“Magic City: Feeding Frenzy” opened with Ike Evans (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) trying to talk the Pageant group into having their events at the Miramar. He seems to have pulled out all the stops. The water babies are all naked and sexy, and Judi Silver (Elena Satine) is working for Ike once more and making sure the deal goes their way.
As I was hoping, the writers have begun to flesh out some of the characters. Vera Evans (Olga Kurylenko) is busy trying to become the perfect Jewish wife – so perfect that even Ike jokes about having gone to “bed with Rita Hayworth and woke up with Golda Meir”.
As Ike tries to secure the pageant he’s been tasked with getting Arthur (Alex Focco) to attend his grand-daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. Arthur isn’t religious at all but Lauren (Taylor Blackwell) won’t attend her own Bat Mitzvah if her grandfather isn’t there. It’s no wonder he’s a good hotel manager because Ike is certainly managing more than one crisis at a time; he’s also trying to get Victor Lazaro’s family out of Cuba. Victor is not only the General Manager of the Miramar but he’s probably Ike’s right hand man.
While the Miramar is buzzing with life Jack Klein (Matt Ross) – a rather feisty State Attorney for Dade County – is trying to figure out what’s going on. Interestingly enough he doesn’t peg Ike as party of the criminal activities; in fact, he says that Ike is simply “a hotel man”.
It seems that one of the ongoing questions in this series is going to be: How much does Ike Evans know? He is clearly in a very uncomfortable partnership with The Butcher (Danny Huston), he “asks for help” and is certainly clever enough to know what that means
In the middle of the night Ben calls Ike out to his boat. The guests are shooting at sharks, drinking and there are more than enough naked women for every man’s arm. . “You built a palace; now it’s time to be King,” Ben tells Ike as he hands him a briefcase with $100 000 in it. Ike is brave enough to ask where Mike Strauss (The union boss) is – but he gets a non-answer from The Butcher. Of course he does. This is a man who shoots his dog in the head because it’s making too much noise while he’s on the phone. Charming fellow.
Meanwhile, back on land, Stevie (Steven Strait) has sneaked onto the grounds of the Butcher’s house in order to have sex with his wife. Does anyone else see bad things coming of this union?