Episode Report Card Aaron: C+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Dead Man's Hand
By Aaron | Season 2 | Episode 7 | Aired on 04.13.2002
Now Brenda heads over to her mother's new apartment, which is a little too white and sterile for my own (admittedly horrible) tastes. Not much happens in this scene that's relevant to the plot, and since I'm on a tight deadline here and my feelings for the Chenowith family are well known at this point, I'll just hit the highlights: Brenda gives her mom a cactus, because it "doesn't need watering or caring about in anyway"; Zhora gushes about possible wedding plans (and reveals that she and Papa C got married on a beach); a character named "Lulu Smigel" is referenced; and Zhora breaks down in tears and asks Brenda to leave. Brenda, however, tries to make some human contact by offering to stay and rub her shoulders, but Mom refuses. Oh, and in the interests of making another prediction so that Alan Ball can try to prove me wrong, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the final episode will feature Nate and Brenda getting married on the beach, thus providing a nice bit of symmetry with the beach scene that closed the season's first episode. Anyone agree with me?
At the cemetery, Nate is explaining his anvilitis to the Hot Rabbi. "Every time I get a headache, I'm thinking this could be it," he says. "I'm going to die." "Yeah, me too," replies the Hot Rabbi, and Nate gets all excited because he thinks the common ground of their mutual fatal illnesses will help him get into her tallis. "What do you have?" he asks. "A body," she replies. Oh. So she's hot, but also kinda corny. Oh well. Corny I can live with (obviously). Nate gets a call from Brenda on his cell phone, but he ignores it in favor of more chat about death and whether or not he believes in God. Clever misdirection #2: When Nate mentions God one last time, the Hot Rabbi replies, "There he is now." She's speaking, of course, about the arrival of the DGDJ, but she does at least has the good taste not to follow it up with a quick "ha ha, made you look."
Ack! More constructobabble! Robbie is over at the Fortress for dinner, and he's going on and on about his "family of origin" and the "tent city" they lived in. Continuing this week's theme of redeeming characters who've really needed to shut the hell up lately, we're treated to a voice-over of Ruth's thoughts, which go something like this: "Shut up. Shut the mouth. Shutting it. Now. Shutting it and stopping it. If you say another word I will stab you in the heart with a fork. If there is a God in heaven, he will surely shut your mouth." Hee! I'm totally taking that as a shout-out, especially the "Shutting it. Now" part. Then again, between that and the "stop talking about my facial hair" bit, I'm starting to get the sense that Alan Ball doesn't like me very much anymore. Oh Alan, where has our love gone? Once Robbie finally finishes his spiel, Ruth speaks up to let him know that she's learned everything she can from the plan, and that she "no longer feels the urge to speak in building metaphors." Well, hallelujah! And while I'm sure there's a joke about cheering and doing that "raise the roof" thing with your hands to be made here, I'll skip it out of respect for her decision.