108 - X Spots The Mark *Spoilers*

[therichesadmin]

X Spots The Mark - Spoilers

Written by: Aaron Blitzstein
Directed by: Dan Lerner

First aired on FX on April 30, 2007
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As Dahlia and Wayne return to the office at Panco, everything is in turmoil. Hugh has the employees hooked up to a lie detector and is trying to find out who stole the $40,000. Everyone is close to a nervous breakdown when Wayne and Dahlia step through the door.
Obviously Wayne becomes Hugh's target right away, having been gone for 2 days (same as the money). Hugh throws everyone out of the room and asks Wayne to step up to the lie detector.
In his desperation, Wayne invents an investor who he allegedly charmed during these 2 days in order to bail Hugh out of his money problems. Wayne promises Hugh $500,000 over which he completely forgets the $40,000. This leaves Wayne only with one small problem, how to come up with an investor really fast. The family goes through the press, looking for an easy target. A rich person stupid enough not to research any investments.
Rudy Blue, an ex baseball star who has been in prison for his sex addiction is the perfect target. Dahlia (Cherien) meets him at the anonymous sex addiction meeting and gets him interested in herself. She pretends that she and Doug are divorced and that he is working on a big deal. He agrees to pick up her daughter (Sam) at Doug's and drive them home. Wayne conveniently leaves investment information and blueprints of Edenfalls and Panco lying around while he and Dahlia have a fake argument upstairs. After rushing Rudy out the door, the family awaits Rudy's call.
As expected, Rudy calls and arranges a lunch meeting with Wayne (Doug). He talks him into letting Rudy have a piece of the investment. Doug makes up a fake story about land that had been protected under environmental laws and will become available for development. He promises Rudy huge returns and gets him hooked on the deal. Meanwhile Dahlia keeps Rudy Blue excited about the deal.
Now the family needs to put up a show at Panco. Dahlia makes sure the boss (Hugh) is out on Saturday. Wayne goes to a trailer park and rounds up a bunch of low lives, promising them $1,000 to play in an "emergency investor training show".
During this "investor training" one of the low lives (a drunk old man), plays the land owner, about to sell his land, while Cael and the others play investors. After some convincing by Dahlia and an excellent presentation by Wayne, Rudy Blue signs the deal and transfers $500,000 to Panco, when all of a sudden the door bursts open and an FBI agent rushes in, about to arrest everyone for Real Estate fraud. Cael freaks out afraid to be deported back to his (South American?) home country. He runs into the FBI agent and after a struggle the FBI agent falls down, shot in the chest.
Everyone runs away and Rudy Blue, who just got out of prison, is quickly convinced by Wayne, that he cannot retract his investment or he could be suspected as an accessory to murder. He becomes a silent partner. Hugh is happy and the Malloys start to wonder if they should pull another stunt to keep the money when Dahlia says
"We live here now!".

[Dahling]

I liked today's episode. It was a nice break from the dark and heavy storylines. Don't get me wrong, I like the parts that leave me breathless and shocked, but I don't mind simple fun and entertainment once in a while.

I also liked that the whole family was involved in this con and had a part to play. I was glad to see Sam back. I really liked the scene where the guy "playing" the seller wanted to get an autograph from Rudy Blue to sell on eBay and Sam simply gave him another dollar bill to cover it and to get rid of him. He was so matter-of-factly, it had me laughing.

I also liked the end. I was kind of wondering how they would be able to get rid off Rudy, seeing as he had been to their house and all, and it was done in a clever way (even though I kind of expected that it was part of the scam). But now there is another loose end, another con that could fire back on them.

I also really liked how Dahlia and Wayne worked together on this one. It was nice to see that they can count on each other.

Interesting statement by Dahlia at the end, "We are living here now." Is she slowly accepting their new life? Perhaps a decision she made last time when they were at the camp and she had to realize that they didn't really belong anymore...

[Steve]

[Dahling]

[Emilie]

I thought last night's episode was quite funny. Minnie's Dahlia is really growing on me. I think this is her best performance yet.

About the ending, I knew right away that the FBI agent and the shooting were part of the plan, but it was still fun to watch. Wonder if Hugh will bring up the $40K again.

Anyway, nice episode but last week's was much more thought provoking, which is why I liked it better.

[Dahling]

There is an interesting review of last night's episode on this blog. It's pretty short, but she made an interesting observation. Check it out.

As for me, I tend to agree with her. I think both Eddie and Minnie play the different facets of their characters very convincingly.

[barockoiu]

Good episode way better than the previous one. I think it is a bit weak how you could get confused that they put the RV in a trailer park, and people could be confused and think that those people that helped out were from the traveler camp and hence they would know where doug worked and the name of the company and the concept of eden falls 2, but when you watch it closely those people were from a separate trailer park. It is easy to get confused. I don't like Dahlia working at panco, I enjoyed her hi jinx as a stay at home mom. It distracts from Izzard's brilliant scenes in the office. Plus Driver could be given some good scenes with the other women of eden falls as a sideline. She does not need to work there. I hope that ends. I would have liked to see as a dental hygienist for the whole season that would have been funny. That dentist dying was just a pointless scene. I liked the scenes where the other women came to the door of the house at eden falls about some social club thing, and the tension with the one armed woman seems to have gone.

[Steve]

[thorjansen]

This was a fun episode. At first I thought it was getting a bit outlandish, but it worked out in the end. What a huge con for them to pull off, and it'll only boost their confidence to even higher levels, which should make for some interesting future episodes. I don't think the writers, etc. should try to top each previous week's con, though, because by the end of season two, they'll have to have them sell off the entire planet to a ship full of gullible aliens from a distant yet tiny planet in far-off Andromeda.

[Steve]

Fear not Thor, I don't think they are gonna do anything bigger or even as big any time soon, simply because that would arouse too much suspicion.
As Dahlia said, its their life now and I am sure they are not going to jeopardize their comfortable lives.
There will be plenty of excitement though. So far we haven't had a single dull episode.

[Matty]

[Steve]

[Dahling]

[Steve]

C'mon people. I am waiting for some good advise on how to sell the Moon to some rich person

[Dahling]