No Good Deed Recap: Fathers & Sons & Uncles & Nephews

This kind of episode is what I meant when I was ranting about the need for some outside characters who actually knew Lydia and Paul before Jacob died to show up and flesh out some details. “Full Disclosure,” in which we watch Paul spending time with his nephew Nate as they try to track down Mikey’s whereabouts — or rather, Nate tries to track down Mikey, and Paul tries to throw him off the scent — really fills out Paul’s character and winds up being a real showcase for Romano.

When Nate shows up at his aunt and uncle’s doorstep, they invite him in and do their best to welcome him — Aunt Lydia’s famous hot cocoa! — while also lying through their teeth about not having any clue where Nate’s dad is. They attempt to get him out of the house as quickly as possible, but all of their terrible improvising about sleep hygiene — it’s even worse than JD, if you can believe it — goes out the window when Nate gets a ping that Mikey’s phone has been traced to Elysian Park, exactly where Paul tossed it earlier in the day. Paul doesn’t have much of a choice but to head out with his nephew and make sure he doesn’t find anything incriminating.

While their investigation doesn’t turn up much that Paul needs to worry about — the phone is water-logged and unusable, and when he forces Nate to go to Mikey’s apartment, there’s nothing there that implicates him or Lydia — it does force Paul to look at some of his collateral damage. Paul has legitimate reasons to be angry with Mikey, but surely some of the rage he’s been taking out on his brother is anger at and about Jacob that he hasn’t dealt with yet. While Mikey certainly isn’t unharmed by any of this, the very innocent Nate is getting hurt, too. Watching his nephew get upset thinking that the cryptic “love you” text he got from Paul pretending to be Mikey, paired with his sudden disappearance, means his dad might have tried to kill himself is pretty unbearable for Paul.

Once he assures Nate his dad must be alive with a half-eaten banana he sets up in the kitchen as proof that Mikey’s been there recently, which sounds insane, but I’ll have you know it does the trick, Nate opens up about his conflicted, complex relationship with his father. He tells Paul that when his dad got out of prison, he promised he’d give him $80,000 to help pay for a house, but he hasn’t seen him since. “Why do I always believe him?” he asks his uncle. Well, now Paul knows what that $80,000 was for, or at least the initial ask, but mostly, it gives him perspective on Mikey and surely gets him thinking about his relationship with Jacob.

There’s no way Paul can look at Nate without thinking about his own son. We haven’t really seen Paul be vulnerable, but it’s almost as if he can’t help it around Nate. He tells him that he believes his dad over and over again because he’s his dad, and he wants to believe him and believe that he can change. It was the same with Paul and his own father. “We didn’t have a good role model,” he tells Nate. It’s when Nate starts talking about Jacob, about how it seems like Paul was able to do a good job with his son, unlike Mikey, and how he wishes there had been justice for what happened to his cousin that really gets to Paul. We’ve only seen him brush away any mentions of his son or, like with Lydia, make fun of her for her attachment, but he can’t brush it away here. He thinks about that night he died, about unmasking him as the robber, about having to lie about his own son’s death. We know that he and Jacob didn’t always have the best relationship and that he was hard on his son. Any and all of the guilt and pain Paul must feel about his son and his son’s death are all finally on the surface. I mean, this guy isn’t going to bawl his eyes out, but the few tears we see on his face are huge for Paul. And that “you are never a waste of time, kid,” he offers Nate as his nephew leaves is so much more poignant than the simple sentence lets on. It’s laced with so much regret and grief and love. Ray Romano! In a dark comedy! Making me all misty-eyed!

If only Lydia could see Paul now. Actually, it’s probably best she doesn’t see this because she would be too angry to appreciate it. Why is she angry? Well, when Paul heads out with Nate, she is left to talk to Mikey about getting the location of all the evidence he has stashed somewhere. Looking at the security camera, she can see Mikey is in distress. She doesn’t want him to die! She cares about him! But also very much understands he is very happy to be a threat to her and her husband, what with all the blackmail, etc. So she does break the wall down, and when Mikey tells her he is in withdrawal and needs his pills, she gets those pills … but holds them hostage until he tells her where the evidence is hidden. (In a toolbox in his apartment, he says.) Lydia’s getting shit done! And you know what else? There is no way in hell she’s giving this man back his drugs. She has already flushed them down the toilet, she tells him. He could get clean and have a second chance with Nate. Why not at least try?

So Lydia helps Mikey detox. It’s actually very nice. And when he admits that he had been sober until that night when Jacob died, it’s another reminder of the collateral damage all of these lies have done. Will Lydia and Paul’s marriage also be on that list of collateral damage? When she blames herself and Paul for not being present enough with their kids, so much so that they had no idea Jacob was stealing from people’s homes, Mikey has an interesting response: Paul did know Jacob was having issues stealing because a year before he died, they had caught the kid stealing from a house they were working on. Paul knew and never told Lydia. Oh, Lydia is seething.

By the time Paul locates the box of evidence and gets home, he finds an empty house and a huge hole in the wall in Jacob’s room. But then something funny happens. And not ha-ha funny even though this is supposed to be a COMEDY, in case you forgot!! (I’m saying that with love because I did not expect this episode to have me all up in my feelings like this!!) Paul sees the light in Jacob’s room flickering. But more than seeing it, he gets it. He’s letting Jacob back in and all the emotions that come with it, and he finally gets it.

Closing Costs

• You really have to feel for JD, who is learning just how much his wife has been lying to him, because — SURPRISE! — Margo’s dead brother Bobby, from her sob story about the house fire, is alive and living on JD’s boat, and also Margo’s real name is Luann. What else is she lying about?

• JD’s lies about being cast in Marvel’s Captain World Universe Man (more of those improv skills at work!) don’t seem so bad now, huh?

• Admittedly, I’m not very moved or interested in Dennis’s story. Everyone’s great, and perhaps we’re supposed to draw parallels about other children/parent stories here, but mostly, the whole thing feels so disconnected from the main plot. Why do we need this? He has a breakthrough in his novel during his CT scan and Carla’s water breaks while at breakfast, trying to make amends with Denise. At the hospital, when Carla confesses where Dennis is and that he thinks he’s going to die just like his father, Denise drops her own whopper of a secret: He didn’t inherit anything from his dad because that man was not Dennis’s biological father.

• Carla keeps ignoring calls from her dad. Tell me more about this!

• Carla spitting some truths as Dennis whines about dying before he has even gotten the proper tests: “As a Black woman giving birth in this country, it’s way more likely I’ll die than you.” Dennis’s response: “You’re just trying to make me feel better!”