‘Ray Donovan’: A New Season of Family Trouble

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In the grim world of Ray Donovan, no good deed goes unpunished, at least five or six times. And sometimes no good deed is done, just to teach Ray a cosmic lesson. The Showtime series about the ultimate Los Angeles fix-it man, Donovan is back for a fourth season on Sunday night, and it finds our central character — the series really doesn’t want me to call Ray “our hero” — as enmeshed in trouble and pain as he’s ever been.

The season begins, however, on a rare positive note. Since we last saw him, Liev Shreiber’s Ray is six months sober and can be found sitting in a circle of abuse survivors, sharing. That’s right: monosyllabic, tough-guy Ray is sharing at least some of his feelings. He wants some merciful release from the psychic pain he’s endured — not just from the day-to-day troubles brought on by his job and his family (particularly his irascibly criminal father, Jon Voight’s Mickey), but also from the deep emotional wounds inflicted by his childhood sexual abuse.

Related: ‘Ray Donovan’ Star Eddie Marsan Previews ‘Very Complicated, Very Dysfunctional’ Season 4

Of course, there are other subplots as well. Mickey has escaped the law and is working in a casino run by a colorful thug played by Ted Levine, which means this is a little reunion for the two actors, who both appeared in the great Michael Mann film Heat. There’s also a storyline about Hector, a boxer (Ismael Cruz Cordova) who becomes a sort of client of Ray’s (these things are shady and fluid), enlisting Donovan to locate his stepsister, a tough drug addict played by Lisa Bonet, who gives a terrifically hard-bitten performance.

I’m not sure that I should spoil the nature of a medical condition Ray’s wife Abby (Paula Malcomson) learns about, except to say that it only increases the already fragile state of their marriage. It also doesn’t help that Ray misses what seems like his 2,483rd family dinner that he promised to be home for because he’s too busy throwing punches.

Based on the first two episodes made available for review, I’m certainly hooked on Ray Donovan once again, even as I’m feeling the show is going over a lot of the same ground. Since the departure of creator Ann Biderman, new showrunner David Hollander has clearly decided that the richest territory to mine is the ongoing healing of Ray’s childhood traumas, and I’m not sure I agree. I like Donovan best when it’s more of a crime show, but I’ll take this version for the intermittent rewards it yields regularly.

Ray Donovan airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on Showtime.