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***Spoiler Alert***

Episode 7: “The Only Thing Sure”

“The only thing sure about luck, is that it will change” – Bret Harte

Also known as the episode where Kevin thinks he can’t lie, but he’s actually a great liar.

Episode 7. The last to air on TV, and will forever be the final nail in the coffin of NBC’s absolute stupidity during the 2000’s. Killed Freaks and Geeks in 2000. Gave American Dreams a slow death in 2005, and never released the already filmed series epilogue (a rough cut was shown years later at the 2013 ATX Festival).

April 2, 2007, THE DAY EPISODE 7 AIRS, NBC announces that they will pull The Black Donnellys from the air after the April 16, 2007 episode (presumably episode 9), due to “low viewership”. After they messed around with premiere dates, gave little promotion, and didn’t air the incredibly crucial episode 3.

To make things better, they don’t even hold to that, making episode 7 the last to air on NBC from the series. They instead replace the April 9 and April 16 time slots with a show that itself is quickly cancelled, “Thank God You’re Here”, and insult of all insults then airs a show called “The Real Wedding Crashers” WHICH WAS PULLED OFF AIR AFTER THREE EPISODES AND THEN CANCELLED.

What was the point of all this? WHAT WAS THE POINT?!?!?! You could’ve shown the series in its entirety on air, give it, and the viewers the respect we all deserved. Clearly the other two options weren’t making the numbers!  Really what a bunch of assholes.

Don’t worry, I recapped all of this, very intensely and with a lot of hand gestures, to an NBC News exec I happened to have an informational interview with in late May 2007. The same exec who told me “changes were coming”. Well, a little too late for my beloved Donnellys. I refused to watch anything on NBC – except the Olympics – for about 10 years, and have only recently come around to attempting to watch something if it lasts more than 5 episodes.

Anyway, let’s get back to episode 7. Bob the Mouth. Whitey’s uncle, loan shark, and backer of Whitey, Jimmy, and Kevin’s book. The boys are in the hole for $10,000, a bet made by the mysterious “Newton”, which was, of course, backed by Bob the Mouth.

Jimmy decides to paint the bar, with Joey’s help – who uses a trim brush which made me cry from laughing the first time I saw it, because the bigger brushes are “too heavy” – and that leaves Tommy to help Kevin collect the money from Newton. Not to help Jimmy, of course, but to give the money to Jenny for the diner, who’s mortgage is months behind. Mr. Reilly makes a precarious deal with Dokey, offering to sell him half the building for a bailout. You know the man is desperate. And, you know, Jenny’s cool with illicit activity as long as it helps her.

So off Tommy and Kevin go on a wild goose chase for Newton, along with a few other pickups. Rolling a pedicab guy for what he owes, attempting to collect from a mother who offers to pay Tommy in a … different way, in which he becomes totally horrified by the desperation gambling can cause.

They visit Newton’s workplace, where he clearly isn’t an employee, and then to his apartment, which is occupied by a friend of Kevin’s. Surprise, surprise, Kevin is Newton. The fact that he’s been basically calling himself all day, in such a serious manner in front of everyone, is both hilarious and a sign that he knows how bad it is. Especially since that $10k was covered by Bob.

Jimmy and Whitey are summoned to Bob the Mouth’s apartment, because they are late on the payback that week, and you know it’s not going to be good. Bob wants Whitey to kill Jimmy, which Jimmy knows and Whitey confirms. Is this going to be the scene that Joey foreshadowed?

Sean, who desperately wants to be involved in the family business – the real business – has tagged along and is on watch outside, to earn some cash. In addition to be hired at the Firecracker’s beverage manager. Only to see Bob’s body fly down from above and crush a car. Do you really want to enter the family business, Sean? Jimmy tries to tell him no and protect him, but he’s not as much of a hard ass with his little brother as Tommy would be, probably to Sean’s detriment.

Also enter Nadine, the jukebox saleswoman who sells one to Sean and Jimmy as Sean’s first act of being beverage manager, and who we see for the first time as well.

Meanwhile, Nicky and Vinnie are trying to stay alive and on Alo’s radar, and butting heads with Dokey on keeping the business deal between the Irish and the Italians alive.

Kevin and Tommy take what they’ve collected so far and decide to gamble on a horse, hoping to increase their profits (the mortgage money). At last, it comes to light why Kevin thinks he’s lucky. The last morning he spent with his dad, they looked at the horse races for the day, and Kevin picked out a horse for his dad to bet on, and his dad called him his “lucky charm”. That horse won, but when he got home, he found out his father had died.

And now it all makes sense – Kevin is a good gambler, his instinct is right, but the trauma from what happened with his father makes him fear his own intuition.

Side note – I just noticed a PERFECT continuity moment with young Kevin, showing him with a pencil in his left hand. Like current Kevin. I LOVE WHEN PEOPLE DO THESE THINGS. Also, I’m left handed and I just notice this stuff. 

Of course, Tommy bets on the first horse Kevin picks, knowing Kevin doesn’t trust himself, wins enough money for the diner, and then eventually gives it back to Jimmy because it’s Bob the Mouth’s, except Jimmy doesn’t tell him that Bob is dead. Maybe if Tommy had told him it was for Jenny, it would’ve gone differently.  Instead, Tommy borrows the money from Kate Farrell, who is not so subtly making a move on Tommy.  And really, who can blame her?

And so, Jenny gets the money she needs to pay the mortgage, but you know that Dokey isn’t going to take this well. The Firecracker gets painted, Sean is indoctrinated into the new line of the family business, and Kevin somehow manages to escape, again, from a gambling debt he owes. Love ya, Kev, but you’ve got a big problem to contend with.

Episode Notes: “The Black Donnellys” Episode 6

Sleepers: “The Black Donnellys”