Episode Report Card Aaron: B | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Death in the Family
By Aaron | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 06.02.2001
Nate joins David and Mom in the crying room, just in time to hear his mother tearfully confess that she's a whore. She was unfaithful to Dad for years, and now that he's in heaven he knows all about it. Both her kids are mortified, but Mom goes on to TMI all the gory details of the relationship, including the fact that she met the man at church, and that he was a hairdresser. She goes on to complain that she always loved the outdoors and wanted to take the boys camping, but Dad would never leave the business. "Well, I can tell you," she continues, "I went camping with this man from church several times." David can't bear the impropriety of it all, so he frantically tries shut her up. Nate, however, wants to let her continue, suggesting that they "fuck propriety," because Mom is grief-stricken. Clearly, the acorns haven't fallen far from the familial tree, because Mom control-freaks an admonition about swearing in the funeral home just like David did earlier.
In the viewing room, Claire comes over to chat up Keith by batting her eyelashes and asking whether he knew the deceased. When he learns that Nate Sr. was Claire's father, he immediately identifies her and introduces himself as a friend of her brother's. "Nate?" she asks, but when she learns it's actually David, it's suddenly time for Acorns II: Now With Extra Dawson Leery/Chipmunk Jokes as she repeats her mother's line of "David is friends with a cop?" Keith lamely serves up the racquetball story, and Claire continues to be amazed. "David plays racquetball?" David himself then appears, and jerks Keith away, delivering an effective but still not up to his previous standards version of "excuse us." He pulls Keith into a corner and finally unburdens himself: "You want me to cry on your shoulder? Fine. My mother just confessed she was having an affair. Yeah. With some hairdresser who likes to hike. And now fucking Nate is in there playing Mr. Sensitive in there while her dead husband lies in the next room. It's disgusting." Keith gives him a nice "buck up, little camper" speech, although considering Mom's recent confession, that too was something of an unfortunate pun. David then explains his character once more to any remaining segments of the audience who may have suffered anvil-related brain damage while watching some of the network season finales. "I'll be the strong one, the stable one, the dependable one, because that's what I do. Everyone else around me will fall apart because that's what they do." David grouses that Mom met the guy at church, and Keith touches a finger to his chin and gently reminds him that they met at church as well. There's some touching and hair rubbing, and then David playfully shoves Keith away. Across the room, Claire sees all this and smiles as she realizes the obvious implications. Incidentally, who wants to make a side bet that Keith somehow ends up eventually busting Claire for drugs?