All the relationships and personal damage were laid out so much better this episode -- implied, not explicit.

This thing has James Ellroy's dick-prints all over, by the way. It feels way too much like "Black Dahlia" (the book, not the abortion they called a 'film adaptation').

I like it a lot. This part of California feels cancerous, metastasizing. The beauty is just stripped the fuck out of it, and at night, it looks like Blade Runner's retarded step-brother. It's this vast ugly sprawling thing with these terminally damaged little bastards running around, wrestling with their ruinous families and amputated sex lives.

Vince Vaughan isn't terrible. I think he shined best not when he was talking about his nightmares -- which was a great monolog, by the way -- but when he ran up to that guy and fast-talked him after the beat-down. That's the Vince Vaughan I could believably accept clawed his way to the top of a rusted shit-heap. The suit and tie thing feels totally awkward.