Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT I'm Ready For My Hinky-Ass Close-Up!
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 5 | Aired on 07.03.2005
As if Nate hasn't had enough unpleasant reminders of Life With Lisa this morning, now he's got all four of Faux-mar Sharif's siblings in front of him, arguing about cremation vs. burial, and his only backup is Rico, who only makes things worse by bringing up religion. Things get more and more heated (And time yet for a hundred indecisions, / And for a hundred visions and revisions) until Nate says, rather sharply, "Look! I think what we all need to do is take a collective deep breath and try to be honest about what…uh…Daniel…would have wanted. Not what we might want." And of course be "we" he obviously means "you selfish old fuckers." "We" look at Nate, surprised at being addressed in such a manner by someone "we" are about to pay thousands of dollars to. Of course, "we" don't know that Nate had this same argument with his first set of in-laws, and probably still gets all bunchy every time it comes up. Must get awkward sometimes, considering the business he's in.
David and Keith are at the adoption picnic, but now it's David who's realizing the event might not be all it's cracked up to be: "I feel like everyone's here just to scope out the most adorable kid." Keith will see that and raise it: "All these kids have gone through some serious damaging shit in their lives." David responds, "Like we haven't?" Good point. Argue that your own issues make you more qualified to parent a child with issues of his or her own. You can all go to therapy together. Keith still isn't buying the scene until he spots a beautiful little girl of maybe five hanging off a jungle gym. "She's adorable," David agrees, "but she's surrounded. We gotta get in there." He takes Keith's paper plate and goes to throw it away while Keith makes his move towards the clump of would-be parents hemming the girl in like suitors around the prettiest belle at the ball. While David's doing that, his eye is caught by a boy sitting alone in the sandbox, dumping sand out of his shoes. He's played by the child actor who played young Ray Charles in Ray. Glad to see they didn't actually blind the kid. David sits down facing Little Ray, trying not to give off a creepy child-molester vibe as he says hi and asks if the boy keeps getting sand in his shoes. "That's why I hate sandboxes so much," says Little Ray. "There's so much sand in them." Uh-oh, David. You just met a cute boy in unenviable circumstances who hates sand. Do you really want to adopt a future Darth Vader?
Claire smokes a joint. I know, can you believe it? Of course, the gratuitous close-up on her is so tight I can smell the cloves. She's back in her old upstairs studio on the Fisher premises, watching night-vision footage of a firefight. You can tell it's not an American news channel, because the screen isn't all cluttered with text crawls and the announcer has a British accent (not that that's necessarily a giveaway, of course). She politely offers the joint to her viewing buddy, George (?), who declines with real regret. "I wasn't sure if you did or not," Claire says. George says he used to, but he doesn't know how it would interact with his meds now. Claire makes an "I hear that" face and goes back to her bowl of Jell-O. Which is not a euphemism in this context. George says she can eat with him and Ruth, but Claire reminds him that she's avoiding her mom. So I guess Ruth didn't exactly welcome her back with open arms after she dumped Billy. Maybe moving back into her mom's house wasn't the best option, then. Oh, I forgot -- she's got no job, no money, and no friends, so it's her only option. Never mind. Carry on. George asks Claire to cut Ruth some slack, saying she's been through a lot lately. Like sex with George, for one thing. George comments, "I really like that piece," and he points up to a shelf where there's a bust with its face covered with one of Claire's torn-up photo-collage masks of David. Claire takes the compliment gracelessly: "Everybody wants that to be the one thing that I can do." George insists it's "very provocative, and disturbing, and beautiful. Isn't that what art's supposed to be about?" Claire gestures to the TV screen and remarks that art is "beside the point," and she's not inspired anyway. "If the muse isn't with you, the muse isn't with you," he agrees. "Exactly, George," Claire says, like the second-craziest person on the show is the only one talking any sense.