Episode Report Card Aaron: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I'm not dead yet! (It's just a flesh wound.)
By Aaron | Season 2 | Episode 10 | Aired on 05.04.2002
Strega: Sars? What are you doing here?
Sars: Who, me? Uh, I was just, uh…
Strega & Jessica: Oh my God!
Jessica: You are having a secret affair with him! I knew it.
Sars: Ew. Are you people insane? It's 8:59. I'm just here because the recap is late.
Aaron: [Snore. Cough. Hack.]
Sars: Heh. Secret affair, my ass. And why are those frogs singing?
Back at the funeral, David is still explaining Buddhist tradition. The bereaved are now performing a cleansing ceremony, which involves pouring a cup of water into a bowl that rests inside the coffin. "Do you really think that changes anything?" asks Nate. "Pouring a little water into a bowl?" David isn't sure, but given that every major religion I can think of has its own version of the "pouring water into a bowl" ceremony, I wouldn't bet against it. David also has to leave, and gives Nate some last-minute instructions on how to end the service before he goes.
Ruth and Brenda, meanwhile, are trying to make small talk at the wedding shower. "This punch is delicious," says Ruth. "Your mother made it with a liqueur from Belize. It's some word with a tilde over the end. So what's new?" Uh oh. That's another question Ruth shouldn't have asked this week. Here's Brenda's response: "Actually, I spent all night doing it with this couple from Orange County, and I have absolutely no idea why. It's one of those sex things, you know. Lifestyle parties…they have this little high-tech Japanese vibrator that stimulates the clitoris through very, very low-voltage electrical shocks. Anyway, they invited me, you know, to go with them, and I thought, now this would be crossing a line, which I seem to be doing more and more these days. Because you know what? The lines are only in our heads. In actuality, there are no lines at all, which is really fucking terrifying if you think about it!" Okay, the clitoris part gets a heh, but what really sells the speech is Frances Conroy's reaction and the jangly piano music in the background. Either way, the dream sequence ends, and Brenda laughs it off. And now it's Ruth's turn to deliver a little speech: "I want you to know something, Brenda. I…I love you. I love you because you're so independent and spirited. And you make no apologies for yourself. And you know that you can't smother someone or you'll lose them. You accept Nate as he is, and that is beautiful. I don't know how to do that. Not at all. Maybe that's why I resented you so much, but now I don't. Now I admire you." Aww. They hug, and Brenda looks thoroughly disgusted with herself. As well she should, even if Nate isn't any better. "I have to go to the bathroom," announces Ruth, and she heads off to do just that. Must be the liqueur.
On the way there, however, she runs into Claire, who's slumped against the wall and looking like she's barely awake. Mom wonders if her daughter is sick, and wins even more bonus "Aww" points by checking for a fever by kissing Claire's forehead. Claire reports that she's merely tired, although not "want to go to sleep tired." She's actually more "sick and tired of everything…just, like, all the lies we're fed and the bullshit we're supposed to care about, and, like, how everybody is just so scared of anything that's different from, like, everything else." Like, really? I had, like, no idea. Of course, if Claire really needs to be comforted, I guess I could volunteer. Or not, because she decides to get up and fetch some coffee, leaving Ruth to try for the bathroom once again.