Last night’s Vegas was a first for the show.
Sheriff Ralph Lamb and mobster Vincent Savino worked together…sort of.
After opening with a fairly amusing scene of Ralph and Dixon putting fear into a trio of convenience store robbers, we’re introduced to Dr. Howard Safran. I have to say, I really like how Vegas has been giving some introductions to the victims rather than simply opening on their murders.
Over at The Savoy, men from the Gaming Control Board let themselves into the card room, interrupting Mia Rizzo’s work, with information that the mayor has authorized their presence in every casino on the strip, to ensure an honest count for the city. Mia, of course, is in no way happy about their arrival, and in her haste she knocks over one of the workers’ glasses of alka-seltzer. The effervescent spill reaches a chip lying on the table, and out of the corner of her eye Mia notices the finish of the chip fizzle off, and pockets it to take to Savino. As expected, Savino is quite angry over the presence of fake chips in his casino, but first needs to get the account men out of his card room, which means he has to put off plans with his less-than-happy wife, Laura.
So what of Dr. Safran? His patient, a young girl, wakes up from the anesthesia she had been given and logically goes looking for the doctor, only to find him murdered. The Lamb brothers arrive to begin their investigation, coming across the interesting evidence that Howard had gold underneath his fingernails and a hidden black book of gambling debts totaling almost $40,000. The Lambs trace the debt to a bookie named “Jimmy the Pollack,” but instead of finding the man angry with Howard for not paying his due, they learn that he was paid in full by the dentist the week prior. So how did Safran pay the man back?
Meanwhile, Savino decides that they need a mayor on the mob’s side when Mayor Bennet stands firm on his new policy about the casinos. Enter George Grady, a relatively quiet man. Savino proceeds to tell Grady that he could take the race, provided he can make himself look mayoral during the television broadcast of the debate. He needs Savino to win the race, but at the same time, Grady is not ignorant to the fact that Savino needs him as well.
But just how does all of this lead to Lamb and Savino working together? Well, when the lawmen find Safran’s lab trashed and pieces of phony casino chips, Sheriff Lamb heads to The Savoy to see if Savino knows anything about it — because apparently, Savino is the only mobster in the town to question. Savino, ever the suave businessman, explains to Lamb that it’s more trouble to kill the man making the chips when he could simply change them out for the real thing, The entire exchange between the two men dances around each asking the other for help, though somehow they reach an understanding that helping each other is exactly what they need to do to solve the case. Savino takes Lamb to Jackie Sullivan, a counterfeiter who has been being questioned by Savino’s associates, who gives up the knowledge of someone using dental cement to make the chips. The only logical leap for Lamb is that Safran had been using the counterfeit chips in The Savoy to get cash to pay his debt.
Jack Lamb and Mia Rizzo set to the task of sorting through exchange checks from The Savoy’s transactions. The two manage to find slips indicating Safran’s illegal activity, all while tossing teasing looks and flirtatious banter back and forth. As it turns out, Safran had been consistently exchanging chips for cash with the same cashier, in amounts all under two thousand dollars, so as not to leave a paper trail.
Savino and the Sheriff do in fact work together — again, sort of — to figure out what is going on, and find two of the casino’s security guards tied up in the main safe, cash missing, and fake chips lying around. A seemingly normal deliver man had walked in and knocked them out, grabbing the cash and chips. Jack and Mia are a little more successful and bring the mysterious cashier who had been working with Safran to the Sheriff and Savino’s attention. Yet, when Lamb moves to bring her in for questioning, Savino lets his temper be known — his is still righteously angry over being swindled.
Thanks to Dixon’s research, Lamb learns that Cashier 189, real-name Holly, was a patient of Dr. Safran’s, which is how they got onto discussing their mutual debt problems. The plan was formulated: Safran would make the chips and work with Holly to exchange them for enough cash to pay off what the two owed, however, Holly’s boyfriend Jesse got impatient with the dentist’s refusal to pull a big exhange job (he was the one to break into Savino’s safe), and killed him.
In his anger, Savino is the one to go after Jesse first, pulling a gun on him and threatening to kill him for what he did. But Savino can’t go very far without Lamb finding him, and gets ambushed by the Sheriff outside of Jesse’s trailer. Savino compares the thief and murderer to a mountain lion — what would Ralph Lamb, rancher, do if one were to start killing his cattle, ruining what’s his? Lamb has to negotiate with Savino, talk him down, in order to get his hands on Jesse, to prosecute him properly — though Savino does get a punch in before driving off with his money.
And what of Grady? Laura Savino earlier posed the idea to her husband of working to rally the Las Vegas women to vote for him, and even goes so far as to turn Grady into quite the clean-cut and confident looking candidate. Thanks to her Grady comes off well on television, and thanks to Savino’s boys, who stole and donated television sets around town and cut the power to the station right as Mayor Bennet begins his speech, it would appear that Savino’s candidate stands a good chance in the upcoming election.
“The Real Thing” proved just how versatile Vegas is becoming as a serial piece. This week, there were no shoot-outs, no chase scenes, and yet, the episode was just as compelling, and even funny in some moments. The writers have continued to give each character a very distinct personality, and the varying situations have made those qualities stand out, week after week.
While the principle purpose of the show is the criminal investigations and the mob versus law issue, the personal dramas are beginning to become more and more interesting. Ralph is determined to keep Dixon safe, holding him back from the frontlines in this episode, no doubt, there will be upcoming romantic drama between Jack and Mia, and Laura Savino is not a woman to just do what her husband tells her to do. I’m very excited to see how these threads get woven into the over-arcing stories of the show.
Vegas airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on CBS.
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