Episode Report Card Aaron: B | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Death in the Family
By Aaron | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 06.02.2001
At the morgue, Peter and Rachel have just arrived. Peter goes straight to hug his mother, but when it comes time to introduce his new friend, he doesn't even know her name. "Brenda Chenoweth," she says helpfully, and we get introductions all around. Claire needs to talk to Peter, like, right away, but first he asks whether Mom has already identified the body. She tells him that he needs to do it, because she sees too much death at work, and doesn't want to think of her husband that way. She can barely finish her sentence before Claire grabs Peter and drags him away, leaving Mom alone with Brenda. "So, how did you and my son meet?" she inquires. Brenda wisely replies, "In cooking class" (especially since she could have said "playing racquetball"), and I don't know what kind of accent she was going for there, but whatever it was, she didn't quite make it.
Around the corner, Claire throws Peter up against the wall and confesses that she's high and completely freaking out. Peter, however, isn't feeling all that sympathetic. "Look, I have to go identify our dead father's body," he shouts. "I'm sorry you're having a bad drug experience, but deal with it."
An Asian orderly leads Peter back into the morgue itself, and slides a body out of the freezer for an ID. As Nate Jr. stares at the body, the orderly is replaced by the Late Nate Sr., who has a few parting thoughts to share with his son: "Well, well, the prodigal returns. This is what you've been running away from your whole life, buddy boy. Scared the crap out of you when you were a kid, didn't it? And you thought you'd escaped. Well, guess what? Nobody escapes." In addition to the obvious meta-commentary on both Krause's homecoming and death itself, that's also a fairly apt description of my thoughts right now about taking on another thirteen straight weeks of Sundays With HBO. It's not easy being the hardest-working recapper in showbiz. Or at least the hardest-working recapper not named Nicole, Kim, Djb, Sars, Wing Chun, Pamie, or Jessica. Okay, so I guess when you look at it that way, I really shouldn't be complaining. Hell, even Glark has to work harder than I do. Incidentally, here's where special guest editor Wing Chun makes fun of her husband: ["If you do it in your pyjamas, is it still considered 'work'?" -- Wing Chun] Nate Jr.is finally jolted back to reality by the reappearance of the orderly, and he takes one last long look at his father before making a positive ID.