Episode Report Card Aaron: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dead Man Running
By Aaron | Season 2 | Episode 2 | Aired on 03.09.2002
"I've never seen David so happy," explains Nate later on at the Brotherfucking Boudoir. "It was like Christmas morning when we were kids." Brenda responds by repeatedly banging a meat tenderizer into the counter, and goes right back to talking about her upcoming dinner with Trevor. Nate is blandly supportive, and even asks for advice on what to wear. Brenda's suggestion? A Speedo and some hair extensions. Uh, okay. Has she ever even seen Nate? Because believe me, hair extensions are the last thing he needs. The guy's practically got corn rows on his pectorals by this point. She then changes her mind, and instructs him instead to "wear something that makes [him] look like the sexy bad guy [he] really is. Something that makes Mr. Wife & Kids question all his middle-class choices." Nate moves in for an embrace, and reports that he's fine with that idea, as long as Brenda wears something "low-cut in the back, so he can see [Nate's] name branded on [her] ass." This oh-so-tender moment between lovers is interrupted, however, by the spectral appearance of the now newly-named Number 22 (formerly Actually Dead Black Guy), who stares Nate down as we fade to white.
Fade up on the sounds of construction at The Formaldehyde Fortress. Evil Kroehner-Vixen Mitzi Dalton-Huntley arrives, and congratulates a befuddled David on the purchase and installation of his new casket wall. Then she finally introduces herself and suggests that she and the brothers Fisher sit down for a quick cup of coffee. Cut to later, as an angry (and sweaty) Nate returns from his morning run to find her waiting in the sitting room. They banter about whether or not running is bad for the knees (Nate thinks that "everything is bad for something"), and then she drops the bombshell that Gilardi is gone. Mitzi goes on to explain that with the economy being such as it is, Kroehner has its own problems and isn't worried about taking over Fisher & Sons. David arrives with coffee for everyone, but Mitzi is still a little cautious (and caustic as well). "You didn't put rat poison in here, did you?" she asks. "Try it and find out," answers Nate. Then he tells her to skip the foreplay. "But that's the best part," is her hilariously sultry reply. Heh. You never saw Mike Binder making foreplay jokes. Probably because he doesn't even know what foreplay is. Anyway, Nate goes off on a little rant: "It's not that we don't trust you, we despise everything you stand for. Corporate profits over personal service, stockholders over clients. Greed over everything else. So I think you should take your gesture of good faith and shove it up your ass." When David agrees that Nate has "pretty much summed [their] position up," Mitzi gets up to leave, enabling Nate to make the name joke he's been saving. "Who the fuck is named Mitzi anyway?" he asks. "Sounds like something you name a fucking Chihuahua." Wanna take bets on whether or not Brett Butler ever had a Chihuahua named Mitzi? I mean, Alan Ball is almost as unforgiving as I am.
Aaron: It's not just that we don't like you, we despise everything you stand for. Lame chauvinistic "humor" over actual insight, gratuitous sex scenes over character development. Polishing your outsized ego over everything else. So I think you should take your craptastic little show and shove it straight up your ass.