Episode Report Card Aaron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Nobody Likes A Busybody
By Aaron | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Aired on 03.08.2003
Formaldehyde Fortress. Ruth is clipping coupons in the kitchen when Claire comes quietly down the steps. "Do you think you'd like Beef Blast Pizza Rolls?" she inquires of her daughter. Mmm, Beef Blast Pizza Rolls. Yummy. Boy, I've really got to start eating before I sit down to work on these recaps, don't I? Claire couldn't possibly be more repulsed by the idea of "Beef Blast" anything, and is so disgusted that she announces she won't even be coming home that night in protest. "Take a sweater," suggests an unexpectedly accepting Ruth.
Once Claire is out the door, the phone rings and is quickly picked up by the Fortress's answering machine. Ruth's flatly disembodied voice declares that the caller has reached "The Fisher Family," thereby providing a touching competitive counterpoint to Nate and Lisa's earlier answering-machine message claim to that title. It's Ruth's sister Sarah on the phone, and she's calling to check up on Ruth because she hasn't seen her for the longest time. She even invites her up to Topanga Canyon for a lovely afternoon of tribal dancing, body painting, and "Aunt May's German potato salad." "I know you always liked that," Sarah adds, presumably in reference to the potato salad. Ruth lets her hang up without answering, and then snits that Sarah was always the one who liked Aunt May's cooking. Dear Lord! What's wrong with these people? I mean, who doesn't like potato salad? In fact, I'm going to go eat some right now. Mmm, German potato salad.
Das Sargzimmer. Rico is working his first solo intake with the wife of Mr. Milne, who was DGDJ #3 and the unfortunately too-curious-for- his-own-good call-center manager from the opening scene. Oddly enough, she bears at least a passing resemblance to the wife of a former call-center boss of my own. You know, if you care. She cries, and laments the random unfairness of it all, and the most Rico can manage to console her is to pathetically nudge a box of Kleenex across the coffee table. Thanks, dude. Way to show you care! "And then there's telling the children," she sobs. "What should I say to them to make them feel better?" Obviously inexperienced in the ways of dealing with the living, Rico is completely at a loss for words. Before he can suggest his own rendition of "Only the Good Die Young," however, Nate enters and breaks the moment's tension. "Glad you could make it," snits Rico, but Nate kicks it right over into "gift" mode without so much as a single "shut up." Nate comforts the grieving widow with the healing power of his new pageboy hairstyle, and even offers to walk her to her car once everything is taken care of. Thanks, dude. Way to show your hair!