Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Oh Me, Oh Maya
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 11 | Aired on 08.28.2004
I'm not going to pretend I don't know that that's Julie the babysitter sitting on the sofa in the Diaz house and watching something that sounds a lot like Army of Darkness. There's a knock on the door. When she turns off the tube and gets up to answer it, it's Rico. She hasn't seen him since high school. I wonder if she towered over him back then, too. She tells him that the kids are asleep, and Rico hands her some cash and dismisses her, all lord of the manor. "Vanessa didn't say you were coming by," Julie says uncertainly. Rico throws a little attitude: "They're my kids too." Julie figures she's as deep into this as she wants to get, and walks out the door. Rico settles in on the couch, all impressed with himself and his little power play, and and turns Army of Darkness back on. By the way, if there's really going to be a Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash movie, I am so there.
At Brenda and Nate's, Hoyt the Knob is sitting next to Barb and going on and on about how beautiful their chickens are. Yes, chickens. Pet chickens. Four of them, in fact. He recommends them to Nate and Brenda, who are riding on the dangerous side of the fine line between "smiling pleasantly" and "laughing right in Hoyt the Knob's face." I'd be laughing with them, if it were funny. The congenial/awkward moment is shattered when Barb says, "Lisa loved animals." Now it's just awkward. Brenda disappears into the kitchen to get coffee, and if she did have to cook for someone who hates her, all the dishes have been cleared away by now. With Brenda out of the room, Barb gets down to the business of Lisa's ashes. Which, as you know and I know and Nate knows, don't actually exist, since Lisa wasn't cremated. I may have made the mistake of mentioning Lisa's cremains in the recaplet, but now that the recap proper is up, that's gone and you can't prove anything. Barb wants to know why the ashes were the old-school chunky-style, and asks whether Fisher & Diaz oversees the cremation process. Nate explains that they farm it out to a crematorium that they use regularly. Why don't they have a crematorium next to the bomb shelter? Maybe they'll discover it next season. Nate blathers that sometimes the crematorium rushes the last step. Yeah, like that one in Georgia, where they "rushed" it by not actually burning anyone. Barb wants the crematorium's phone number so that she can call them up and roast them in the fire of her rage. Nate offers to take care of it, but Barb insists: "It was suggested," she says, somewhat pointedly, "that they may not even be Lisa's ashes." Nate looks away, thinking, Shit, that's right. They're not. Seriously, up to this point, Nate really seemed to believe what he was telling Barb. The fact that he almost instantly decides to come clean seems to back that up. Or, an alternate theory is that I'm doing more drugs than Claire is. You decide. Anyway, Nate takes a deep breath and plunges in.
"Okay, look, I need to tell you guys something. I gave Lisa what she wanted. She didn't want to be cremated, so I buried her in the desert." Sure, blame the woman who's not here to defend herself. Barb wants to know whose ashes they have, and Nate explains about the unclaimed cremains from the '70s as Brenda returns with the coffee. No, Brenda! Go back! Too late; she's sitting down as Barb says, "So, in Lisa's vault, with her name on it, where my parents go to visit her and pray, are some complete stranger's ashes?" You say that like it's a bad thing. Things escalate quickly as Nate tries to explain about where Lisa is buried and wanting to honor her wishes and Hoyt the Knob yammers on about Joshua trees. Nate has to tell Barb that Lisa didn't want a marker, so there isn't one. He's sorry, but he says he was a little out of it, feeding Barb her next line complete with a spoon and little airplane noises. "It sounds like you were completely out of it," Barb says. "What you did was probably illegal, Nate." Seems like that's more Nate's department. ["I believe she is right, though." -- Wing Chun] Nate, getting angry himself now, reminds Barb again that he was doing what Lisa wanted, which he thought Barb wanted too. But now Barb's decided that she wants something else, namely for Lisa to be alive and her daughter not to be raised by a woman Lisa hated. Picky. Brenda reacts to that like she's been slapped. It's news to her that Lisa hated her? Why? Everyone hates Brenda. Jeez. Barb drama-queens some more about Lisa being erased off the face of the earth. What did you just say a minute ago, Barb? There's a vault with Lisa's name on it where her parents visit her and pray. Make up your mind. "This raises a lot of questions, Nate," Barb adds. "What questions?" Nate demands. I can think of a few...thousand. But Barb's had enough. She calls Hoyt the Knob to heel and they head out. Speaking of pet chickens. "It raises a lot of questions, Nate," Hoyt the Knob repeats, as if he just thought of it himself. The door slams as Nate looks for support to Brenda, who hasn't said a word. She looks like she has a few questions of her own.