By Matthew Wood
 
Ahh, the perils of living a complete lie. With every week that passes on THE RICHES, you can just feel the walls closing in on our favorite faux family, and the combination of neighbors, co-workers and creepy cousin Dale make some sort of admission from the clan inevitable.

Doug’s friend Pete comes to visit, which means the Riches have decisions to make. Do they try to carry on the con, or do they run and hide? No, they just pretend they don’t even know who the Riches are, much to Pete’s surprise. In true family fashion, the ruse -- which includes Dahlia posing as the real Doug’s ex-wife on the phone and grandma nearly giving things away with her senility -- goes way too far and poor Pete finds himself in the middle of an emotional breakdown.

A touching moment ensues as the Riches, feeling guilty about lying to Pete and putting him through emotional distress, talk him down from jumping off his hotel balcony. But was that really the best idea? Pete comes back, full of questions of “Doug” about his true identity.

Is this going to be the family’s downfall? Or will it be Dale, who obviously wants in on the scam? He spends much of this episode getting it on with Hartley Underwood (played by Kaitlin Olson, from another FX hit show, IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA), who Dahlia not-so-affectionately calls “the one-armed bandit.”

Dale loves his lady’s fake arm, but not while they’re doing it. (There’s gotta be a “safe sex” joke in there somewhere, but we’ll let that one slide for now.) He definitely wants to get what he can get from the Riches’ big con. And he will no doubt be creepy in just about everything he does.

Meanwhile Hugh, upon returning from his “retreat” or whatever, announces he got married in Las Vegas and enlists Doug’s help to make sure he is protected from his new wife -- who just happens to be a former stripper and many years his junior. Hugh’s explanation to Doug: “I’m a kinder, gentler person. … Now, fix that (pre-nup), will you?”

While the big conflict for next week’s season finale will most likely center around the real identity of the family, the most compelling character continues to be Minnie Driver’s Dahlia. She is so conflicted between wanting to provide for her family, but at the same time she really would like to live the life of the Riches.

She wants to be a good mother, but years in prison and on drugs have hindered her family relationships. She wishes she could truly live this lie, but at the same time she doesn’t want to lose her real identity. Midway through the show, in a heart-to-heart conversation with her husband, she whispers, “What if we start to forget the truth, about who we are?”

It’s a valid question, and one you can see the character asking herself more and more. She seems to head into each episode feeling confident about keeping the family’s secrets, but spirals downward into self-doubt and a desire to just go back to being her old, scumbag self.

Can Dahlia keep it up? Everything is crashing down -- from Pete and Nina’s questions to Dale’s sliminess and Dahlia’s own doubts -- and it won’t be easy to keep up the facade. Fortunately for her, there’s only one episode left in the first season. If she can get through this one, they’ll have all summer to figure out how to keep the lie going.