Episode Report Card 1 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Misfortune
By Chuck | Season 5 | Episode 5 | Aired on 02.02.2002
Leo's interrogating Stoner, who denies ever insinuating that Colby was the father of Erika's Lebanese-Canadian Siamese twins. Stoner says he needs to go to protective custody (he also needs a good conditioner); as Pete assures Leo that Stoner, he gleefully shares that he doesn't give a rat's ass, and advises Pete to explain to Cyril that he needs a good lawyer.
She obviously fails miserably, as we next see Katherine explaining to Ryan -- duh -- that Cyril's is a tough case, especially since Pete's analysis says that Cyril knows right from wrong. Oh, she'll take the case, because if she didn't, they'd have to import a lawyer from another state, but recommends that Ryan go with "a name brand." Like Skechers, or Massengill. Ryan's not sure what she means, so she rattles off the three lawyers she knows -- "Barnum" F. Lee Bailey, Johnnie "The Tard's Got Heart, So Smell My Fart" Cochran, and Ken "Who Moved My Personality?" Starr. Of those three, who'd do a cameo? Like we don't all know the answer already. Katherine cops to not being a one-woman PR circus, a veritable font of "razzle-dazzle," and says that Ryan really needs someone who can whip the media into moral outrage over the fate of an extremely violent halfwit. When Ryan frets over the expense of Media Whore, Esquire, Katherine tactfully explains that he must answer the question, "How much is your brother's life worth?"
Betty Buckley blames herself, since she didn't listen when Ryan told her that something bad was sure to come of her presence in Oz. Ryan says it's been a joy having her around. Betty Buckley suggests hiring some razzle-dazzle; when Ryan explains that razzle-dazzle only looks cheap, she suggests convening a family meeting to explore innovative fundraising possibilities. Unconvinced that a family meeting is such a hot idea, Ryan asks Betty Buckley if she's seen his father lately. With my busy stage career, she says? Ha! It's been over thirty years since she's seen Seamus (oh, of course his name is fucking Seamus), but she "can't think of a better reason to stare the old bastard down."
And so the meeting convenes. Betty Buckley, evidently the butt of a joke in the wardrobe department, sits as Ryan paces. Aunt Brenda (the always-lovely Anne Meara) arrives first, bearing noted cure-all chocolate peanut clusters. She stops short when she sees Betty Buckley, and then directs Seamus, who's standing in the doorway and looks like he's been downing a fifth of something corrosive each day for a few decades, to sit his sorry ass down. He immediately starts attacking Betty Buckley, as Ryan moves into the central "Give Me Money For Cyril's Defense" portion of today's proceedings. Upon learning that a name-brand lawyer runs somewhere north of $20,000, Brenda and Seamus both scoff. Seamus assures Ryan that none of them have that kind of cash, but Ryan queries Brenda about her large disability settlement. Umm, that would be the money I live on, explains Brenda, and my life is a damn sight more important than my knuckleheaded nephew's. Ryan thinks she should give it up because she claims to love him; when she says he does love him, Ryan says, "But not enough." Asshole.
Seamus and Betty Buckley bicker some more -- a touching exchange that involves Seamus talking about wiping the dirty asses of his sons and Betty Buckley exploding cops, while Betty Buckley talks about Seamus's infidelity -- until Ryan pleads for mercy and says that, as they're discussing Cyril's life, none of this shit matters. Brenda begs to differ, opining that shit is all there is and that the best thing they can do for Cyril is let him die. She gets up to leave; Ryan protests, but Brenda says that there has to be more than blood to make a family. As Betty Buckley sheds a tear and Seamus looks like a bloated frog, Brenda tells Ryan, "You knocked on the wrong door, honey." Amen, sister. Brenda leaves; Seamus follows. He says nothing to Ryan, but calls Betty Buckley a "cunt." I'm excited because I've gotten to type the "c" word twice in very short order. Betty Buckley stands up, apologizes, laughs at a lame Ryan joke, and then gives him the kind of hug you give when you really don't want to hug someone, when you stand far away and just put your arms around the person, and it looks fake and weird and forced, and this pseudo-hug detracts from her next assertion, which is that she and Ryan and Cyril really are a family and that they'll weather this here storm. Ryan says that Brenda was right: "The best thing we can do for Cyril is to let him die."