Episode Report Card Aaron: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Give me Lauren or give me death
By Aaron | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 07.07.2001
Gripey Guy takes this opportunity to wake up and gripe about them trying to steal his watch, and Claire jumps up off the sofa in a huff. "Look, we've got to go move a chest," she snarks, drawing a sharp glance from Brenda. "Someone should be back soon to let you see your wife." Bill Cobbs, in a gravelly voice infused with the sage Wisdom of the Minorities found so frequently in this, our Alan Ball world, simply replies, "Little girl, you ain't fooling nobody." Nobody but me, that is. Claire goes off to change, and Brenda asks Bill if he'll be okay there alone. "Everybody is alone. You're born alone, you die alone, goddammit," he replies, and Brenda, at last impressed that she's found someone more metaphysical than she, joins him on the couch.
Cut to Nate, arriving at a nursery. For plants, not for kids. He spies the owner, and identifies himself as "Nate Fisher, Nathaniel's son." Now we cut to the owner's office, where she cries at the thought of "never seeing [The Late Nate] again. He was such a kook…I don't think anybody ever made me laugh like that." Nobody but me, that is. "He had such a sense of humor," she continues. "So I hear," is all Nate can reply. When she mentions that Dad was really proud of him, Nate is forced to admit that he's "Nate, not David." Potted Plant Lady knows this, and tells us all again how proud Dad was that Nate got away. He asks if she maybe had any kind of arrangement with his dad, and mentions that her entry in the ledgers at Fisher & Sons was marked with the asterisk. "Don't take this the wrong way," she replies, "but can I see some identification? A driver's license will do." I'm actually really glad she asked that, because I've been TiVoing the nine daily showings of Sports Night on Comedy Central lately, and Peter Krause is appearing especially Casey-ish in this scene. He hands over his license, and after checking it out, PPL hands over about an ounce of Humboldt County's finest. "My father never smoked pot," insists Nate. "Not in front of you, he didn't," answers Potted Plant Lady. By the way, do you get it now? Anyway, they've clearly exhausted Peter Krause's repertoire of "shocked" expressions, so they just cut to a close-up of the pot before ending the scene.
On a busy street corner, David is helping Father Jack unload a van full of lunches for the homeless. Father Jack asks after Ruth, and David replies, "She's fine, as far as I can tell. You know her, she likes to suffer in silence." Father Jack answers, "That seems to be a family trait." Oh, if only that were true. Suddenly, Tracy appears, and this time her introductory rant starts with a recipe for "energy bars," ends with a medical diagnosis of her pet corgi's hip, and features a sociological mediation on the poly-racial nature of Brazilian culture somewhere in the middle. David zones out as he listens to her, and doesn't snap out of it until the homeless guy he's handing a meal to says, "Fuck you, church freaks!" Tracy is still babbling, only now it's about how she hates cooking for just herself. "That's the worst part about being divorced. Well, that and the no regular sex." Suddenly, a giant sonic boom erupts as Irony streaks overhead in a B-52, carpet-bombing the neighborhood. Hey, look! The St. Elsewhore is riding one of the bombs down. Dr. Strangelove lands right beside David just as Tracy gets to "no regular sex," and asks if he can speak to David alone. David agrees, and Dr. Strangelove (also tm Karabella) begs him to talk to Ruth on his behalf. David gets angry, and wins my love by basically telling the Begster to go to hell.