Episode Report Card Aaron: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT It's a Dead Man's Party, Leave Your Body at the Door
By Aaron | Season 3 | Episode 13 | Aired on 05.31.2003
Fortunately, the announcement is completely unrelated to power tools. "You're getting married?" asks David incredulously. "You guys met, like, last week," adds Claire. "Uh, six and a half weeks ago, actually," corrects George, displaying the sort of mathematical accuracy that makes the temperature reading/station identification decimal fiasco in the last recap that much easier to understand. The kids are predictably shocked, and Nate is even more predictably rude about it. "Yeah, that's just so fucking moving I can hardly stand it," he gripes (Fk = 18). "Do whatever you want. What do I care?" He stomps out of the kitchen, and David tries to suggest that maybe this isn't the best time for a wedding, what with the one spouse they already have in the family being missing and all. "Life doesn't stop," answers Ruth. "We didn't die. We have this precious gift of life and it's so terribly fleeting, and that's precisely why it's so important to keep on living and not give up hope. And I intend to keep on living by marrying a strange man who may or may not have murdered several of his ex-wives. And if no one is going to celebrate this with us, then I don't want you there."
Upstairs, Ruth and George lie awake in bed and discuss the kids' reactions. George reports that his own two children are basically fine with it, although neither will be attending (one wants pictures, the other says six is his limit). "I don't need their approval," says Ruth. "Not one of them has ever had a relationship I'd want." Hee! It's funny because it's true. Although you'd think the frequency with which Brenda received oral sex might at least make that one a candidate. I'm just saying. "I don't want to wait," she concludes. "I feel like I've been waiting my entire life. Especially all that time I spent with Arthur. Man, that guy's a freak."
Back in the kitchen, Claire and David are trying to come to terms with the news. "They don't even know each other," sighs David. "Although maybe that's the best time to marry someone. Otherwise you'd never do it." Heh. Maybe I should adopt that strategy with the "Marry me, Aaron" thread. Or maybe someone should point out to Lauren Ambrose that she doesn't really know me. It could work, you know. Ever the considerate big brother, David wonders how Claire is dealing with all the recent trauma in their lives. "Not that good," she replies. "With Lisa just...gone, and Nate, like, totally losing it, I feel like I don't really have a right to have my own problems. Not to mention the fact that I'm still scraping grease off the pillowcases." When David asks about Russell, Claire tells him that it's "so much more than that," but instead of confessing that she had an abortion, she instead blames everything on art school. "It's just so sickly political and dumb," she complains, "and full of evil, hateful freaks, that now I just despise the one thing that was my only hope." Hmm. Sickly political and dumb? Full of hateful, evil freaks? Are we sure Rick Cleveland didn't write this episode? Because that sure sounds like a West Wing/Sorkin shout-out out to me. Remembering that she's not the only one with problems, Claire turns the conversation back around on David by reminding him that his relationship "fell apart." "Well, I wouldn't say...yeah," he answers sadly. Claire gets up to go back to bed, and David asks her to be sure to return her coffee cup in the morning. "We're running out of cups in this kitchen," he says, in an oddly wistful close-up. "People keep leaving with them." That probably would have been more moving if I could remember an actual specific example of someone stealing a cup, but I can't. Sorry. I'm lost. Fade to white.
Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20Next