Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT All Aboard The Crazy Train
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 2 | Aired on 06.11.2005
Ma Chenowith is driving along in her car, and for some reason she's wearing a Chewbacca costume without the head part. Her cell phone rings; it's Brenda. "You want me to make those calls for you?" Ma gloats right off the bat. Brenda admits that she does, adding, "I feel awful." "Well, honey, those people are so depressing," Ma says. Brenda says it's not that, but she doesn't say what it actually is, either. Ma basks in her rightness, reminding Brenda that she's still in shock from her miscarriage. Brenda sarcastically thanks her for the diagnosis, and tells her not to forget to bill her $200. "Oh, I won't," Ma cackles, and Brenda hangs up, looking more wrecked than when the call started. Won't her school notice that she just bailed on her first internship after one day? Of reading files?
Billy and Claire are on a double date with a pair of smug artist types who are going on and on about their recent travels. "We just went wherever we wanted until the money ran out," Artist Chick says. And then Artist Guy says the first piece of mail he opened when they got home was a grant check big enough for them to live on for a year while he works on his installation. Billy's clearly envious, as you can tell even before he asks if said installation is "still the...uh...poultry thing?" Artist Guy invites them over to their space to check it out, but confesses that they're still unpacking. And he adds that he found the video from when he and Billy "turned the L.A. River red." Billy actually laughs loudly for the first time, and "modestly" explains to Claire, "It's not as daunting as it sounds; there was, like, an inch of water. But still, it was like this trickle of blood snaking through the city." Artist Guy expresses his amazement that the school talked Billy into being a professor, and manages to pretend to be admiring and yet act totally condescending at the same time. Claire says Billy's "such an amazing teacher." "Those that can't do," Billy "jokes." Artist Chick asks Claire about her "new series." Claire says she just showed them to "[her] gallery owner, who loved them, but he still wants more of [her] old series." This is the first Billy's heard of it, although he doesn't seem too devastated that Claire's hit an artistic obstacle as well. Claire carps, "I guess he just thinks I'm a factory who's gonna keep churning out the same stuff." Or maybe he wants an artist and not a wedding photographer. Just a theory. The conversation turns to what Billy's working on, which he has to admit is nothing: "To be honest, I'm not exactly overflowing with ideas just now." "We all hit dry spots," says Artist Chick. Billy agrees uncomfortably, remembering that dry spot he left up inside Claire the night before.