Breakout Kings Episode 2.05 Self Help

At Huntsville Minimum Security Prison, Ronnie Marcum sorts through prison mail with another con, Arturo. Ronnie eyeballs the prison guard in the corner, then sidles up to the enormous and heavily tattooed Arturo and whispers something in his ear. Arturo erupts and punches Ronnie in the face. Ronnie falls and curls up as Arturo kicks him in the gut repeatedly until a guard runs over and cuffs Arturo. Ronnie gets up and wipes the blood from his nose as the guard drags Arturo out of the mailroom. Ronnie watches them leave, grabs a package and a blue envelope, tossing them both on top of a full mail cart, and hurries to warden Sickles' office.

He drops the mail off with the warden's assistant and tells her that he has filed several complaints against Arturo, but still the warden has done nothing to protect him. The assistant tells Ronnie to file another complaint. Frustrated, Ronnie grabs his cart, and continues his rounds down the hall. The assistant drops off the warden's mail. Warden Sickles opens the blue envelope and white powder pours out along with an index card that reads: NOW YOUR DEAD. His face drops and he yells for the guards.

The prison is now full of commotion. A hazmat team, decked out in white hazmat suits that cover their entire bodies along with protective respirators covering their face, race through the administration wing, screaming out orders to the guards. The guards order the inmates up against the wall. Ronnie patiently watches the hysteria. As soon as an opportunity presents itself, he grabs a package from his cart and slips inside a storage closet. Tearing open the package, he takes out a full body industrial painter's protection suit with a respirator, practically identical to the hazmat suits. He puts it on, then unscrews the vent above him with a nearby metal ruler. Ronnie crawls through the vent and pops through the other side, jumping down in front of two guards. Pretending to be a part of the hazmat team, he orders the guards to get out of the building. The guards quickly take off, and Ronnie vanishes out the front door.

In the bullpen, Ray goes through his mail and finds a postcard. His face falls as he reads it. The elevator opens and Lloyd, Erica, and Shea file in. Ray quickly stuffs the postcard in his pocket and begins to brief them on their new runner. As Julianne hands out files to the team, Lloyd pulls her aside and asks how she's feeling, since today is Greg Margolis' parole hearing. Julianne forces a weak smile, and nods her head, assuring Lloyd that she's fine, but nervous. Ray points to the board where Ronnie's mug shot hangs. He tells the team that Ronnie is an up-and-coming self-help guru, in for violating various provisions of federal labor law - basically hiring and underpaying undocumented workers. He was five months into a ten-month sentence when he used his mailroom gig to send baking soda disguised as anthrax to the warden and escape in the resulting confusion. Ray tells the group that Ronnie came from a tough background in the projects, but according to his website he "overcame his obstacles and broke through his own Geometric Negativity to allow his success to finally take shape."

Julianne, guilty of reading some of Ronnie's "self-help" books, realizes that Ronnie is the "Be Your Own Success Shape" founder and motivational speaker. Ray confirms and tells the group Ronnie was clearing six figures a year for his business. Lloyd is astonished to learn that people actually buy into Ronnie's hogwash. Shea suggests that if they want to find out more about Ronnie, they should start at his company - the Marcum Institute.

The Breakout Kings arrive at the Marcum Institute in Jamaica, Queens where the staff is hard at work. Shea curiously watches a video loop of Ronnie pontificating at one of his seminars while a pissed Lloyd takes in the CDs, t-shirts, and other Ronnie-centric paraphernalia. Lena, the office manager, tells Ray that Ronnie was wrongly arrested for employing Haitians so they could send money back to their earthquake-ravaged homeland. He was just trying to help them and their families and had done nothing wrong.

Lloyd, eyes now on the TV, watches Ronnie on stage with one of his students, talking about how the student, similar to Ronnie, turned his life around thanks to the program. Lloyd can't take it anymore. He starts yelling that the whole program is nothing more than a pyramid scheme. He turns to find a room of angry Ronnie disciples staring at him. Lena, knowing her constitutional rights, asks Ray and the team to leave before she gets their lawyers involved.

Ken Reily, the man from the video loop at the Marcum Institute, talks into a recorder while surveying the damage on a car. He looks up to see Ronnie walking towards him and immediately lights up. Surprised to see Ronnie out early, he tells Ronnie that he's been counting down the days until his release and was sure he still had a few months to go. Ronnie feeds Ken one of his shape-based mantras, telling him that if you put yourself in a box, you're stuck there, but a circle can roll forever - an eternity of opportunity. Ken eats it up. Ronnie tells him that he mailed some pages of his new book to a few people on the outside and needs a lift to pick them up. Ken agrees, but tells him that he has an appointment he can't miss later. Ronnie assures him that it'll only take a few hours. Ken tells Ronnie that, because of him, he has turned his life around and is now working and able to send money to his kids. Ronnie smiles at Ken and tells him that's why he does what he does.

Lloyd, Shea, and Erica stand outside of the institute, waiting for Ray, who's on the phone with Julianne. She runs a background check on the Marcum Institute's employees and it comes back clean. Shea confronts Lloyd about his public freak-out inside the institute, asking him if he has a problem seeing successful black people in suits and ties instead of robbing and stealing. Lloyd corrects Shea, saying that it's the institute that's robbing and stealing from people who are actually in dire need of help. Shea responds that, once again, he's making this about "crazy" Julianne. Lloyd immediately tenses up and tells Shea that if he refers to her like that again, he won't hold back. He might lose the fight, but he'll do some damage in the process. As Shea takes in this new side of Lloyd, Ray walks back and tells the team they need to head back to Huntsville.

At a studio apartment in Queens, Ronnie frantically rifles through an entertainment center. The door opens and Ronnie spins around to see a very surprised Mo Blakely. Ronnie slams him into the wall. The two know each other and, according to Ronnie, Mo has something of his. Clearly, it's not pages from his new book. Ronnie asks where "it" is, but Mo swears he doesn't know. Ronnie stabs the metal ruler he's holding into Mo's shoulder. Mo cries in pain, pleading with Ronnie, telling him that he doesn't have what he's looking for. Ronnie slams the metal ruler into Mo's body again, then brings it up and, convinced that Mo is telling the truth, stabs him hard in the neck. Mo hits the ground, as Ronnie steps over his lifeless body and exits the apartment. He heads back to Ken's car, where Ken is waiting patiently and listening to one of Ronnie's motivational talks. Ronnie gets into the car and tells Ken that his friend didn't have the pages and that they need to make another stop.

Lloyd and Erica sit across from Arturo in the visitation room at Huntsville. They ask him why he beat up Ronnie. He rolls up his sleeve and shows them a tattoo of an infant girl. He tells them that it's an image of his daughter, who died at birth. Ronnie insulted her, saying that she's better off dead because, had she lived, she would have been on the pole by the time she was eighteen. Holding back tears, Arturo tells them that nobody speaks about his baby girl that way. Arturo goes back to his cell and Lloyd and Erica look at each other, realizing that Ronnie wanted to get hit. But why...

Ray and Shea walk through the prison with the warden, stopping at the wall where Ronnie was seen last. The warden tells them that they turned the place upside down looking for Ronnie, figuring that he was hiding again, but still haven't found him. Shea crouches down where Ronnie was sitting and spots the storage closet across the hallway. They enter the closet and Shea finds the box and receipt for the painter's suit that Ronnie ordered. Ray's cell phone rings and Julianne tells him that Mo, a childhood friend of Ronnie's, just turned up dead.

Mo's apartment is now a crime scene. One of the cops on the scene tells Ray that they haven't found any fingerprints, and they can't ID the culprit from surveillance footage since the perp had his head down when he walked by the security camera. Lloyd examines the body, telling the team that this looks like a personal killing and could be blackmail. Erica examines the mess on the floor, and finds Mo's ID badge. He worked at the Marcum Institute as one of Ronnie's employees. Ray gets on the phone with Julianne who tells him that, according to Mo's unemployment benefits, Ronnie fired him a few days before he surrendered to authorities.

Back at the office, Shea tells the team that they have one more avenue to explore to find information about the business - the accountant. Realizing that Shea's the only one that can pass as one of Ronnie's employees, Lloyd decides to give him a scholarly makeover. Before Shea can respond, the elevator door opens and Pete appears and asks Erica if she wants to grab a coffee. Erica drags him to the back, but before she can respond, Ray yells at her to keep her prison blues off the floor. Pete stands there, stunned as Erica lies and tells him that she was in prison for mortgage fraud. Pete replies that half of the people he does business with should be in prison, so he understands.

Meanwhile in the bathroom, Shea trims his chops while Lloyd coaches him on what to say and how to sound, advising Shea to throw in a lot of "you betchas" and "no worries."

Shea, looking great in a suit, sits across from Benjamin Funger, Ronnie's accountant. They get along swimmingly. Shea tells Benjamin that Mo, an employee who was fired a few months back, is now threatening a wrongful termination suit. With the "employment issues" that landed Ronnie in prison, they don't want any more bad press. Benjamin looks at Mo's record and tells Shea that if he's expecting problems from Mo, he'd better expect problems from the two other employees Ronnie fired, Curtis Ridgeway and Gerald Pike.

Gerald Pike's dead body lies on the bed, face down. Using a cloth, Ronnie tears the room apart, yanking on drawers and throwing clothes all over the place. In one drawer he finds a gun just as he hears the front door close. Ken walks to the back room to see Gerald's lifeless body. Ronnie tells him not to do anything stupid, especially since he's a two-strike ex-con in a house with a dead body and his fingerprints on the screen door, the inside door, and the bedroom door. He tells Ken to grab a pillowcase and keep moving.

Gerald's body is carted away while the Breakout Kings try to figure out Ronnie's next move. Julianne tells the team that the NYPD is staking out Curtis Ridgeway's home, but there's still no sign of him. Shea assures the group that Curtis has caught wind of what's going on and is going to keep lying low. Julianne informs the team that Curtis' only living relative is his niece, who he visits every week.

A nervous Ken slowly trails behind Curtis' niece, Naomi, who's walking home from school. Ken tells her that he's her uncle Curtis' friend. Naomi clearly doesn't believe Ken, but then Ronnie comes up behind her, yanking a pillowcase over her head and throwing her in the backseat of the car.

Back in the bullpen, Julianne slams down the phone and tells the team that the niece has been kidnapped. Luckily, some of her classmates saw the plate number. The car belongs to a "Ken Reily." Julianne brings up Ken's mugshot and Lloyd takes a close look. He quickly recognizes Ken from Ronnie's video. Julianne brings up the video, and they watch as Ken engages with the audience, telling them that Ronnie saved his life.

In a vacant, boarded up warehouse, Naomi, pillowcase over her head and wrists tied, sobs frantically in the corner. Ken watches, helpless, his paternal instincts flaring. Every bit as desperate as Naomi, he sidles up next to her, telling her that he'll figure something out.

Meanwhile, in the interrogation room, Ray and Lloyd question Tami, Ken's ex-wife. She tells them that there's no way Ken is involved, and that he cleaned up a few years ago. Ray tells her that at 3:30 he helped abduct a girl, but Tami stops him mid-sentence, telling them that Ken has his weekly dialysis appointment at 3:30, and that's not the kind of appointment you can just skip. Lloyd and Ray look at each other and realize that Ken is a victim in this as well.

At the abandoned warehouse, Ronnie pulls out Naomi's cell phone and dials her uncle Curtis. Flushed with fear and anger, Curtis yells at Ronnie, saying he'll give him the tape as long as he sets his niece free. Ronnie agrees and tells him to meet him at the warehouse.

Julianne tells the team that ESU located Naomi's phone about 25 miles from Manhattan, but wasn't able to pinpoint an exact location. The phone rings and Ray answers, nodding and saying he'll pass along the news. He tells Lloyd and Erica that Gary Margolis' parole was denied, and, based on how he performed at the hearing, he isn't ever getting out. For a moment, Julianne takes it in, but she's snapped out of her stupor when the fax machine starts up. She rushes over and rips the paper from the machine. They have a hit on Curtis' phone.

Ken yanks a piece of the plywood from a boarded-up window. Suddenly, he hears the front door close. He spins to Naomi and tells her to keep quiet as he checks on what's happening outside. Curtis enters the warehouse and Ronnie slams him into the wall, puts the gun against his head, and pats him down, taking the battery out of his cell phone. Ronnie tells Curtis to give him the tape. Ken races back to Naomi, yanks the pillowcase off, unties her, then helps her climb out the window.

Ray races through an industrial area. Out of nowhere a girl darts across the SUV's path. Ray slams on his breaks, stopping inches from a terrified Naomi. Ray, Lloyd, and Shea climb out of the SUV. Ray pulls out his 9MM, and tosses a back-up gun to Shea. They cautiously move in, guns at their sides. They sweep the area only to find both Curtis and Ken dead. On the stove is a flaming object. It's the tape, now a melted chunk of plastic. Ray rushes into the lot behind the house, searching frantically, but finding nothing. He's livid. Where the hell could Ronnie have gone?

At a huge industrial loading dock, Ronnie walks toward a big, chain link fence, overgrown with weeds. He quietly slips through an opening in the gate, looks around and heads to the unmanned loading dock.

Julianne flips through Ken's camera, looking at the hundreds of photos he had of his kids. Ray, nearly defeated, tells the team that it was like they were chasing a ghost. Lloyd pauses with a massive realization. Ronnie was a ghost on purpose! He left behind no fingerprints, and even went so far as to kidnap Ken so no one would see him driving. Why? Because he's breaking back in. Julianne perks up, telling the team that she might have found something.

Warden Swickle tells the Breakout Kings that there's still no sign of Ronnie. Looking over a blueprint of the prison, they try to find a way he could break back in. Lloyd and Shea spot a delivery truck at the loading dock. They realize that Ronnie is mailing himself back in.

Meanwhile, a crate sways back and forth in the mailroom. A wooden slat lifts up and Ronnie climbs out.

The team rushes through the prison hallway to the mailroom. They turn a corner and burst into the room to find Ronnie, working at his mail station. Ronnie apologizes to the warden, telling him that he was hiding out because he was afraid Arturo would attack him again. Ray approaches Ronnie with a cell phone. He holds it up and plays back the incrementing evidence Ronnie was trying to get rid of. In the video, a 17-year-old Ronnie brags about how he killed another kid, Chris Lodi.

Ronnie is shocked and confused. Ray explains that when Ronnie chased after Naomi, Ken made a copy of the tape on his phone. Chris Lodi's case, once cold, is cold no more. The motivational speaker is finally at a loss for words. Ray handcuffs the con and arrests him.

Back at the office, the cons, now in their prison blues, wait for the transpo van. Lloyd, clearly sorry for ragging on Shea earlier, tells him that if he'd applied himself to something other than his chosen career, he could've been ten times as successful as Ronnie Marcum. Shea takes this in. Ray, hanging up the phone, tells the team that since they didn't actually pin Ronnie for breaking out of the prison, they can't get their months off. The cons, not happy with this news, take it a little easier when Ray tells them to put their civies back on because they have the night off and don't have to go back to Maybelle until the next morning. Lloyd tells Julianne they're going to celebrate.

Lloyd, semi-drunk, sings karaoke (horribly) at a bar as Julianne watches. He hops off the stage and sits next to Julianne, who tells him that she listened to his advice about Margolis and did everything he said and it worked. She thanks him for caring so much, leans in, kisses him on the lips, and walks off to the bar. Lloyd is speechless, dumbfounded, gobsmacked. A small smile crosses his face.

Meanwhile, Shea peruses the business section of a library. He self-consciously plucks a couple of basic business and marketing books from the shelf.

In Pete's office, Erica and Pete are having a little post-romantic dinner make-out session.

Ray, back in his office, pours himself a glass of whisky, and pulls out the postcard he was looking at before. On the back, it reads: "MISS YOU. LOVE, DAMIEN." Ray lays the postcard on top of his office table, which is covered with photos and documents related to Damien. It's Ray's war room. He has not given up on finding the man who killed Charlie.