Episode Report Card Djb: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Poo II: While Poo Were Sleeping
By Djb | Season 4 | Episode 3 | Aired on 06.26.2004
Claire "Bi, Polar" Fisher enters the kitchen to find her mother, Ruth "Mother Superior Jumped The Gun" Fisher, standing on a stool and spelunking the farthest back corner of her upper cabinets. Ruth calls Claire over to take from her a large ceramic container that looks like a big ol' Aunt Jemima. Claire deems the artifact "a little racist," because everything is a little racist, sexist, or homophobic when you're in college, including this sentence that I'm typing right now, and Claire has no interest in eating the segregated colors of an Oreo out of The Cookie Jar Of The Patriarchy. She places it on the table as Ruth asks her if she's started making her piles for "the garage sale." Ah, the garage sale. From the old "Buffy's Sister" school of plot development, where a significant event will suddenly be important to the future of the show, so it's treated as if it was always there. On Buffy, it was done with brilliant self-consciousness. Here...it is a garage sale. I hope they're selling the old box of Crayolas from back in David and Nate's day that includes the racist colors of "Indian Red" and "Flesh." And that one unfortunate series that had "Diseased Liver Of A Drunken Irishman." Took them two crayons to write that whole thing out.
Ruth digs deeper into her Incongruous Racism Pantry, looking for her long-hidden Mammy-Brand Blender and her Heeb-Hatin' Macramé Egg Set, further explaining to Claire she's made a schedule for the garage sale, figuring that, if they make a plan, we'd be free to deviate." Claire makes her way over to the coffeemaker because the girl is absolutely passionate about racially blind beverage consumption, snarking all the way, "As long as we're free to deviate." Claire? Your mother is clearly passionate about this garage sale and has dedicated almost an entire screen minute to caring about it, and she'd appreciate if you'd try a little compassion for that. Quite frankly I find your behavior racist. Claire asks her mother, "So, are we just selling our stuff to make room for George or is he gonna get rid of some his stuff, too?" Well, Claire, the good news about George's things is that most of them biodegrade naturally and return to the earth as fertilizer. Claire finishes the thought, "Like perhaps his Tupperware thing of shit." Ha! Glad that Claire and I were on the same page with that. Ruth dismisses the "feces" out of hand and changes the subject abruptly, complaining that a lot of the crap (not the literal crap, but the...oh, never mind) isn't even hers, and she's sure "Nate has a lot of things he probably doesn't need to have around." Like a room full of cumbersome, awkward emotional baggage requiring a metaphorical sacrificial bonfire in this episode's final minutes? Here's hoping he unloads that first, right along with the deeply discounted "thankless subplot" Ruth has gotten unjustly saddled with.