Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 343 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Do You Know How "Taps" Sounds on a Ukulele?
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2009.09.06
Outside the room, as he's leaving, Bronzo tells Don he'd love to buy him dinner and run some slogans by him. Don's saved from having to answer by Pete pointing out to Bronzo that they'll be the ones doing the buying, so all Don has to do is shake Bronzo's stupid, stupid hand. When Bronzo and the boys are gone, Don, still somewhat in disbelief, tells Pryce, "During the Depression I saw somebody throw a loaf of bread off the back of a truck. It was more dignified." That person must have been wearing an ascot too. Pryce, mildly sarcastically, wonders in response if Don will have trouble sleeping tonight. "I've seen clients far more defenseless than he." One wonders if they're hanging out with Duck at the moment. Pete then returns from walking Bronzo to the elevator and makes a gleeful remark about fatted calves, which only prompts Don to ask if he told Pryce who "this idiot's father is." You see, his dad, "Horace Sr.," is very connected to Bertram, and he's not sure either man would approve of what just happened. Pete sniffs that Bronzo is his age, and just because he was born with a lot of money doesn't mean they shouldn't make his dream come true. Don walks away in mild disgust, but when he's gone, Pryce remarks to Pete, "Nicely done, my boy." I'd detail all the ways Pete could read too much into that comment, but I would like to accomplish something else in my lifetime.
Gene, dressed in a suit, enters the kitchen with some folders in hand and tells "Elizabeth" to get off her feet for the baby's sake. Betty tells him to wait until she finishes washing the dishes, to which Gene responds that she's "cleaning up for the maid, just like your mother." Well, at least he can tell them apart now, and I'm sure Betty's pregnancy boobs thank him for it. Betty sits at the table and gets out a cigarette, but he holds out a hand: "I don't like watching you commit suicide." Rather than ask him if there are any further orders he'd like to give her in her own home, she settles for inquiring as to what he wants, so he opens the folders, in which are his post-death arrangements. Betty would rather not discuss this subject, but he plows on, telling her that funerals are a dishonest business -- people don't want to think about them, and that's how they get you. "Remember what happened with your mother?" I'm picturing wacky antics involving switched cremation urns, but Gene doesn't elaborate, instead basically saying that Betty will be his executor, given that she took him in, and he'd also like her to have her mother's expensive coats. Chinchilla or no, however, Betty continues to be over this conversation, and starts to get up, but he grabs her wrist and sighs that he shielded her, and as a result she's too sensitive. Sally would get a good chuckle out of that if she weren't already planning to cry for the rest of her life. Gene goes on that the way he raised her is probably why she "married this joker. If you'd even known what was possible!" Betty takes this all in curiously but noncommittally, but when Gene blusters that he's done and they don't have to talk about it again, she decides to speak her mind, saying she doesn't understand why they have to discuss such things when he can see so clearly how much they upset her. "It's selfish and morbid. I'm your little girl." Of course, those words seem a little ironic considering she's now standing over him while eleven months pregnant, but she plows on that she knows it must be horrible to be facing death such as he is (I'm paraphrasing). "But can't you keep it to yourself?" She stomps off, folder in hand, as Gene wonders if giving dead animals to someone so sensitive was the smartest final act he could have done in this world.