Episode Report Card Aaron: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Death be not proud
By Aaron | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 06.23.2001
Alan Ball: Oh god, not again. I don’t have time for this, you know.
Monica Lewinsky: I can't believe they did it with the mom in the next room. At least Bill always had the decency to send Hillary off to a book signing or something.
Alan Ball: Yeah. Okay. Do you know where I can buy a good deadbolt?
Monica Lewinsky: Hey, do you think Sorkin is planning to recast Mandy? Because I'd be perfect for that show. Remember when they couldn't figure out how they changed the bird on the rug? Well, who knows more about the Oval Office carpet than I do?
Alan Ball: Get out. Immediately.
Monica Lewinsky: All right, all right. Just give him my résumé, okay?
Alan Ball: Yeah, I guess. Besides, that's a good picture. I like the beret. But you do know this isn't what they meant by "head" shots, right?
Cut to the dinner table, where Claire giggles and asks Brenda if she "flashed her crotch like Sharon Stone" while being interrogated by the police. "Was it fun?" she continues. "I bet it was fun." Ruth joins them, and despite it usually being David's job, she promptly asks Nate to say grace. He spews through it in about six words and two seconds (and would that I could be so fast), and then everyone makes awkward small talk for a while. David brings up that he's put together a business plan with Nate, and he'd like Mom to take a look at it. She's not interested, however, and Nate gets up to go into the kitchen. Left alone at the table, Brenda is forced to explain her job and the myriad differences between shiatsu and acupuncture. The culmination of all this is Ruth evincing surprise at the fact that Brenda "sticks her thumbs in people" for a living. Brenda says she doesn't, "at least not as part of [her] job." Yeah, that's an appropriate response, given what we've just witnessed. Of course, I'm not sure there really is an appropriate response after what we've just witnessed, but I do know that jokes about sticking your thumbs into people for pleasure ain't it. Just don't ask me how I know. Further awkwardness ensues as Nate returns to the table, and Ruth tells Brenda that she simply must stay for dessert. "It's peach cobbler," gushes David in a way that somehow makes "peach cobbler" into a euphemism for oral sex. Heh. I wanna be like Mike.
Okay. 10:33. Twenty-six minutes to go. Things are looking grim. For Paco as well, as he and David examine his corpse in its coffin. Paco requests a night-light because he's afraid of the dark, and David teases him that if that were the case, he shouldn't have gotten himself shot. Mom walks in to inform them that "Mr. Powerful and his entourage are upstairs." She also asks who David was talking to, and he claims it was himself. Mom then asks why he never attends church with her anymore. He tells her he's been going to a different church with a friend. "Who? That cop? The black man?" she asks. Paco exhorts David not to be a pussy, so he replies, "Yes Mom, the cop. That black man. That Big Black Sex Man." See if you can guess which part of that last quote I made up. Ruth shakes her head a few times and then leaves.