Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT All Aboard The Crazy Train
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 2 | Aired on 06.11.2005
Claire's smoking and scribbling in a journal when Billy joins her in the living room. He confesses that he doesn't have the energy for his lesson plan right now. "I'm working on a new idea," Claire says with barely suppressed excitement. Billy looks like that's the last thing he wants to hear, but Claire continues: "I want to go back to the collage stuff, but on a much bigger scale. Not just people as fragments glued together, but like the whole world." Billy says that sounds good, because he doesn't have the energy to explain to her why she's talking nonsense. Claire says she wants to "capture the idea that everything we know is just barely being held together." Billy seems to take that like a slap to the face; whether it's because he thinks it's brilliant or because it sounds like she's talking about him is nicely ambiguous. Then he shakes it off and smiles at her, saying it's big. She agrees excitedly, and says she's still trying to figure it out. "I'll let you keep working, then," he says, and leaves her alone. She sits there with a weird smile on her face, not sure what to do about her sexually and artistically frustrated boyfriend. I bet he'd feel better if she told him she tried to sell a bunch of wedding pictures to an art gallery.
Keith asks David whether he's talked to Claire yet. He's surprised to hear that David did yesterday and he's only hearing about it now. Oh, you know how it is, Keith; the resolution of this week's installment of that plot had to wait until the last act. Although David says it was because he wanted to give Claire a chance to change her mind. "She won't do it," David says. "She's strongly against it." Keith says that's weird. David takes the opening and says that what's weird is two men trying to create a child that's a mixture of both of them, which isn't biologically possible. "Let's stop pretending," David says. "All that's important is the child itself." Keith agrees. But he wants David to understand that he wasn't trying to be selfish: "I can't imagine anything greater than to be able to look at our child and see you in him...or see you in her." "Hopefully you still will," David says. I can see why they're assuming that Keith will be the biological father -- the surrogate thing was his idea anyway -- but I think David really missed a great opportunity to mess with Keith by acting like he thinks it's his own little guys who'll be doing the swimming.
Ruth, George, and Maggie are all sitting down at the table for a bowl of ice cream. George appears to be on a downslope; he's looking quietly pensive, if not completely tuned out. Ruth says she wishes Maggie could stay longer. I have no trouble whatsoever believing that. She offers George a choice between chocolate and vanilla, and George mumbles that he'll have Neapolitan. Ruth says they're out, and George starts getting upset: "How could we be out of it? That's what I like. Neapolitan." Maggie suggests a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of vanilla, but George isn't having it. "If there's no strawberry, it's definitely not Neapolitan." And he flings a carton to the floor. Realizing he's being stared at, George apologizes. "It's just...my life is so goddamn pathetic. All I have to look forward to is a fucking bowl of ice cream and I can't even get that!" This time he slams a chair on the floor. I'm beginning to think George doesn't like the kitchen floor very much. He apologizes again, and reiterates, "Oh, my life is shit." "I simply don't know how to deal with this," says Ruth. "It's like having another child." Yeah, it sucks, doesn't it, when you spend your days trying to make your spouse miserable and then you actually succeed? She sits down at the table while George stands and weeps near the doorway. Maggie goes to comfort George, saying he'll have moments like this, but that it'll get better. "Will it really?" Ruth moans. George begs Maggie not to leave, and Ruth adds that she can't take care of George by herself. She starts rocking back and forth tearily: "If you leave tomorrow night, I don't know what I'll do." Maggie, fool that she is, says that maybe she can stay a little longer. Ruth breaks down for real. Maggie goes to her as far as she can without letting go of her father's hand, but neither George nor Ruth makes a move towards the other, which leaves Maggie in limbo between them. Run, Maggie, run!