Hollywood Ending season 1, episode 17
A tale of two cities.
We are in Hollywood and Miss Sanchez is all googly eyed about her singing audition at Capitol Records.
Back in Vegas, DA Reynolds is not having a good evening. He’s not happy about being Savino’s bag man. “You either carry your weight or become dead weight”, Vince tells him. While he is talking to Savino, Mia and her guys take the briefcase full of money out of the DA’s trunk.
Savino makes a call. Ralph, Jack and Kathryn are listening. Unfortunately, the DA isn’t on the phone so no one realizes he is the avocado (the one getting the skim out under the nose of the Feds).
A mystery woman shows up at the Savoy. Lady Heather fans rejoice. She and Vince get hot and heavy quickly. The mystery woman is Lena Rizzo, Mia’s mother.
Kathryn tells DA Reynolds about the tap in passing. Again refers to the bag man as the avocado. And she tells him that the Feds and Agent Burns are involved as well. The DA almost lurches. Kathryn notices but the DA laughs it off.
In Hollywood, Dixon is trying to crash the gates of the studio to get in to see Violet.
Back in Las Vegas, Kathryn and Mia talk. Anvils begin falling from the sky. Kathryn tries to get Mia to realize that the screws are tightening on Savino. Kathryn wants Mia to roll over on Savino. Mia ain’t buying. She gets all huffy with Kathryn.
In Hollywood, Dixon and Miss Sanchez finally crash the gates and see Violet. She has plans she can’t cancel but she really wants to see Dixon. But not yet. They end up getting invited to a party that Violet’s manager/lover is throwing.
In Vegas, the DA is missing. A bad guy he put away was paroled and he knows that the law knows about the skim. Is he legitimately missing or has he planned his escape?
Lena and Mia meet. Do we care? Mia is not happy to see her. Seems all these years, Mia thought she was dead. Daddy Rizzo thought she was fooling around. She wasn’t but Daddy threatened to kill her if she ever came back. Now that he’s dead, it’s safe to come around, I guess.
In Hollywood, we have no idea how Miss Sanchez’s audition went as we never saw it. But we see her and Dixon at the party (so it’s the next day). Miss Sanchez gets the chance to sing a Cuban duet at the party. Does Aimee Garcia have another gig?
Dixon is too busy kissing on Violet to notice how well Miss Sanchez sings. But Violet’s manager notices and tells her to come by his office the next day to audition. She sees the manager and one of his goons assault a photographer.
Back in Vegas, Ralph smiles (DRINK!!!) and the search continues for the missing DA.
There’s too many stories going on. Dixon, Miss Sanchez and Violet, Mia and her mother, the missing DA, the skim and the investigation.
Vince gives Mia the ledger with all the skim info in it because she came up with the right idea to keep Chicago happy while they try to find the missing avocado, er, DA. This will come back to haunt him.
Seems the DA set up the paroled bad guy to mislead the cops. So, Reynolds staged his own kidnapping.
Agent Burns is the one who realizes that Reynolds is the avocado. You think that sounds silly reading it, imagine the actors reciting it. Come to find out, Savino wasn’t saying avocado, he was saying Italian for lawyer.
But, unfortunately, for Reynolds, Ralph catches him coming out of the bank with his money as he is about to hit the road into oblivion. Oh well.
Kathryn is so disappointed in Reynolds and she lets him know. They even shout-out to the poor, dead sheriff from the first episode. Agent Burns wants Reynolds to be their inside man. Go back to Vince, get back in his good graces and rat him out.
In Hollywood, Miss Sanchez tells Dixon he can do better and, like everyone else in this show, he doesn’t listen to reason. Miss Sanchez goes to see her studio audition. The manager offers her a drink. This can’t end well. It’s the old casting couch. Miss Sanchez tries to leave, he calls her a derogatory name and starts to smack her around. She hits him with a crystal ashtray.
Lena and Mia have another reunion and more anvils fall from the sky about how Savino and his boys will screw Mia over when the Feds close in.
Vince and crew find the DA tied up in a motel room. Will Vince buy his story? This is Vegas, of course he will! Reynolds tells them Bade, the paroled bad guy is responsible. The skim is safe in the trunk of his car, in his drive way. He had to wire Bade all the money from his personal account in Ely. Why does the DA have a bank account in Ely and not Vegas? Who knows.
Dixon discovers that Barry, the manager, hit Miss Sanchez. He wants to kill him. Violet and Miss S talk him out of it.
Back in Vegas, the plan with Reynolds and the law goes forward. There is a shout-out to the local cemetery, Woodlawn. Ralph, of course, does not like the idea of Woodlawn, too isolated. Agent Burns is all for the drop. Did he just oversell his eagerness?
At the Savoy, Mia begins copying (by hand, this is the early 1960s), the ledger by hand. She goes downstairs and talks to Lena and puts her drinks on a tab. The ice is melting.
Watch those anvils, Mia. They can hurt.
At Woodlawn cemetery, the mausoleum is fit for a city the size of Los Angeles in 1960, not a city the size of Las Vegas. Vince brings Bade with him and tells Reynolds to kill him. Vince isn’t buying anyone’s story. Bade says he’s innocent, Reynolds says he’s not. Vince says kill him to prove he is telling the truth. At the last minute, Reynolds flinches and points the gun at Savino. It’s empty and Vince knows that Reynolds lied. That’s probably the last we saw of Reynolds.
In Hollywood, to the strains of Frankie, Dixon is beating the crap out of Barry.
In Vegas, they discover that the avocado has been killed.
RIP DA Reynolds.
This could have been a really good episode if there hadn’t been the side story in Hollywood. Oh well. It’s Vegas, baby.
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