Episode Report Card Drunken Bee: A | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT When The Hurlyburly's Done
By Drunken Bee | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.16.2006
In the stands, Nasty Sweaty Buddy Garrity sits around sweating and nastying. The African American "coach" from the first episode shows up next to him, and N.S.B.G. greets him as "Mr. Deets" and then starts talking about a football player from "Looz-iana," a "Katrina victim" who's in Texas now, name of "Ray Tatom." Mr. Deets asks, incredulously, "Voodoo Tatom?" and Nasty Sweaty asks if he knows him. Mr. Deets knows of him and when Nasty Sweaty buck-tooths a bit about he and Mr. Deets just sort of easing over to an old lot in Marlsboro to check him out -- like he's a horse up for sale -- Mr. Deets hesitates and responds, "Yes, sir." Sometimes I just can't believe the economy of gesture in this show; like how much is contained in that "sir."
Lyla's in her room fiddling with a necklace in front of her requisite Popular Girl High School Photo Collage. Her mom comes in, and Lyla worries that they have to get to the pancake supper, because "without anyone there to tell them what to do, the girls'll just fool around." Honey, it isn't cancer research you're heading up here. Her mom tells her to slow down and then asks what Lyla wants to do for her birthday tomorrow. Lyla tells her that she's having dinner with Jason at the hospital. Her mom sighs and tries to broach the subject gently, wondering if Lyla should be spending so much time at the hospital -- girlish youth and grim death and all that. Okay, maybe she doesn't point that out to her daughter, but still...Lyla counters to her mom, "Well you'd do it for dad, wouldn't you?" And I must pause for a moment to observe how subtly this family is drawn. Like, at first glance, they're not that bad, maybe a bit shallow, not big on education, definitely unthinkingly privileged, but not all that different from millions of families living on the upper class side of whatever community they live in. But then thinking back to that "sir" that Buddy Garrity commands, and I shudder at what truly rotten badness is at the core of this privilege.
Mrs. Garrity responds that "Well, he's my husband, Lyla" which Lyla sort of brightly counters with "Well, I'm marrying Jason some day!" Oh, lord. I can't think of too many things worse than when teenaged girls think of themselves in this prematurely aged fashion, all doodling "Mrs. Jason Street" on their notebooks. Do you know how much fun is in store for you in your twenties? Don't marry yourself off so early, honey. Lyla's mother suggests that she talk with someone about it. Lyla continues to omit her consonants, which I believe is becoming some sort of larger metaphor for the things in her life that she simply does not get.