‘Ray Donovan’ back to his old antics in Big Apple

season 6 is now on Showmax, the first time it’s been available to stream first, rather than going to M-Net.

“The last thing we saw from last season was Ray throwing himself into the East River,” says Liev Schreiber, talking about the cliff-hanger ending to Season 5 of

Of course, Showtime was always going to renew the hit series for a sixth season – and has already commissioned a seventh, so Season 6 starts with Ray being pulled from the river by a cop named Mac (Domenick Lombardozzi from

who becomes his friend and housemate in New York, bringing Ray into the fraternity that is the Staten Island Police Department. “He’s got to rebuild himself,” says Liev.

In many ways, that’s true of the show itself this season, which reinvents itself as it builds to an explosive finale that Vulture called “one of the best episodes in the show’s history”.

The biggest shift is in location: instead of working as a fixer for Hollywood celebs, Ray is now making problems go away for media mogul Sam Winslow (Oscar winner Susan Sarandon) and her New York City mayoral candidate Anita Novak (Lola Glaudini from which soon puts Ray at odds with his new friends out in Staten Island.

“This season Ray is in New York,” says Liev, who’s been nominated for Best Actor at The Golden Globes for five years in a row, for every season of

“For me, I’m much more at home. For Ray, I think he’s a little out of sorts. It’s a whole new ball game.”

The motivation for the move was partly personal: The New York Times reported that Liev’s two sons with former partner Naomi Watts live in New York, so filming there allows the star to spend more time with his kids. But it also breathes new life into the show. As Kerris Dorsey, who plays Ray’s daughter Bridget, says, “It’s interesting to stray away from celebrity culture and Hollywood to dip into New York politics, which is such a dirty game also.”

The other major shift is in imagining the series without Ray’s wife Abby (Paula Malcomson from who [spoiler alert for the laggers] passed away last season.

Ray was a terrible husband, but in many ways Abby symbolised Ray’s yearning for connection – without her this season, Ray has to relook at himself and his very reason for being. “What gets Ray on his feet again is just that drive to be useful to people,” says Liev.

Despite being created by a woman, Ann Biderman, Ray Donovan has been called “TV’s most male show” by Deadline, who were pleasantly surprised that Season 5 was centred around Abby. This season, there’s more Susan Sarandon, which is always a good thing, but the real female star is Kerris as Bridget.

Forbes wrote, “Bridget has perhaps been the most dramatic character arc of the season… Fans have watched her grow from an innocent child into a married woman capable of doing anything to protect her family... Bridget has stepped up in her mother’s place as the matriarch of the family.”

Until now, Kerris has been famous for daughter roles – like Bridget in or Rachel Griffiths’ daughter Paige in or Brad Pitt’s daughter Casey in

If her performance this season is anything to go by, that’s about to change.