Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Parenting Is Hard
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 7 | Aired on 07.16.2005
Brenda comes in to the funeral home, where the chairs in the chapel have been arranged in a rough circle for the Corpse of the Week's funeral. There are Quakers in the chairs, too, but they aren't making any more noise than the chairs are. Brenda passes by the open doorway, marveling that there could be people in the world who don't have to be talking every minute. There's obviously no place for Nate in this environment, so she proceeds to the next room, where Maggie is talking to Nate with her hand on his arm. But they're talking really quietly, so at least he's meeting her halfway. And judging by Brenda's face, now is when she begins to think that something's up between those two. Not after they came out of the bedroom together at his birthday party, not after he invited her over for dinner for no reason, not after she called their house in the middle of the night, and not after Nate said Maggie is "better than we are," but now, when they're just standing there talking. Sometimes I think that one of the overarching themes of this show is "other people's self-absorption is the only reason we ever get away with anything."
Nate and Maggie come over to greet Brenda, who frostily says hello. Maggie excuses herself to the funeral. Now that Nate's alone with his wife, he says, "Sort of a bad time, but I can talk for a second. What's up?" Way to cover up your guilt by acting like an officious prick there. ["'There'?" -- Sars] Brenda starts her big speech, about how it's come down to a choice between her marriage and her child and "it seemed reckless to risk my marriage over taking some stupid test." "Great!" says Nate happily. Idiot. First of all, we can all see that there's a giant, pregnant "but" coming, and secondly, nothing about this situation is great. One doesn't celebrate getting one's way in these circumstances, you clod. Brenda's voice rises as she continues that now that she's there, she realizes that "We've been so separate for a long time." Nate looks guilty now, not bothering to deny it. Brenda thought it was her fault, but now she thinks it's Nate. He tries to calm her down. "How can I make you feel better?" Nate says. "What do you want me to do?" Brenda tells him to just do what he wants for once in his life. "Not what you think people want or what you should do. 'Cause I don't give a fuck any more." Nate tells her to wait, but she storms out anyway, having won another glorious victory in her lifelong campaign against silence.