Episode Report Card M. Giant: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bridezilla vs. Not-A-Mom
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 06.05.2005
Brenda's back home and wrapped in a mass of blankets in front of the tube, looking about two-thirds as wrecked as you'd expect. What does the TV have to say about Brenda's situation? Well the Biography Channel is cheerily explaining that "The splendid young man who came to the throne in 1509, by 1547 had become a revolting, swollen mass of putrefying flesh." Heh. Nate comes to her on the couch with a choice of Vicodin and Naproxyn, and of course she goes for the narcotic. Nate looks at her helplessly. "God, this is so not the vision I had of the night before my wedding," she says tearily. I guess I'm not the only one who's new to this show, huh? Nate says it would be easy to postpone for a couple of weeks. Brenda sees that as the lie it is, and says she'd rather not even have a wedding than have to reschedule everything. Nate jumps on that, saying, "We could run off to Vegas. Come on, you loved that idea." Brenda says that was before she spent six months planning her "stupid fucking dream wedding." Which is why Nate wants to reschedule: "It's just going to be depressing." Brenda freaks that it won't be as depressing as "calling a hundred people and telling them that it's cancelled because I lost my fucking baby which I just told the whole world I was having. Why did you let me tell so many fucking people?" Nate wisely lets the accusation pass without comment, but asks why they're going through with it if she's so upset. The answer: "When I think about not doing it, I just want to throw myself under a bus. I want to swallow razor blades. I'm gonna have to take every painkiller in the house just to pick up the phone and cancel the caterer." "Then fuck it," Nate says. "Let's get married. It'll be a great day." Brenda stops sobbing enough to agree to this plan. I'm cutting Brenda a lot of slack this week in light of what she's going through, but I would be remiss in not pointing out that a less self-centered person would probably take more notice of the fact that Nate is a lot less upset about this than she is, and maybe even wonder what that means. Although Brenda is nice enough to offer Nate one of her Vicodin. "Just make sure you save enough for tomorrow," she cautions. Silence returns, except for the Biography Channel, which would like us to know that the subject of the program "constantly stank of rotting flesh." Har.
A white-screen transition to the next day brings us to Brenda and her mom in the bridal dressing room, where Ma Chenowith is mocking the "granny-panties" Brenda's wearing under her dress. Brenda sharply brushes aside Ma's encouragement to wear a thong instead. In an uncharacteristic display of sensitivity, Ma asks what's wrong: "Did something happen? Is it the baby?" Brenda's weepy look is the only answer Ma needs. Ma tries to pull her daughter into a hug, but Brenda doesn't want to mess up her makeup. "You don't have to worry about everything going right anymore," Ma says. "That boat has sailed." Nice. At least we know that's really Ma Chenowith in there now. She starts going down the list of people who have had miscarriages, including Teresa Heinz Kerry, "and God knows, she looks terrific" She says that lots of women miscarry and just don't talk about it. Whoops, I better go back and delete some stuff from a few pages back. "And then they have a baby, and they're fine, sweetie," Ma finishes. Brenda begins to look less tragic, and then she goes off to change her pad: "If I get blood on this dress I'm gonna kill myself." Thanks, Six Feet Under. So far I've recapped two episodes, and both of them had plot points that included severe vaginal bleeding.