovered a brain tumor that could have killed him within six months. Of course, it might still kill him anyway, but hey, Bob has a fighting chance now! He even goes as far as to say, while announcing the diagnosis to his employees, that if the person who attacked him were in the room, he'd give the man a kiss. But because everyone in this cast has some kind of secret they're keeping, we learn that Bob is withholding the severity of his diagnosis (either that, or he's in serious denial about his prognosis). It's hard to care about Bob at this point as anything other than an abstract symbol of pure goodness, as there isn't really much of a character there at this point, although Isiah Whitlock, Jr. does the best that he can with the material. He's one of the two best parts of this series, with the other being Luis Antonio Ramos as Antonio, who gets a storyline of his own this week.

Credit: ABC

Antonio's son is suspended from school for fighting, as we learn that ever since Antonio lost out on the lottery, kids at school have been picking on him and using the Clemente name as a byword for failure. We see how having his family name ruined has affected Antonio, and Ramos delivers the most affecting performance of the episode. I'd argue he's the one actor doing naturalistic work, particularly in the episode's best scene, a news profile on Antonio's background. In the bit, Antonio describes being taken by his father to see Roberto Clemente play baseball as a kid, and though the scene is a relatively straightforward monologue about why Antonio loves baseball, it manages to show that this is a man worthy of our respect -- a kind soul who endures despite circumstances failing to pan out the way he hoped they would. He's not presented as a parallel to the rest of the ensemble so much as he's presented as a contrast to them, and though it's not unfathomable to think he might inevitably break under the strain of having to always take the high road, he's the show's one fully-formed character.

Credit: ABC

As for the rest of the episode, Denise (Lorraine Bruce) is an exhausting character, due mostly to the accent Lorraine Bruce chooses, in addition to the shrill nature of the role, which is a shame because Bruce manages to create a character with a certain level of pathos underneath her forcefully cheery facade. In one scene towards the end of the episode, after being ignored by her husband for the umpteenth time, she contemplates an affair with the cable guy by answering a text from her husband's phone and arranging for the technician to come around the following Wednesday, when she'll be home alone. If nothing else, this gives Denise a secret of her own to add to the litany of secrets being kept in this series. However, there is a little bit more to the story than this late-episode development: though she loses the winning lottery ticket in the opening moments of the episode, the matter is quickly resolved when Antonio finds the winning stub and returns it to Denise, and in her euphoria, she decides to take the other girls shopping in preparation for a gala being held by the lottery agents. There isn't much to the inevitable shopping sequence itself, but it does show how Denise is acclimating to suddenly having money, with the housewife going as far as to leave a kind retail salesperson a tip of over $700. It's hard to imagine that her recklessness in the face of her sudden wealth won't come back to bite her.

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Both Samira (Summer Bishil) and Leanne have stories of their own this week as well: Samira ends up looking like a million bucks when she goes to the club to meet with Nicky, against her better judgment (since she claims to want no part of the trouble that seems to follow Nicky). But the date, in which Nicky charms Samira by recalling overhearing her sing one of her songs one night after work, ends in disaster when the couple is approached by the thugs to whom Nicky owes money. They beat him up as Samira begs for them to stop, and though they eventually do, it's not without raising the price of Nicky's debt. Horrified by the spectacle, Samira breaks things off with Nicky for good, opting instead to date Naveed (Gabe Grey), the doctor with whom her father set her up. It's a terribly overwrought storyline, from the ex-con looking to get out of the game, to the forbidden romance that can never be. Samira even uses the words "We're from two different worlds" at one point, and it's just too much for such little return on the investment being asked of the audience, in addition to Bishil and Grush having virtually no chemistry whatsoever. This means that their romance ends up being eminently less effective than it could or should be.

Credit: ABC

Another potential romance that isn't really working is the one between Matt and Leanne (Anastasia Phillips), who seem to have some sort of history, even if nothing is coming of it at the moment. Long and Phillips don't have much chemistry, but thankfully, the story isn't really about their bond as potential lovers, but their connection as friends. Leanne confesses to Matt that she has a secret of her own -- her daughter isn't really her daughter. She fostered the girl for several years when she was placed in her care after being taken from a drug-addicted mother. However, when Leanne tried to adopt the girl, the drug-addicted mother decided she wanted her daughter back. In response, Leanne fled with the child and started a new life. Naturally, she fears that winning the lottery will place them in the public eye and risk their being caught. Once again, a fairly straightforward story, although I'm not sure the show needs yet another character who's keeping a secret that winning the lottery could expose/complicate. After a while, it all starts to seem too commonplace, as opposed to coming across as a truly unique situation dropped into the middle of everyday circumstances.

"Inside Job" is an episode that manages to somehow be less encouraging than last week's premiere, as the show seems committed to a direction that just isn't very compelling. It also doesn't help that there are only two or three likable characters, tops, in this entire ensemble. Hopefully, that could change at some point in the future, but I'm beginning to doubt the show could be that lucky.