The Televangelist: ‘Luck’ Season 1, Ep 6

• HBO.com
• No, I TOTALLY swear that I did NOT punk that other jockey.

An earthquake! A miracle! The second coming of Man O’War! With everything that “Luck” packed in last night, I was shocked that it still came in under an hour. It was also an episode that reminded me of a criticism that I and many other critics had of another HBO show, “Big Love,” which had an ambitious number of ends to get to, but in the end became too controlled by them. So far, “Luck” has taken the opposite trajectory of “Big Love.” It was a show about a family, but it got so bogged down in wacky subplots regarding casinos and fundamentalist compounds that in the last two seasons episodes were more about plot points than story. We lost the best thing about the show - exploring the relationships among the wives and their families - in favor of wild trips to Mexico and political scheming for low public offices. Despite a dizzying number of plots, characters and insider jargon to start with, “Luck,” as it has continued, has gone the “Mad Men” route of storytelling, where being immersed in the world is (so far) the point of the show. We know with “Luck” that there are things on the horizon, like Ace’s scheme to bring down Mike and the “Three Stooges,” which will seem to take at least a season, if not the entire series, to unfold. But beyond that it’s slowed down into a deep character study that is never fully resolved in a single episode, to its benefit.

Take for instance the Joey story, which was a continuation from his spiraling downward last week. In the first few episodes, Joey appeared to be a comic figure, one who was stressed out but knew how to manage his jockeys well enough. But over the last few episodes that all fell apart, and last week in particular, Joey was seen making desperate calls to his estranged wife and seeming to deeply reconsider his place both in his chosen career and in the wider world. It all came to a head after a desperately awkward and painful conversation with his ex, after which Joey resolves to kill himself. Saved by the shock of the earthquake that made the bullet ricochet around the room and across his cheek rather than through his brain, Joey finds afterwards that his trademark stutter completely disappeared. In two fantastic follow-up moments, Joey carefully reads the label on his shirt, unable to believe he can do so without a speech impediment. Later, with new confidence, he strutted into the bar and called out to everyone, hoping that they would notice. They didn’t, or didn’t seem to (or care) except for Ronnie, who has been relegated lately to nothing more than a black hole of negativity. Later Ronnie childishly and cruelly confronts Joey, who responds with the hint of a stutter returned. What does it all mean? What was it all for? Joey’s story does not end here, and it’s an odd kind of minor character-specific cliffhanger that made me want to watch the next episode immediately.