Episode Report Card Aaron: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Give me Lauren or give me death
By Aaron | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 07.07.2001
School again. Claire emerges from class, but this time there's no slow motion. Damn. Brenda is there waiting for her, and for some completely unexplained reason, she's wearing what appears to be a yarmulke. Then I discover that it's just a babushka, but that doesn't really make it any better. She tries to console Claire, saying, "My brother is a very complicated man, and very high-maintenance. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love him dearly, but I pity the woman he ends up with." In addition to being the same thing that Claire would say about Nate, it's also the same thing my sister probably says about me. There's a reason we don't date each other's friends. "Is every man alive a total asshole?" inquires Claire. "At some point or another," answers Brenda, but before I can sue for gender defamation, she adds, "But then again, so are we." As they walk away, Claire gets giddy. "I still can't get over the fact that you are Charlotte Light and Dark." Brenda speaks for us all when she says, "Well, you have to, because it's very irritating."
And, once again, back to The Formaldehyde Fortress. Nate finds Mom in the kitchen, and relates that the Gripey Guy is still downstairs. He sits beside her, and she explains that the silver she's polishing has been in the family for generations, but she's never used it. Nate hands over the sexy pictures, and Mom laughs and smiles when she sees them. Nate lies that he found them in the office, and Ruth tells the story of where they came from. Apparently, Dad was going to Vietnam, much to the dismay of Grandpa Nate, who "was not a happy man." Anyway, he and Ruth snuck out to a motel for one last night of romance, and that's where the pictures were taken. Who wants to lay odds on Claire's kids finding that picture of Billy squeezing her breast one day? Again I note that Frances Conroy is a pretty good actress when she's got the material. She finishes the scene by noting that "it's frightening how much we change," and then inviting Nate to stay for dinner.
In the funeral room, Nate comes down to take Gripey Guy home, and in a plot-twist so non-twisty it's gone past straight and all the way to Dr. Laura's house, he finds Mr. Cobbs dead, one hand locked firmly in his wife's, well, death grip. Aww, sniff.
David is once again packing up tables and chairs on the street corner so nice they filmed it twice. A cop car cruises by, and David's eyes lock onto the black officer in the front seat until he realizes that it's not Keith. He looks pensive, and the music swells, and we slide gently into the final montage. Brenda and Claire get stoned and bond at Brenda's, and then Ruth arrives at a mystery house and bangs frantically on the front door. Ed "Electro-Glide" Begley (tm fuzzbox again) opens the door, and plants another old-people kiss on Ruth. As she steps inside to begin life anew, we fade to white one final time.
Aaron: And now, live from the Home Office in --