Episode Report Card Aaron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT To Your Scattered Bodies Go
By Aaron | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Aired on 03.01.2003
Cut to the Claire montage, as she spends the rest of the afternoon trying over and over again to draw that ever-elusive "perfect circle." And I don't care what anybody says, I did NOT rewind and re-watch this scene seventeen times. I didn't. Really.
Down in The Body Shop, Rico is busy removing broken glass from a corpse's scalp. Ordinarily I'd be disgusted by that, but after the season of throat-slashing and spoon-fucking I've just been though, it actually seems pretty mild. Claire comes down to get the body she's supposed to deliver, and Rico is not happy to learn that the brothers have added another employee to the payroll. The only question is whether he's unhappy because they didn't consult him first, or unhappy just because breathing in those formaldehyde fumes all day every day has finally destroyed every portion of his brain not coated with a nice thick layer of "Shut the hell up." I guess some questions just weren't meant to be answered.
After an all-too brief shot of The Lean Green Corpse Machine hurtling through the streets of suburban Los Angeles, we find Claire delivering her package to the same crematory that I -- er, I mean, "Aaron Buchbinder" ended up at last season. JP is still on duty, only this time he's got what sounds like a truly hideous band practicing in there with him. Since we all know that even the slightest whiff of "bad news slacker" is enough to leave Claire weak in the knees, it's probably not surprising that she's flirting her blessed little heart out with this guy. Want to know just how much of a bad news slacker he really is? Here's how he describes the band: "It's kind of like early Peter Gabriel meets Tool. Emotionally vulnerable, like Sunny Day Real Estate, but politically conscious, like Public Enemy." Oy. Although maybe she'd like me more if I described my recaps that way. You know, they're kind of like Philip Roth meets early David Foster Wallace. Sarcastically pop-culture relevant like a goodSimpsons episode, but still informative and accurate, like an authorized Star Wars novelization. Eh, probably not.
Oh, Mitzi! Why hast thou forsaken us? You know, just because Kroehner went bankrupt, it doesn't mean that you can't come back and torture the boys every now and then! Or better yet, you could come back and kick Catherine O'Hara's ass. Because as much as I love her in everything else she's ever done, the character of Carol just doesn't do it for me here. And it's not because Carol is my mother's name, either. Although that certainly isn't helping. It's mostly just because I'm already dreading the inevitable big scene where we find out that under that tough, wise-cracking exterior, she's actually just a big ol' softie who deeply regrets missing out on the more feminine things in life while she struggles valiantly to succeed in the high-stakes, male-dominated world of motion picture production. And this, my friends, is that scene. She and Lisa are hanging out in the kitchen, with Carol watching in awe as Lisa pares a cucumber that mysteriously seems to re-grow its skin several times over the course of the conversation. At first Carol is all impressed with Lisa's boundless energy, but when Lisa reveals that motherhood has left her feeling tired all the time, Carol bursts into tears. Really. No, really. See? Deep down she just wants to be a mommy like everyone else. "I'm just nervous," she tries to explain. "I have to pitch to McG in person. And whoa, is he intimidating!" Ha! Okay, I'll give her that one. Lisa tries to console her, but Carol now has other things on her mind. "Also, I swim laps in the morning," she says, apropos of nothing. "And I used to be able to do that naked, which was a great way to start the day. But now I can't do that anymore, because there's a man living here!" I'm sure the neighbors are eternally grateful for that, by the way. Carol bitches some more about Nate's car always being in the driveway, and then she leaves to go swim laps, hopefully fully clothed. Ooh, maybe she'll be the one to drown, instead of Rico's baby. That would rock!
"Are you ready for the bok choi?" asks David. Hee! I've been waiting all day to type that. Bok choi is one seriously funny vegetable. When I worked in a grocery store during high school I used to love the one lady that would come in and buy some every week, solely because I got to use the loudspeaker to ask for a price check on "bok choi." I also loved her because she would pay in food stamps all the time, and yet was constantly decked out in seriously expensive designer clothing. The only thing funnier than welfare fraud is welfare fraud in pursuit of bok choi. And while we're on the subject, why is it that MS Word's spell check knows fenugreek, but not bok choi. Hmm. Bok choi. Bok choi, bok choi, bok choi!