Episode Report Card Mr. Sobell: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Preach On. And On. And On Some More.
By Mr. Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 07.14.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.In my Father's recaplet, this episode made a lick of sense. Sadly, you people are stuck with me.
So things begin routinely enough with Cissy spewing venom about Tina -- ah, normalcy! Unfortunately, Shaun overhears this put-down of his birth mother and storms out. leaving Cissy so dismayed that she turns to Butchie for help. In short order, Butchie convinces Tina to return to Imperial Beach, importunes upon Kai to fetch Shaun, and convinces Cissy to invite Tina over for lunch. "Young Henry Kissinger," Cunningham snorts among all this back-and-forth negotiation, but I think he's selling Butchie short. Henry Kissinger just had to formalize the Paris Peace Accords -- Butchie manages to bring Tina and Cissy together with the only casualties being a couple of cans of tuna fish.
Speaking of bringing people together, John unites Vietnam Joe and Bill in a group outing to track down the guy that stabbed John a few episodes ago. Or so he would have his believe. Because midway through this stakeout of the Mexican border, John passes out...
...and magically appears in front of Cissy, who is thinking about offing herself. Over Shaun's snit fit earlier? Perhaps. Or maybe because she apparently molested Butchie in an acid-fueled haze, lo these many years ago. To which I say "yuck," and may I just add "ewwwww." So Cissy doesn't shoot herself, nor does she gun down John.
Ah, but John's not done appearing in front of people. He visits Cass in her hotel room to ask to borrow her camera. He appears before Linc to tell him to get back into the game. And both Linc and Cass appear at the Sung Harbor where everyone -- Dickstein, Ramon, Cunningham, Butchie, even Palaka -- is sprucing the place up for the grand re-opening. And then John appears to deliver some sort of freaky-deaky Sermon on the Mount in which -- despite the fact that I am a proficient English-speaker -- only two out of every five words makes any sort of sense. Oh, and Freddy plays the saxophone and Bill --yes, Bill appears there magically, too -- plays the harmonica.
And after all this, John goes back to waiting with Vietnam Joe and Bill back at the border. "Well, this was time well spent," Vietnam Joe says flatly. Hey, he said it, I didn't.
On the bright side, no Mitch this episode, so that bumps things up a whole letter grade. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on John From Milford...well, not a whole lot happened plot-wise. Shaun's mother -- who works in the porn industry, and not behind the camera, either -- showed up in Imperial Beach, and first Cissy was going to shoot her and then she didn't. Instead, Tina the porn star was allowed to look into her son's bedroom while he pretended to sleep. Vietnam Joe still thought that John tricked him about that whole self-healing stab wound thing, but then realized that he hadn't. Mitch and Cissy fought, which sort of happens every episode, only this time, Mitch left, hopefully for good. And John helped Cass film the kind of video that lets struggling art-school students feel good about their own work.
Credits. There's a world where I can go, and tell my secrets to. In my room. In my room. Mind the ghosts, please.
We open with Cass sitting on the bed of her hotel room -- footage of her unbelievably tepid student movie is playing on her computer, but she's sort of staring off into space, trying desperately to find something else to grab her attention. I can sympathize. She gets up, paces about the room, stops in front of her computer, fixes her hair, and finally hits pause. Then, there's a series of jump cuts -- Cass on the bed, kicking off her boots; Cass walking around, flicking a lighter; Cass adjusting the hideous painting hanging on the wall in her room so that it's level (seriously -- is there anything uglier than the paintings used to decorate the walls of hotel rooms? Sports jackets warn by professional hockey coaches, I suppose, but I've always thought they just steal the patterns from the art hanging in the hotels they stay in while on the road. See, Cass? Now I'm wasting time!). Cass enjoys a cigarette. She plays with a pencil. She writes herself Post-It Notes and then crumples them angrily. Now, it's time to raid the hotel mini-bar -- out come the bags of corn chips and pretzels and what-have-you until Cass uncovers a candy bar that she digs into with relish. Cass -- seriously, that candy bar is going to cost you, like, $32 -- there is not enough creamy nougat in all the world to justify that expense. And weren't you just telling John an episode ago how broke and desperate you are? I'd hate to see someone as young and pretty as yourself wind up in debtors' prison over a Snickers. Anyhow, more pacing and humming and now Cass is drinking the miniature bottles of booze from the mini-bar -- that's another $83 a piece right there. And that's the scene -- perhaps it is to show us the creative process; perhaps it's to pad out the episode because it was running short this week. Who really knows? Anyhow, in case you're interested, here's a glimpse into my creative process: