Episode Report Card Aaron: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dead as Folk? No. Dead as Fuck? Yes.
By Aaron | Season 2 | Episode 9 | Aired on 04.27.2002
Next up is Keith checking Karla into rehab. She cries and psychobabbles, and he reassures her. I, meanwhile, have finally found a plot I care less about than Rico's. The acting was pretty good, though.
Anyway, now Brenda is shopping for books somewhere. She wanders through the self-help section, checking out the various titles. She passes Living with Life-Threatening Illness, I Hate You, Don't Leave Me, Charlotte: Light and Dark and Damaged Beyond Repair, before finally spotting Your Brother's A Wacko And Your Fiancé is Going to Die. Oddly enough, I already own that book. It's pretty good, but it just didn't speak to me. Disgusted with herself, she wanders over to what appears to be some kind of book signing in the back.
Meanwhile, Nate is doing some shopping of his own, in a fairly ritzy looking supermarket. As he strolls down the shocking plot-twist aisle, he suddenly encounters Lisa, standing between the bananas and Norman Bates's mother. He gets an extremely rectangular look of surprise on his face, and genuinely seems happy to see her. Lisa, on the other hand, appears to be a bit weirded out. She confesses that she finally took that job with the vegan movie producer, and now she's living in L.A. Well, actually, she says she's living in the Palisades, which makes me wonder about her intentions in shopping in Nate's neighborhood. Then again, I've already admitted that I know nothing about L.A., so maybe the Palisades IS Nate's neighborhood. Anyway, she's wearing a tightly buttoned jacket. That'll be important later. They chat a bit, and Nate invites her over to the "juice bar" so they can get caught up.
While they chat, Brenda is still at the bookstore, listening to some smarmy-looking Eurotrash author read passages from his book, which is entitled The Lie of Romance. We get a slow push-in on Brenda and the author's faces as he speaks, so you pretty much know they're going to fuck soon.
Which brings us back to Nate and Lisa and the question of whether or not they've fucked already. Lisa asks him about his life, and Nate (somewhat reluctantly) admits that he and Brenda are engaged. Lisa takes this news like she's been kicked in the stomach (and all things considered, it's entirely possible that she has been). When he asks if she's seeing anyone, her response is to simply open her coat and say, "No, not really. Oh, by the way, I'm pregnant." Oh. My. God. I gotta be honest and say that I'm not really sure how to take this news. Sars told me she was cursing at her TV when it happened, and I'm not really all that excited myself about the prospect of a hairy little anvil walking the Earth. And since the soap opera overtones of the whole thing have been done to death in the forums and on the homepage, I'm not even going to go there. I'll just say that I'm disappointed that Alan Ball felt he had to turn to a secret pregnancy to drum up interest in the show. Then again, Glark had to turn to a fake firing this week to drum up interest in the Smallville forums (not that they really needed it), so maybe I shouldn't say anything. On the other hand, it would be kinda cool if we could have a fake firing here every week, don't you think? You know, like, "Tune in next week, when Jessica compliments Dawson and gets escorted from the building by security!" No? All right, fine. Back to the show. I guess I'll just reserve judgment until the season finale, when Baby Nate will no doubt emerge from the birth canal to deliver a stirring meditation on the meaning of life.
Either way, Nate is utterly shocked that he could be the father. The look on his face as he tries to deny responsibility is perfect, however, and Lisa is forced to explain. "Don't you remember when you came to Seattle last August, and you fucked me [Fk=22], and then you left the next day like it didn't mean a goddamn thing?" Oh, come on. He left you the shirt. It must have meant something. Lisa isn't finished, however, and she adds that "it obviously meant something, since [he was] crying like a fucking baby that night." Fk=23. Nate denies that he was crying over Lisa, but she doesn't even listen. "You were crying because you knew you were home," she insists. "Because you missed me. Because you knew that you and I should be together. And then you fucked me [Fk=24]." She also describes Nate as a "fucking coward, who's never going to own up to the way [he] feels about [her]." Dear God in heaven! Run away, Nate! Run far, far away! Can't you see that Lisa lies? She lies with her eyes! And also her uterus, apparently. Nate is furious that she didn't tell him, but Lisa reminds him that they "already did this once before." Only this time, she's actually going to keep the baby. And if nothing else, convincing a girl like Lisa to get an abortion does seem to be a very Nate thing to have done. At least the pre-show version of Nate, that is. Lisa moves to leave, but has one last parting shot before she goes: "Congratulations on the whole 'getting married' thing," she says. "She must be out of her fucking mind." Heh. I knew Alan would get that double meaning in somewhere. Also, Fk=25.