Tommy and TJ brood about Rie’s upcoming birthday, Dion struggles to finalize the menu and Pilar realizes that she hasn’t actually followed through on a liquor license for Thirio, which means they may not be able to open at all on this week’s FEED THE BEAST.
Back at New York’s one and only hospital, Patrick Woichick and Pilar visit their respective comatose family members. Pilar is overjoyed that her sister is awake and recovering, while Patrick promises his still-slumbering father that he will find the mole in their organization, the person most likely responsible for helping the Asians attack Ziggy in jail. As Patrick hovers over Ziggy and outlines his plan, and conveniently the episode’s plot, his monologue brings up the same nagging point: Couldn’t anyone come up with a better gang name than “the Asians?”
Meanwhile, Tommy faces his own illness in the family when he visits Aidan to ask for help with the liquor license. Aidan noncommittally promises his assistance, maybe, but behind closed doors Tommy hears him coughing his guts out.
Photo Credit: Ali Paige Goldstein/AMC
Dion turns to drug dealing to solve some financial problems at Thirio, clearly Patrick left his coke in safe hands, and gets a present from Detective Giordano – a concealed wire and microphone to wear at all times, because you can’t take down a criminal mastermind without one, right? It seems to be a giving day for Dion, as he also gets the news that his lawyer Marisa is pregnant with his child. Friendly reminder that Marisa is Detective Giordano’s daughter, because in Feed the Beast, everyone goes to the same hospital and everyone knows the same people.
TJ gets into an unprovoked fight in school, but when the school blames him for the incident, Tommy gets an ultimatum from the school counselor – child services will step in unless Tommy gets his life together for his son.
Luckily the school hasn’t been clued in to Aidan, who like any good grandfather congratulates TJ on his fight at school and gives him his first shooting lesson. It seems like everyone is closer to TJ than Tommy is, as the two get into a one-sided shouting match when TJ won’t explain what happened at school.
Photo Credit: Ali Paige Goldstein/AMC
Patrick invites his cousin Billy over for dinner, drinks and a little death by strangling. Mole problem solved. It’s one of the first times we’ve seen Patrick on his own turf, in almost-repose, and a reminder of how little development he’s had outside of the main storyline. Another little developed character gets some filling out; Giordano has a scene with Marisa as she shares the happy news about her pregnancy. It’s a little too late to make us care about their story individually, but clear that at some point it will have relevance to Dion, so…noted.
Patrick really is feeling domestic these days, inviting Dion over to sample his latest dish, andsee the latest decapitated head in his refrigerator. This is the last straw for Dion, he drops out of Giordano’s sting operation and gets the coke stash out of the restaurant.
Despite a few overdone scenes, it was refreshing to see the gangster subplot take a back seat again this week. Perhaps it was a ploy to create hype for the first few episodes, but the past two episodes have shaped Feed the Beast as more of a restaurant/family drama with just enough drugs and violence to make it PG-13.
Photo Credit: Ali Paige Goldstein/AMC
A flashback to happier times shows what Rie always wanted for her birthday: a perfect opening night at Thirio. Also a pony, but we’re going to brush past the cheesiness of Tommy leaving a plastic pony toy at her gravestone and pretend it never happened.
Flashbacks can go both ways though, and in the final moments as Tommy looks at a photo album of his family, he realizes that Rie and Dion may have been in love. It seems like a stretch, but if there’s one thing we know by now, it’s that on Feed the Beast, logic comes in second place to drama.
Season 1, Episode 5 (S01E05)
Feed the Beast airs Tuesdays at 10PM on AMC
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Heather makes things for TV by day and writes by night (also sometimes by day). She is a fan of all stories that reflect life, but it doesn’t hurt if they’re set on another planet or in another time.
Twitter: @Elianarra
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Heather West | Contributor
