Episode Report Card Mr. Sobell: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Shaun Gone? Yawn.
By Mr. Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 8 | Aired on 07.28.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.This week on John From Cincinnati, nothing happened. Well, nothing that couldn’t have been wrapped up in five minutes instead of padded out to the usual fifty.
So John lets Cass know that they made a video the night before. A sex tape? Cass asks. If only. No, it was a video of John in front of a circle-and-stick logo saying, "Sean will soon be gone" over and over again. This video message from John magically appears on the computer of Dwayne the Hare-Lipped Webmaster. He is understandably concerned and shares those concerns with -- in order -- Jerri, Cissy, Dickstein, Butchie, Bill, and finally, John himself when the well-coiffed weird one shows up at the Snug Harbor motel to...well...repeat back everything everyone says to him.
Butchie is fairly certain John means no harm, but he’s just about the only one. Particularly vehement that John is up to no good is Freddy, who has a vision of Shaun’s impending disappearance. He and Bill team up to try and get some info out of John in a little...well, not Good-Cop-Bad-Cop exactly. More like Bad-Cop-Worse-Drug-Dealer. Anyhow, Bill has just handed John over to Freddy to do his worst, when word comes that Shaun hasn’t disappeared at all, but has merely gone to Sea World for the day with Tina. "Shaun will soon be gone to an overpriced theme park" apparently does not have the same mystic weight, I guess.
So what else? Cissy kicks Mitch out in absentia, dropping off a suitcase of her MIA husband's belongings at the Snug Harbor. Cunningham has a vision about turning the on-premises bar at the Snug Harbor into some sort of performing-arts center and then a less pleasant vision about Sean's impending departure intertwined with his own past trauma. The lawyer from the hospital tries to coerce Dickstein into entering into some illicit you-scratch-my-back arrangement that bodes ill for Dr. Smith. Ramon stencils the shuffleboard court wrong. Cass finally figures out hat John is kind of a weirdo and slaps him upside the head. And Linc signs Shaun to a contract...guess he hasn’t heard that Shaun will soon be gone. It's all the talk around Imperial Beach these days. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on John From Cheviot: the hospital's evil attorney came gunning for Dr. Smith; Palaka got sick; Linc and Tina joined forces to trick that smart-ass kid from Saved By The Bell; and some guy we've hardly seen up until now wanted to set up a website for Shaun, triggering an argument and eventual reconciliation between Butchie and Shaun. And that well-coiffed fellow who thrilled us all with those pretty words a few episodes back? He didn't have much to say this week, except to tell Cass that "Shaun will soon be gone." Perhaps he was speaking metaphorically.
Credits. C'mon and slow it down, stretch it out, pad it up, JFC.
Hey, Butchie's out in the water. That's two weeks in a row now where we've begun with extensive, beautifully-shot scenes of someone doing things with a surfboard that most of us can only dream of. Keep this up, Milch, and we're likely to get spoiled. Only this time, Butchie's not alone -- there's another guy out there about his age and definitely about his skill level. Mysterious Stranger will do something as Butchie watches, and then Butchie will try to do something equally spectacular as Mysterious Stranger watches. It's like an aquatic version of Annie Get Your Gun: Any curl you can shoot, I can shoot better/I can surf any wave better than you/No, you can't/Yes, I can/No, you can't/Yes, I can/No, you can't/Yes, I can, Yes I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!
But the surf duet between Annie Oakley and Frank Butler Butchie and Mysterious Stranger is interrupted by Kai and Shaun, who drive up in Kai's Jeep. They notice Butchie's crappy old van, as well as the much slicker-looking truck parked next to it. Kai observes that the truck belongs to Sonny Mac. Sonny Mac, the fictional surfer we've never heard of before? Apparently. Anyhow, Kai decides that she and Shaun will go surf elsewhere, just in case Butchie would prefer his son and his special lady not witness his throwdown with the Sonny Mac. "In case he gets dusted?" Shaun asks. "Shoot-out in I.B. Like in Fiji twelve years ago." "What the fuck do you know about Fiji twelve years ago?" Kai rightly asks. "I know more than I let on," says Shaun cryptically. Careful, kid -- there's only room for one riddle-spewing idiot savant in this town, and that job has been filled.