Episode Report Card Aaron: B | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Death in the Family
By Aaron | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 06.02.2001
And now we meet the final Fisher. It's young Claire, cruising along in her lime-green hearse. She asks whether Nate Jr. has arrived yet, and then snots that she'd rather be going to a party than participating in "the whole forced Christmas Eve family thing." David reminds her that it's one of the few times a year everyone is together, and she finally consents to make an appearance.
Cut to a janitor's closet at LAX, where Rachel and Peter "Trapezoid Butt" Krause are going at it. Now that's what I call a dating plan.
Dissolve to the Fisher home, where Mom is pulling a pot roast from the oven. You know, whoever is responsible for my job assignments here at MBTV certainly seems to have a sick sense of humor. I've somehow gone from being the Mighty Big Religious Freaks In The Desert Recapper to the Mighty Big Recapper Of Shows Airing Sunday Night On HBO That Repeatedly Equate Sex With Free Meat. Apparently, I won't be stopped until I've narrowed my demographic to infinity. Pontoon is still with me though, right? Mom answers the ringing phone, and upon hearing the news of Dad's death, flings the offending device into the cleverly placed low-angle camera. Then she starts shrieking and sweeps the Metaphoric Meat Of Sex And Death right off the stove and onto the floor.
Downstairs in the viewing room, they can all hear the meat flying about above, and I'm forced to reverse myself and declare David's delivery here the best "excuse me" ever. He runs upstairs to find Mom curled up on the floor. She tells him, "Your father is dead. Your father is dead and my pot roast is ruined." David just stares in disbelief.
We cut right into a close-up of the previously mentioned Trapezoid Butt. Rachel wonders whether Peter knows that he "carries around a lot of tension in his lower back." I wonder how a man with so much hair above his waist can have such silky smooth legs. That just doesn't seem right, somehow. There's more kissing, and then some nipple licking (his -- and with the hair, eww), and eventually they both claim to have never done this sort of thing before. Peter asks her name, but she's reluctant to tell. Before things can get too serious, his cell phone rings, and Alan Ball busts open his Big Bag O' Freaky Locked Focus Shots as David relays the bad news.
Cut to the most disgusting shot of the night, which surprisingly has nothing to do with a dead body. It's actually an old, greasy pizza, adorned with crushed cigarettes and what would appear to be maggots. It's the party Claire wanted to attend, and her boyfriend is offering up a glass pipe from which she may smoke. "Promise me this isn't crack," she says, "because I have to spend tonight having Christmas dinner with my demented family and it's going to be weird enough without being high on crack." He swears it's "just" crystal meth, which I guess makes it okay somehow. "It makes everything burn a little brighter," he continues. "Plus, it makes sex, like, totally primal." Okay, I'll reverse myself yet again and declare that the cheesiest pick-up line ever. Claire somewhat reluctantly takes the pipe and smokes up, and just then her cell phone rings. David is once again the bearer of bad tidings, but Alan simply holds a silent close-up on Claire as her lip begins to quiver. She returns to her friends, telling them her father was killed and that she has to leave. "I've got to go pick up my mom and bring her to the morgue so she can identify his body." The friends all snicker, forcing Claire to explain, "I'm not kidding. This is actually happening. And now I'm high on crack! So I guess this whole hellish experience I'm about to go through is just going to burn a little brighter now, right? Great. Thank you." She swears some more and storms out of the room.