Episode Report Card Aaron: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Body Shots
By Aaron | Season 3 | Episode 8 | Aired on 04.19.2003
Ahh, the triangle -- that most devilishly simple of all the geometric forms. It possesses merely three sides, three angles, three vertices, and one hundred and eighty degrees. And while the humble triangle may lack the elegant simplicity of the circle or the sly insouciance of the rhombus, it more than makes up for these failings through the sheer linguistic exuberance of its contribution to the mathematical vernacular (Obtuse! Hypotenuse! Isosceles! Pythagorean!). Did you know that some triangles are considered to be rational, while others are labeled irrational? Did you know that the triangle is the basic protein building block of the virus? Yep, that's right. Even the mighty SARS (with her deservedly legendary curves) is made mostly of triangles. In fact, structural engineers have long considered the triangle to be the strongest shape in nature. That's why suspension bridges look the way they do. Dramatists, however, know it to be the least stable structure in any relationship. That's why this week's episode of Six Feet Under looks the way it does. And so, without any further protracted protractor-related ado, let's get on with the recap.
Fade up on a what appears to be a coven of witches assembling a passel of tiny broomsticks for their local pee-wee Quidditch team (sponsored by Der Zauber Kasten, of course). Except it turns out that the broomsticks are actually hand-mops, and the "witches" are actually all the many polygamous wives of a cuddly David Koresh-type who goes by the only-slightly-less-creepy-than-it-sounds name of "Daddy." You'll have to forgive me for thinking they were witches, by the way, because the powerful dark influence of the occult seemed to be the only logical explanation for why they would all be tunelessly crooning America's "Horse With No Name" while they work. I sense the hand of Tsathoggua in all this. ["The presence of Amanda Foreman, who played a Wiccan on Felicity, is probably an unconscious cue also." -- Sars] Out back, meanwhile, Daddy himself is delivering a home-school mathematics lesson that only Vanessa could love to a brood of a dozen or so excessively cute ragamuffins. When one of them correctly calculates the amount of change that should be returned when a three-dollar hand mop is purchased with a "hundred-and-eleven-dollar bill," Dad declares the lesson to be over and sits everyone down to hear a few words of wisdom from "The Book of Daddy." The expected Vladimir Nabokov quote fails to materialize, however, and Daddy instead just suggests that "every day we must dance, if only in our minds." Incidentally, this guy looks as though he's just made a narrow escape from the set of A Mighty Wind, which is in itself a particularly apt metaphor for the gale force blast of hot air that he's spewing here. His proclamation comes complete with accompaniment from The Dramatic Synthesizer Of The Transcendent Wisdom Of The Crazy White People, which is distinguished from The Sagacious Wisdom Of The Ethnically Downtrodden by its peppy neo-hippie cheerfulness and a complete lack of hard-won, gritty urban realities (see Tracy the Annoying Funeral Stalker vs. Paco the Gang-Banger for further elaboration on this theme). In the end, Daddy dismisses his students and settles down into a comfortable lawn chair, where his eyes gently close and his silent death is noticed by only the cutest of his children. Farewell, Daddy. I can only hope the answer to the eternal "Who's your?" question awaits you on the other side.
The Ironic Segue Fairy pulls a familial fast one on us, as we fade from a dead Daddy to the grave of a dead mommy. Vanessa's dead mommy, to be exact. She's got the whole Diaz family there with her, and it appears that they've actually packed a picnic lunch to go sit beside the gravestone. Okay, that's a little creepy. Rico would seem to agree, because he suggests that visiting her mother's grave every single Sunday for four months might not be the healthiest way for Vanessa to express her grief. He wants to have a party instead. "I can't," replies Vanessa. "It feel like someone tore out my heart and fed it to dogs." Not to worry, though. Rico can always make her another one out of duct tape and some leftover pork chops. "You don't smile or laugh anymore," complains Rico. "You don't act like you." And then he brings out the really big guns: "You act like…you act like one of the Fishers!" Heh. Vanessa's look of horrified disgust is priceless, and she finally consents to let him take the boys to Knotts Berry Farm for the afternoon. Then she starts sobbing again. "I'm never going to see my mother again," she wails. "This is normal! I'm normal!" Uh, okay.