Episode Report Card Aaron: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Can anybody find them somebody to love?
By Aaron | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 05.03.2003
The Tofutti Tenement. Lisa is packing a bag in anticipation of a trip to visit her sister, and Nate is there describing his crying jag as "just a little meltdown." That seems to be a popular word this week. After the required exposition about Lisa's vacation, she quietly admits that she's actually looking forward to a few days without Maya. "That's because you're such a handful," says Nate, as he bends over to pick up his daughter. Maya, by the way, has totally stolen this entire scene by just sitting there quietly with a stuffed dog under her arm. It looks almost like she's watching a tennis match as she follows along with Nate and Lisa's conversation. Somebody get this kid a Baby Emmy! In fact, she's so cute that I won't even comment on the fact that the close-up scenes where the baby wasn't present don't really match well with the long shots where she was actually on the set. Nate wants to know if Lisa made any lists for him to follow while she's gone, but Lisa surprisingly seems to have unclenched her sphincter enough to trust Nate on his own for the weekend. She does, however, caution him not to let Ruth bathe Maya, because it's "like she's scrubbing a potato." She fails to add, "And keep him away from Arthur while you're at it. He's always trying to smell her and it creeps me out." Everyone gets a goodbye kiss (and here's a word I never thought I'd use about these two: "Schmoopy"), and then Lisa cryptically requests that they not walk her to the car because she doesn't want Maya to see her leave. Hmm. Foreshadowing, or just a loving mother leaving her child for the very first time? You be the judge.
Inside the house, Arthur is having a sock problem. No, really. He's laid out about thirty identical black socks on his bed, and he's trying to figure out which ones go with which. Am I the only one who thinks that Arthur has gone from charmingly off-beat to tiresome and incredibly annoying these past few weeks? Yeah. I didn't think so. My interest in diligently recapping this plotline is directly proportional to the blissfully miniscule amount of time I know it has left, so let's just get on with it, shall we? Ruth wanders into the room, and asks if they can have a little talk. "I'd like to know how you feel about the course our relationship is taking," she asks, and Arthur responds with a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about serendipity and the divine, which only confuses Ruth even more. "Does that mean, well, you know, intimacy?" she wonders. "I love intimacy," he responds. "Intimacy is my best friend." Heh. I'm always a sucker for clever puns, no matter who's doing the punning. Ruth continues probing about whether or not Arthur has any interest in hitting a Babe Ruth home run (so to speak), but the boy just doesn't seem to get what she's after. Finally she just breaks down and comes out with it: "So how do you feel about us having sex?" she inquires. Arthur is shocked and appalled by this notion, and is basically reduced to simply muttering a bunch of sentence fragments. "Well, I believe that sex can be…when two become one," he stammers. "It needn't always be painful, especially when there are no clothespins involved, but it is indeed a very slippery slope." It finally begins to dawn on Ruth what the problem might be here, and she asks (as tenderly as is possible when dealing with this particular question), "Arthur, have you ever had sex?" "I think I have," he replies. "In a sense." Ugh. I think I'm done with this guy. In every sense.