Episode Report Card Aaron: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT They'll never find the body
By Aaron | Season 3 | Episode 5 | Aired on 03.29.2003
Downstairs, Nate is fooling around in the office, pretending to work in case Rico comes up and catches him. And then just like that, the moment we've all been waiting five long weeks for finally arrives. Brenda is back, buddy-boy, and she's brought a kickin' new hairdo and a pleasantly remorseful demeanor with her. Just to get a few things out of the way up front, I'll also mention that she's not pregnant, infected with an STD, or inviting Nate to join any kind of a weird sex cult. I know some of you were hopeful on those fronts, but it's just not going to happen. In fact, if anything, she's surprisingly bland this week. But like I said in the recaplet, that'll never last. Anyway, she very politely asks Nate for the opportunity to speak with him for a few moments, and he reluctantly agrees to let her come along on a few errands he needs to run.
Cut to said errands, as Nate drives Brenda to an auto-repair shop in a hearse. ["Vine Motors. Shout-out number two. Thank you, thank you very much." -- Sars] She admits to having called him once when she first returned to Los Angeles, but she hung up as soon as he answered. Which is a shame, because she could have asked if they had Prince Albert in a coffin and then giggled madly when Rico got all flustered and embarrassed. "I just wanted to make sure that you were alive," she explains, although the closed-captioning indicates that she dropped the word "still" from that sentence. Nate tells her about the surgery, and the fact that his anvilitis ruptured right in the middle of it, and Brenda is appropriately shocked by the news of his near demise. The real question, however, is whether this little exchange should be taken as nothing more than two old friends catching up on each other's lives, or as foreshadowing for an eventual return of The (Schrödinger's) Cat That Changed Nate's Life. My money is on the former, but Erwin's little kitty has been known to be a fickle beast, so who really knows?
In another (lean, green) hearse somewhere across town, Claire is driving Olivier to the mall. And impressively enough, she's actually doing it without ever even once looking at the road in front of her. I guess she must have been confused by the fact that they actually shot this on a real street, instead of with the normal bad backdrop. I can see where that might have thrown her. After trying and failing to get into Claire's pants via the clever use of Bible quotes last week, Olivier is now attempting to seduce his student by telling her all about the time he slept with an older, married woman. You know, because nothing turns on a teenaged girl like hearing stories about grody old people fucking. "I was twenty-one when we first met," he sleazes. "The radio was playing 'I Wear My Sunglasses At Night.' Such an insipid song. But now it always makes my heart feel…squished." Oy. Never surrender, Claire! You can never surrender!