Episode Report Card Heathen: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Beyond Repair
By Heathen | Season 8 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.09.2002
Carter arrives home to find that Gamma's new nurse isn't there. Annoyed, he calls the service to complain, but Eleanor appears and says she sent the woman home early because she was annoying Gamma. "She'll be back at 6 AM," Eleanor says casually, promising to get up if there's a problem in the night. She wanders into the library, leaving an astounded Carter alone with his brewing resentment.
Carter follows his frosty mom. "What are you doing?" he asks. "You show up uninvited..." "Uninvited?" Eleanor bristles. "...And now you're making health-care decisions?" Carter rants. Frosty the Snowman plays it off like she was just being an obedient daughter-in-law, heeding Gamma's wishes, but Carter isn't having it and basically implies she's useless. Chilly O'Frigid sits down and self-righteously says she's suffered through enough abuse at the hands of Gamma -- she doesn't need her son to turn on her, too. A heated Carter burns the Ice Queen by explaining rather angrily that HE is the authority on Gamma's situation, and all decisions pass through him. To be contrary, he's calling to demand that the nurse return. "I'm not leaving this house," the ice sculpture swears. "I don't care if I'm uninvited. I'm not going to let your father break up this family." Mary McDonnell isn't doing a very good job. Her way of playing a closed-off patrician matriarch is to enunciate too much and restrict her speech to a monotone. It's so grating it could shred cheddar. Carter, half out of the room by then, turns right back around to challenge his mother's fairly revisionist take on the family history. "You checked out of this family twenty years ago," he snarls. "I refuse to let you [spin] this with you as the injured party!" Queen Zero Degrees tries to sweep past him to her bedroom, but Carter grabs her to block her exit. She's either trying to keep a stiff upper lip, or it's just frozen that way after years of being the coldest woman alive. "Step aside," she hisses. "No! I got stabbed!" Carter yells, shoving her backward so she'll stay and confront this. "Where the hell were you? Same place you've been my entire life -- someplace else." She gulps and stammers that they got stuck in Tokyo, and Carter claimed he was fine. "Well I wasn't fine," Carter says. "It wasn't okay." She can't look at him, gritting her teeth and asking if he's trying to blame her for his drug problem. "I'm blaming you for not being my mother!" Carter shouts sadly. "Bobby died and I lost a mother." Bobby, his brother, died when both boys were young. Eleanor spaces out, trying to catch her breath. Her lips tremble and her eyes are liquid. Finally, some decent acting from her. "May I go to bed now?" she whispers, haltingly. Carter sets his jaw bitterly and lets her pass, glaring at her back. He sits down hard and sighs, wounded. "Yeah," he mutters. "Run away."