Tuesday night’s Vegas proved two things: The writers clearly have a plan for the characters’ depth and stories on an individual level, and the show definitely deserved its full-season pick-up (announced Tuesday).
The episode began with Sheriff Lamb staring off into the distance at an oak tree. As he explains to his brother Jack, who is trying to build a new well, the tree has been there longer than they have and he is not cutting it down. Right off the top it’s clear that there’s more to this than just a century-old tree, but we have to wait to find out exactly what.
The Lamb’s disagreement is disrupted by a phone call requesting their presence at, of all places, The Savoy. The two meet Vincent Savino in his office as he’s busy interrogating a man who has been cheating on the casino floor. Savino wants the man arrested, and while Lamb follows through on it, he remarks to the mobster that he’s surprised, “you people usually handle this kind of thing on your own.”
After dealing with the lawmen, Savino heads over to another Las Vegas establishment — The Tumbleweed Club. Savino has a new plan to grow his business, and is clearly willing to go without boss approval to get there. And as he tells his associate Anthony, he’s not using Chicago money to make his new deal; he’ll just bring it to his bosses after it’s all tied up and done. Savino meets with Mert Hayes, owner of the Tumbleweed looking to sell a cut of the business. He presents a plan to expand the Tumbleweed with financing from a mysterious “legitimate” local bank.
Meanwhile, in the back room of the Tumbleweed, there’s a union meeting going on between the workers of the club. Most outspoken at this meeting? Miss Estelle Drew. Estelle, an African American woman, stands up for what the Tumbleweed’s staff deserves, with force — undoubtedly ruffling some feathers. While walking to a bus stop that night, she’s run down by a hit-and-run driver. It’s revealed through the investigation, that Estelle is actually the daughter of Randal Paltry, a rather well known white man in the town, and he had been paying for her college tuition in secret.
Sheriff Lamb of course heads over to Estelle’s apartment to investigate, only to find it tossed and a black car speeding away, owned by none other than **Kovax, another union member. When he goes to discuss the matter with the man, Kovax claims that he didn’t break into her apartment, it was like that when he got there, and just as Lamb is discussing the case with ADA Katherine O’Connell, who believes the crime may be mob-related, a bomb is thrown through the window of the Tumbleweed.
Now just over halfway through the episode, Savino’s life is getting more and more dangerous — after striking a deal with Hayes for the Tumbleweed, provided he gets the Milwaukee boys out of the owner’s hair, Savino is the target of gun fire in a parking garage. Of course, he goes to his buddy District Attorney Reynolds to have something done about the group. Ultimately, Savino and his boys take the job into their own hands, taking out head of the Milwaukee mob group in a back alley.
As for Estelle Drew’s murder, the Lamb boys turn to her half brother Terry, a junkie who raided her apartment in search of jewelry to pawn…but he didn’t kill her. No, while questioning him Sheriff Lamb came across a series of photos. When traced back to the original negatives, the killer caught herself on camera. Jealous of the support Estelle was getting from her wealthy father all while putting up a fight for the union workers, a fellow maid too her anger out by driving down Estelle.
But what of the oak tree from the opening scene?
Lamb tells Jack in those final moments that he likes the view, and we can see exactly why when he gazes out the window at a vision of his late wife hanging laundry. Yet another insight into what drives Ralph Lamb’s heart.
Just picked up for a full season, Vegas is doing a good job of balancing the period aspects of the show, procedural material and straight narrative. This episode, in fact, took the opportunity to delve more into the characters individually rather than how they interact with each other (not including Lamb and Savino’s head-butting, of course). One storyline in particular set-up romantic tension between Jack Lamb and mob daughter Mia Rizzo — surely a thread that screams ‘drama!’ And it even reaffirmed that while Vincent Savino is no innocent, he has slightly more respectably morals than his bosses, and even bigger, more long-term plans.
I happen to really enjoy the fact that the show doesn’t bog itself down on procedural details, and mixes in the individual characters’ lives. Thankfully, now we’ve got a whole season to see more!
Vegas airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on CBS.
Follow Us
