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
Claire's still sitting across from Ma Chenowith, thinking about what Ma said, until the check is delivered. Claire says she should go, but Ma says she's the one who should leave, because Billy has just appeared at Claire's elbow. He smiles down at Claire, who's looking back at him in silent fury, while Ma Chenowith basically tells them to have a good talk. As Billy takes the seat Ma recently vacated, she tells him to call later to let her know how it goes. "Okay, Mom," he says, as she announces she's taking the check and makes herself scarce. That's big of her, considering she's the only one who ate anything. "You planned this?" Claire asks Billy in disbelief when they're alone. Billy says he just didn't think he'd made himself clear before; he wants Claire to know that if she ever wants to get back together at any time in the future, he'd be "open to that." Claire's still stuck on how they got here: "You used your mother to ambush me?" Billy says it wasn't an ambush, exactly. "I am so out of here," Claire says, but Billy stops her, saying he wanted her to know about his feelings. Claire firmly says she gets it, "but that is never going to happen." She just can't forgive him for deciding to go crazy and making her have sex with that guy and then getting all grungy, can she? Billy asks if she knows for sure. "Pretty much," yeah, says Claire. Billy abruptly breaks down into sobs, and Claire says she has to go to the bathroom. Billy begs her not to leave, so she promises to be right back. And then she gets up from the table (with her coat still on and her purse over her shoulder), walks back to the restrooms, past the restrooms, and straight out the back exit. The next time she sees Billy should be interesting.
Rico is telling Vanessa about the meeting with the principal, but it's naturally a tissue of lies. "I didn't go into details," he lies, but then he says the principal was looking for an explanation. And then he lies that "He said that our divorce is causing Julio to lash out, and frankly he's surprised that it hasn't caused more problems than it already has." I hate when people lead someone else into agreeing with them, and then "quote" that person to a third party as if the other person actually said it on their own. It's just so sneaky. Vanessa sadly says that it's hard to be a single mom as the kids get older, but she didn't realize it was causing such problems. "It's okay," Rico lies. "I'm on top of it. We're on top of it." And he strokes her hand comfortingly. And lyingly.
"Who is at the door?" Nate asks Maya, and holds her up to the window so she can identify "Papa n Maggie!" He lets them in, and George has Maya in his arms before he's fully in the door. I do like the relationship between those two. It's either because I'm a big softie or because they're close without making me recap a lot of dialogue. Maggie asks if it's okay that George came, and Brenda assures her that it is. "Please don't talk about me like I'm not here," George says pleasantly. I'm sure they didn't mean to; he was just three feet away, and you're on TV, so they probably assumed you couldn't hear them. Brenda starts off the evening by announcing that she and Nate have been having a fight. Nate tries to downplay it as "a disagreement." "What about?" asks George. Brenda starts to explain, but Nate suggests that maybe they should do this when company's not there. Brenda says Nate's right, and fake-pleasantly says that any "weird energy" is from them, has nothing to do with George and Maggie. Well, duh. Having hit Nate where he lives by embarrassing him in front of his girlfriend, Brenda heads off to the kitchen to open the bottle of wine they brought. My closed captioning says "[Maya babbles] Maggie," which is 100% accurate.