Starz
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He won! He won! Yes Magic City‘s final episode saw Ike Evans regain control of the Miramar Playa but much like the African Americans celebrating the OJ verdict he may take time out to ponder “what the fuck did I win?” But let’s start from the beginning. Ike takes the big ledger book marked Ben Diamond’s Illegal Shit to Jack Klein. He’ll offer him a deal: Ben Diamond’s fuzzy balls on a platter in exchange for immunity for him and his dopey brief Sid. Klein makes a counter offer: that Ike go fuck himself. I don’t know, I’m not a trained negotiator but I feel like there could be some wiggle room there? Ike tells him if he won’t act then he’ll take it to the papers. “No, Mr Evans, no. I will arrest and convict and execute Ben Diamond, and I will do so standing on a pile of your bones”. OK, about that wiggle room…
Thus rebuffed Ike calls an emergency cuntference with the Secret 6 (Michael McIntyre’s next routine: “If they’re the Secret 6 how come we know about them, eh??”), the upshot that he and Meg write a paper editorial linking Nick the Prick‘s death to the gambling bill. It works a treat. The suits in Tallahassee get shook and the bill is merked. In an attempt to salvage something from the calamity a predatory Sy demands 40% of the Miramar profits from Ike AND the takings from the Havana operations – refuse and Ike and his family will be served Julienne style at Sy’s next barbecue. Ike doesn’t flinch however and tells Sy that the great ledger of leverage means that any harm coming to him or his will mean Sy dies in prison. “Checkmate you dirty Jew” is something he may conceivably have thought. You best believe Sy is pissed but he has to take it.
He’ll offer him a deal: Ben Diamond’s fuzzy balls on a platter in exchange for immunity for him and his dopey brief Sid. Klein makes a counter offer: that Ike go fuck himself. I don’t know, I’m not a trained negotiator but I feel like there could be some wiggle room there?
It gets worse. Ben Diamond’s goons blow him to kingdom cumface with a car bomb, presumably a pre-emptive strike by The Butcher after Nicky Grillo (deceased) turned up like the proverbial bad penny. So what next for The Butcher? Well there’s certainly time left for one last stranglewank over Stevie fucking his wife before killing them both. What Ben doesn’t know is that Lily has told Stevie about the arrangement and just as the boning is getting good he fires multiple shots through the one-way ceiling mirror sending a somewhat embarrassed and critically wounded mob boss crashing to the floor. Awks.
“I forgive you” Ben tells Stevie as his surrogate son puts the revolver to his head and pulls the trigger – damn, out of bullets. Real Jews don’t die. As he recuperates in hospital Jack Klein sits at his bedside assuring him that, with what he’s got in store for him, he’ll wish there was still a bullet in the chamber. Danny Houston smiles the shit-eating grin of a man who is fucking Olga Kurylenko in real-life and will therefore never have another problem of consequence as long as he lives.
Danny Houston smiles the shit-eating grin of a man who is fucking Olga Kurylenko in real-life and will therefore never have another problem of consequence as long as he lives.
But what’s Jack Klein got on Ben Diamond? I’ll tell you what: Ike’s book of secrets. Once Danny puts in a good word for his dad Klein sees the sense in seeing the bigger picture. He takes the deal and Ike and Sid have immunity. But when Judi Silver gets knifed to death by a Diamond henchman it’s the final straw for Danny who tells Ike he needs to get away from him and his shitbird social circle of mobsters, whores and killers. It’s a big blow for Ike in his moment of triumph. Both sons flipping him the bird has got to hurt a guy who regards himself as the ultimate family man.
Still he’ll always Vera right? Hot dancing Vera, the Queen of the Miramar? Well here’s the real bombshell of the episode with all due deference to the one placed underneath Sy’s car. When Ike gaily treads over her wish that he doesn’t go in with Meg it confirms in her mind that Stevie was right when he told her Ike would always choose the hotel over her. And that other stuff he said about the next time you come, come for me? She comes. We leave her parked in her car outside Stevie’s apartment. At the absolute minimum she’s thinking about it. The last we see of Ike he’s on the beach finger drawing the Miramar in the sand. His true love, his one temptation, finally his forever even if it cost him everything.
The last we see of Ike he’s on the beach finger drawing the Miramar in the sand. His true love, his one temptation, finally his forever even if it cost him everything.
It’s a great way to end the season and a fundamentally unsatisfactory way to end a series. Getting better wasn’t good enough for the viewers who just weren’t showing up in enough numbers and you can’t say Starz didn’t give the show support. I for one will remember this handsome little-engine-that-could finally realising its potential before being forcibly derailed, stripped of furnishings, doused in piss and sent to the scrapyard. Godspeed you into the afterlife Tragic Shitty.
The verdict: If a show dies in a forest and nobody was there to watch it does it make a noise?
Marks out of 10: 8