A Stone of the Heart

"Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart." -W. B. Yeats, Easter 1916

A Stone of the Heart is the second episode of the first season of NBC's The Black Donnellys.

Synopsis
While Jimmy is sitting in a holding cell, Tommy and Kevin visit him without any remorse for what they did to avenge their brother and protect their family. After everything, Tommy decides that it's the time to confide his feelings for Jenny, which ultimately leads to more than friendship.

To cover their back, the brothers dispose of the body. Meanwhile, Nicky Cottero seizes control of the Italian mob while the murder investigation begins.

Plot
In an interrogation cell, Joey argues with his lawyer and claims that he’s an innocent man. He recounts the night of the Louis's murder... Tommy, in an effort to keep the murder silent, instructs Kevin to stay quiet. He asks Kevin for the gun and throws it down a drain. At the hospital, Tommy tells a semi-conscious Sean that he “didn’t see anything." Afterward, Tommy and Jenny share a passionate kiss.

As the doctor reports Sean’s stable medical status, Tommy flashes back to Jimmy’s childhood accident and the news that he may never walk again. That day, Tommy made a deal with God that he’d pay any price if Jimmy walks. Tommy tells Kim, Sean’s girlfriend, that if questioned, she should not remember any of the perpetrators. Meanwhile, Jimmy fights with another inmate in jail.

Kim consoles the Donnelly boys’ mother who waits for news about Sean with Jenny. Meanwhile, Kevin and Tommy shoplift clothes from a local store. The coroner’s office takes the Italians’ bodies from the bar and Frankie questions Sal’s cohort, Nicky. They ask what Huey, the head of the Irish mob, was doing with all the Italians.

As Tommy and Kevin dispose of their old clothes, they discover Louis’s body in a dumpster. Furious, Tommy vents his anger at Kevin and wonders where to conceal the body. He receives a call from Jimmy asking for bail but Tommy refuses. Meanwhile, Jenny receives advice from her father that she should stay away from Tommy Donnelly.

Jimmy tells Kevin to find a stash of stolen money for his bail. Tommy discovers the bag of ransom money and confiscates it off his brother. The brothers return to the dumpster and transport the dead Italian’s body to an “abandoned swamp” in Jersey.

At the site of the burial, Tommy returns with a hammer and tells Kevin to strip down. The pair removes their clothes and as Kevin throws up in horror, Tommy hammers the corpse into a million little pieces. They put the body in a barrel and throw it into the swamp.

Looking for Tommy, Jenny returns to the bar and finds blood on the stairs. At the swamp, Tommy washes the blood off his body and tells his sensitive brother to “shut the hell up." He discovers that Kevin has lied to him and removed some of the ransom stash to pay for Jimmy’s bail. The brothers fight over the money, and Tommy tells him that if he wants to live, he’ll give it back.

Kevin pulls a gun on Tommy but eventually backs down. Tommy drops Kevin off back in their neighborhood and Kevin hands him back the gun. Tommy re-opens the street drain, climbs down beneath the street, takes his buried gun and then burns the van. Meanwhile, Jenny cleans the blood off the stairs to cover Tommy’s crime.

Mrs. Donnelly tells Jenny that she trusts her son to do whatever they have to do. Tommy goes to see Sal’s cohort, Nicky, and returns the stash of ransom money. He confesses that his brother, Jimmy, kidnapped Louis and that Jimmy is a junkie. Nicky asks him where Louis is and says he’ll accept the money in good faith but he needs a grand a week until Louis gets back. Tommy tells Nicky that the money makes them even and leaves satisfied.

Kevin and Tommy leave the bar and run into Joey “Ice Cream” who tells his lawyer, in a voiceover, that the Donnelly brothers never “take a step” without him. We flashback to young Tommy receiving the news that his sick brother will walk. In the present, Tommy goes to see Jenny and the pair makes love for the first time. After, she tells him she can’t be with him.

Walking home, Tommy is stopped by Huey’s brother who asks him to get in the car. He asks Tommy what his brother was doing at the hospital before his death. As he questions Tommy he taps his hammer, telling Tommy that he’s lucky he still has a brother. As Tommy steps out of the car, he threatens, “If you hear anything, let me know.”

Main cast
===
 * Jonathan Tucker as Thomas "Tommy" Donnelly
 * Tom Guiry as James "Jimmy" Donnelly
 * Billy Lush as Kevin Donnelly
 * Michael Stahl-David as Sean "Seanny" Donnelly
 * Olivia Wilde as Jenny Reilly
 * Keith Nobbs as Joey Ice Cream
 * Kirk Acevedo as Nicky Cottero

Recurring Cast===
 * Kate Mulgrew as Helen Donnelly
 * Michael Rispoli as Al "Alo" Onatero
 * Chris Bauer as Hugh "Huey" Farrell
 * Peter Greene as Derek "Dokey" Farrell
 * Molly Schaffer as Kate Farrell
 * Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as Matthew Farrell
 * Betsy Beutler as Joanie
 * Kevin Conway as Ian Reilly
 * James Badge Dale as Samson Dawlish
 * Kevin Corrigan as Whitey
 * Jamie Bonelli as Nadine
 * Chris Kipiniak as Sharkey
 * Peter Gerety as Bob the Mouth
 * Brian Tarantina as Vinnie
 * Patrick Brennan as Earl
 * Lauren Bittner as Mary Ann Maxwell

Trivia

 * Tommy and Kevin line shopping bags with aluminum foil to jam radio signals from anti-theft devices. The brothers should have used tin foil, which will block these signals, instead of aluminum foil, which actually amplifies these types of signals.

Quotes
Kevin Donnelly: [talking about where to dump Louie's body] What about the landfill? I mean we could sneak him in, put him under some garbage, they bury him for us.

Tommy Donnelly: The landfill on Staten Island?

Kevin Donnelly: Yeah

Tommy Donnelly: [sarcastically] So what, we just take the ferry? Just the three of us?

Kevin Donnelly: Okay, we stuff him in a furnace.

Tommy Donnelly: Our furnace?

Kevin Donnelly: No, of course not. Somebody elses.

Tommy Donnelly: So you know somebody who's got a furnace large enough for a body?

Kevin Donnelly: I'd have to think about it. Umm... How about a tub full of acid?

Tommy Donnelly: Kevin stop making suggestions you're really freaking me out.

Joey Ice Cream: But it's like the old saying goes: "The only way two people can keep a secret is if both of them are dead".

Lawyer: You mean if one of them is dead. That's the saying.

Joey Ice Cream: Obviously we come from different neighborhoods.

Helen Donnelly: I think that if you know someone's good, you know it in your belly. And you trust that if they had to do something, they had no other choice.

Joey Ice Cream: Hey, you guys take off. I'll watch everything here.

Tommy Donnelly: Where the hell did you come from?

Joey Ice Cream''': What? I've been here the whole time. Oh, and don't worry, mums the word. My lips are sealed. '''

Tommy Donnelly''': You pay for that beer? '''

Joey Ice Cream''': Yeah... Probably...'''

Tommy Donnelly: [Tommy and Kevin have some difficulty in stuffing Louie into a barrel] Yeah, now who's stupid, huh? Couldn't get a bigger barrel?

Kevin Donnelly: They don't make bigger barrels!

Tommy Donnelly: [speaking to his brothers] From now on, we only trust the people in this room.