'No Good Deed' Recap, Episode 3: 'Letters of Intent'

Okay, now we are cooking. This is what I had been hoping to get from No Good Deed; a little ridiculous shenanigans over there, a little gasp-worthy ending over here, even our main couple’s comedic chemistry seems to be gelling a little bit more. See? There was no reason to worry (I was getting very worried); we were just getting warmed up.

Let’s start with the ridiculous shenanigans. Who would’ve guessed that Paul and Greg the Realtor would give us the first great character pairing of No Good Deed? Or that Ray Romano and Matt Rogers would make for such a complementary comedic duo? I never would’ve flung these two together, but I’m so, so glad someone else figured out how fun it would be.

When Paul tells Lydia about the new blackmail threat from Mikey and his plan to give him the $50,000 Rolex from the robbery stash, she puts her foot down: They can’t have any more evidence out there floating around, especially now that Leslie the lawyer is up in their business. It’s too risky. Plus, she says, Paul should be trying to help Mikey. He did so much for them, he used to be kind, and he needs help. Handing him more money most likely means he’ll just go out and buy more drugs and land himself back in prison. Paul backs off the Rolex plan, but we can see his head turning with some other plan.

And that other plan is to go find out if Greg knows any drug dealers so that he can buy some coke, plant it on Mikey, and get that guy out of his life for good. As Greg will later remark upon learning the full extent of Paul’s plot: “Well, that’s dark.” He isn’t wrong! He is also very much willing to help his client for a sweet, sweet commission bump. Because no, Paul, Greg is not some stereotype of a gay realtor in Los Angeles, he is a person, Paul, and he is always sniffing because we’re in the middle of a super bloom, PAUL, God. But also, yes, of course he does coke.

Greg introduces Paul to his dealer, Trish, who sells enormous amounts of drugs and runs a successful pet grooming business. I have been enjoying Romano in this role throughout (can anyone do Man Attempting to Repress All His Feelings While in the Middle of a Category 5 Crisis better?), but he’s never more delightful to watch than here, trying to act like he has any idea how to purchase cocaine in an even remotely chill way. He declares he’d like a brick of coke. “Okay, kingpin, it’s giving cartel,” says Greg, impressed. (Only Rogers could pull off a line like this so easily.) Of course, all of that goodwill goes out the door the moment Paul attempts to pay for this brick with the Rolex, which Trish promptly informs him is a fake. This is a very interesting detail considering where that watch came from. Remember, Margo gave it to JD as a gift, and JD is still under the impression that it is the real thing. Regardless, Greg fronts Paul the money (for another commission bump) and the two guys get all coked up as they wait for Trish to return because you didn’t think we’d get out of this scene without Paul trying drugs for the first time, did you?

The flip from Greg being so disgusted with Paul trying to barter for coke to the two of them high off their gourds becoming best friends as Greg explains that he hasn’t spoken to his husband in a week because he forgot to pick up his IBS medication is so, so good. Not so good? When Trish comes back with the drugs, all three of them immediately get busted by the cops waiting outside the door. They’re carted off to jail. (Nosy neighbor Phyllis happens to be at the shop when it happens, so you know that’s going to be a thing.) But hey, Greg finally speaks to his husband. Sure, it’s to bail him out of jail, but as he notes, communication is communication.

This brief stint in the slammer also gives Paul a little time to rethink how he’s dealing with Mikey. We finally get the truth about Mikey’s identity: He is Paul’s older brother. Makes sense, right? And as Paul admits to Greg, yes, he hates his brother for like half a century’s worth of shit, but also he loves him because he’s his brother. It’s complicated. And he probably doesn’t want to send him to prison again.

But this is not the only Mikey reveal in “Letters of Intent.” While Paul was out trying to enact his plan to keep Mikey in line, Lydia had her own way of dealing with her brother-in-law. She invites him over — and even puts on a little lipstick — to kill him with kindness and tiramisu.

The Morgan brothers may have issues, but Mikey is a big fan of Lydia’s. Maybe too much of a fan, you know what I mean? Because as the two of them get to reminiscing about the old days, looking at Jacob’s baby pictures and Paul and Lydia’s wedding photos, Mikey laments about the night they all met. It was Mikey who met Lydia on New Year’s Eve, but because he was so drunk, he asked Paul to drive Lydia home, and the rest, as they say, is history. This little journey to the past, plus Lydia’s desire to help Mikey start over, to get clean and fix his life, gives the guy the wrong impression, and he leans over for a kiss. Lydia shuts it down immediately and runs off to admonish herself for putting on that lipstick. Any friendliness Mikey might have had disappears.

It is at this exact moment that Leslie and Sarah show up at the door. Earlier that day, they had learned they were out of the running for the house; Lydia and Paul thought it best not to have a prosecutor running around the place. But after the couple has a heart-to-heart about Sarah’s pregnancy and how she did it because giving up on trying to become a mom nearly broke her, the two women decide to fight a little harder for the life they want. They give Lydia a letter they’ve written about why they love the house and why they want to raise their child there. Leslie also offers any help she can to help the Morgans get justice for Jacob. Lydia is obviously in the middle of a real shit storm, so she mostly blows them off.

Overhearing this conversation, however, gives Mikey an idea: He wants the house. He’s the oldest son anyway, he should’ve had it in the first place. He starts ransacking the place, looking for the deed. When Lydia tries to stop him, he threatens her. He reminds her of what he did, what he knows, that he can cover up a murder, that he kept her and Paul from “rotting in prison.” He was the one that staged the scene to look like the burglar had broken in and killed Jacob, he protected Lydia, not Paul. Their fight escalates.

Paul finally returns home — thanks, Greg’s husband! — and he walks inside, ready to fill his wife in on the day he just had. He finds Lydia standing there, stoically, waiting for him. “I killed your brother,” she tells him, pretty matter-of-factly for a woman who just did murder to her brother-in-law. She took a fire iron — the one Mikey had used to set up that crime scene three years ago — and slammed him in the head with it. Now he and his major head wound are rolled up in the carpet in the middle of the Morgans’ secret room. Well, that’s not going to be great for the resale value.

• More secrets from our potential buyers: Carla is secretly loaded? When she stares down a future with her mother-in-law and four cats, she decides to make an offer on a different house using one million dollars from her father’s trust fund. She also makes a suspicious comment about how you always have to pay when you take handouts from your family. When Dennis asks about the money, she lies and says she has a lot of savings. But Carla isn’t the only one lying in that house: Dennis has been assuring his wife and mother that he’s about to finish what will be his second best-selling novel, but we learn he hasn’t even started it.

• Dennis winds up at urgent care for a tetanus shot, and the doctor seems alarmed with his blood pressure and medical history — Dennis’s dad died of sarcoidosis when he was 39, and Dennis is now 38. The guy needs to make some changes.

• Watching Dennis’s unhinged attempt at running in a show that also stars Lisa Kudrow, queen of the TV unhinged run, really tickled me.

• Mikey isn’t the best guy, but it is kind of nice that Lydia can tell him how she still feels Jacob in this house and he doesn’t laugh at her.

• Phyllis seems to be everywhere! She catches Dennis “running” by the Morgan house and assumes he’s some sort of creeper. Her racist dog doesn’t seem to like him either. “During Obama’s second term, I had to send him to sensitivity training.” “It didn’t work.”

• “I will literally lose my shit if I don’t get my meds!”