Due to the ever-increasing deluge, I've decided to go ahead and make answering my reader mail a regular feature here in the recaps. To that end:
1. The Russian lettering on the bear's hat in episode two says "Bruno." Spasiba, Russkis! Ty moy luchshiy drug. Ya pravilno eto napisal?
2. The owners, management, and staff of Television Without Pity are in no way affiliated with the shows we recap. We don't write them, we don't produce them, and we certainly don't control their content. To put it another way, I am NOT Aaron Sorkin, so please stop emailing me to come back.
3. Products I don't wish to purchase this week include: anti-depressants, anti-oxidants, and Evil Auntie's Naughty Cousins Live 24/7 Webcam.
4. "Butt-plug"?
We open on a slow-motion, shutter-stopped image of a man in a brown suit standing in the middle of a windswept, small-town street. He's facing away from us, looking at a building from which a large crowd soon emerges. They're led by a priest who'll be important later, and trailed by a totally unimportant group of pallbearers carrying a simple pine-box coffin. This is all accompanied on the soundtrack by some tinkly, Old West-style music, which can really only be described as an amusingly jaunty dirge. Given the obvious lack of modern, timely opportunities, it's probably no surprise that Carnivàle has taken to product-placing itself, as a truck emblazoned with a giant logo for the show soon drives straight through the frame. It seems that the carnies have come to town, and indeed the very shot is one of Ben atop his truck, looking down to see the disapproving townspeople loading the coffin onto a wagon, just as he saw in his dreams in Episode One. Oh, goody. That's another one I can check off the creepy images list, which only brings us closer to the inevitable arrival of Lobster Boy and his freaky-cool Pincer-Hand of Death. I wonder if that thing could be classified as having a "kung-fu grip"?
The slow-motion continues as we dissolve to Carnieland, and then things finally speed back up to normal as Samson orders Jonesy to head into town and pick up a few items from the local store. Our fearless leader wants "beans, lard, flour, and milk and sugar, if they've got it. And also some more Slim-Fast for Adrienne, a Mach 3 for Lila, some two-ply toilet paper, and a case of Depends for Mommatose." "Oh and, uh…do me a favor," he adds conspiratorially. "Check and see if they got the latest issue of Short & Sexy behind the counter, would ya? It gets mighty lonesome out here on the road sometimes." Okay, maybe he doesn't really say that last part. But he definitely does assign Ben to go along with Jonesy. Aww. Isn't that sweet? He's trying to patch things up between them. He's just like a little dust-bowl Alicia Silverstone. Except for the part where he totally isn't.
In the car, Ben and Jonesy share a nice refreshing awkward silence. I love those. Ben finally breaks the ice by asking about Tipton, which gives us a much better StTM (284) score than last week's near-record setting 3,014 (which even includes the one hundred bonus points I awarded for singing the title, as opposed to just saying it). We're three-for-three on the title mentions so far, by the way, which has always been a hallmark of quality for your better HBO episodes. I'm told that rule doesn't necessarily apply on other networks, though. At any rate, Jonesy admits that he's never been to Tipton before, and further adds that their whole regular "circuit" has gone by the wayside ever since Ben showed up. Which is only true if the first two episodes never happened, of course, but whatever.
Back in Carnieland, we see a tent-raising that could give the Amish a run for their money. Although that's mostly because Amish people can't run very fast, and don't often have too much money. Or too many tents, for that matter. Samson watches from the sidelines, where he's soon joined by the opening scene's Man In Brown, who turns out to be Special Agent Ron Butterfield from The West Wing. This is quite the HITG-heavy episode, incidentally, which makes me all the more amazed by the fact that HBO sister show Six Feet Under has thus far managed to avoid succumbing to the weekly B-celeb DGDJ syndrome. We soon learn that Samson already knows Mr. Butterfield, who has come to Tipton from his home in Troy so that he can look after his ailing mother. He's also gone and got himself elected sheriff, because "the last fella lit out with the contingency fund, four colts, and a Thompson gun." The new sheriff has sworn to catch the guy, however, mainly because he "sure would like that Thompson gun." Heh. Wouldn't we all. As Samson and Butterfield stroll along the carnival grounds, Ron finally drops the bomb he came to deliver: he can't let Samson set up the carnival, because the local townspeople can't afford to be cheated out of whatever meager funds they may have left. Samson responds to this by offering a bribe, but Sheriff Butterfield stands his ground. Oy. I've now misspelled "sheriff" each and every time I've typed it (I keep wanting to go with two r's). It's gonna be a long rrecap.
Ben and Jonesy, meanwhile, are pulling into downtown Tipton, which appears to consist of a single general store. This town is so poor (how poor is it?) that Random Extra #14 can't even afford enough thread to fully sew the sleeve back onto his suit. Hee! Ben's outfit, on the other hand, is making me wonder when exactly the belt loop was invented. After 1934, apparently. Jonesy negotiates with the store owner, who reports that there's no milk because the cows are dehydrated, and no copies of Short & Sexy because the Time Bandits crew passed through last week and bought them all up. So he buys corn instead.
Ben takes this time to look around town, and quickly spots a truck across the street with a giant "Big Sky Farms" sign on the side. He whips out the picture of Ma that he found last week, and verifies that it is indeed the same truck. Before he can accost the owner, however, little Polly-o Pigtails from the pilot appears out of nowhere, and informs her grandmother that Ben is the one who healed her. Huh? The hell? How'd this girl get to Tipton? And why? And while we're at it, is this the same grandmother who thinks all carnies are "marked"? Yeah. I don't buy this one for even a second. Especially because Polly-o vanishes forever the instant her plot-advancing responsibilities are complete. I realize they needed an excuse to jump-start the revival storyline, but couldn't we at least get even one line about how she traveled to see grandma after she was healed? All I really needed was a nice simple "My, what big shins you have, my dear." Anyway, once grandma starts wailing and praying about the miracle Ben performed, the townspeople all go crazy and start trying to touch him. And not in the good way. Polly-o, however, just looks bored. Or, more accurately, like no one remembered to give her any direction. Ben is forced to flee back to the truck to escape the crush of people, and Jonesy floors it out of there.
We switch over to Clancy's storyline, where a giant banner is being raised over Mr. Chin's. It reads "Dignity Ministry. Come Pray With Us." Because nothing says "dignity" quite like praying to The Almighty in a converted Asian whorehouse. Coin-Puking Dirty Lady is serving as Clancy's barker, presumably practicing for the day when she'll be turning little Rudy, Lisa, and Cindy into strippers. She's also back to being covered in dirt, so I guess the soap she bought last week has finally run out. Or perhaps it just got a good look at the rest of the cast and flung itself out the bathroom window after realizing that its life was completely and utterly hopeless. I've heard soap doesn't handle job-related stress very well.
Inside, the migrants are all singing a lively hymn. You know, because no scathing social commentary on class distinctions is ever complete without at least one scene showing the uptight rich folk and their boring, dreary music while the happy-on-the-inside poor people croon a jaunty spiritual. I guess we should just be happy no one is playing the banjo. That one Coin-Puking Dirty Brother sure does have a purty mouth. The song they're all singing, by the way, is "Give Me That Old-Time Religion." Hmm. Is that anything like old-time rock and roll? Do you think Clancy will be ditching his cassock for tighty-whities anytime soon?
Apparently not. He does, however, deliver a sermon. "Yes, that old time religion, brothers and sisters," he Hestons. "Rising like a phoenix from the ashes of sin and degradation. Where was once a den of flesh and debasement, there is now a glorious shining temple." Oddly enough, I actually have a den of flesh and debasement here in my apartment. I just bought a new sofa for it. As Iris looks on from her customary seat on the altar, Clancy continues his sermon. It's all blah blah no one believed we could do it bling blee everyone thinks migrants are just dirty coin-pukers blau bleh poor people are closer to God because they've known true suffering. Yeah, only a priest could come up with that last one. The hymn starts up again, and Clancy is hilariously unable to clap on the beat.
Cut to later, with the post-service meet-and-greet in full swing. Coin-Puking Dirty Lady describes the new church as "a miracle," but Clancy insists it was just the result of "a lot of hard work." And also a really scary vision about pedophilia. The CPD Lady moves on, and is soon replaced by Otho and Brett Chase. Or Father Ripper and Lloyd Braun. Or even Associate Bob and that smarmy funeral director from SFU. See? I told you it was HITG-heavy. Incidentally, I probably should have included a bit in the reader mail about all the people who told me this week that they thought Glenn Shadix was dead. He wasn't dead, people, he was just in Planet of the Apes. Which I guess isn't really any better. They're both playing city councilmen here, and we know they're evil and smarmy because they're wearing white suits and Panama hats. And also because they're Otho and Brett Chase. Clancy is impressed to be meeting such high-ranking politicos, and he's positively thrilled at the idea of giving them "the nickel tour" the day. "Nickel tour"? Must be the depression.
Carnieland. Ben and Jonesy return from their trip into town, and Ben isn't even out of the car before Jonesy runs up to Samson and starts tattling on the new guy. "Hey boss," he yells, "there's something funny about that rube!" Hee. Jonesy explains what happened in town, but Samson has bigger fish to fry. And they're not even on a bicycle. He re-exposits the details about Sheriff Butterfield shutting them down, which prompts Jonesy to rip off his hat and throw it to the ground. Tim DeKay totally looks like he wants to follow that up by spitting on it as well, but he doesn't. Or maybe that's just how he looks when he's thinking, because his face suddenly lights up with an idea. He confirms that Butterfield is refusing to let them set up "the carnival," which causes Samson to reply, "Well, yeah. What am I, speaking Swahili?" Heh. But if you're gonna make Austin Powers jokes in the pilot, why wouldn't you have him say, "What am I, speaking backwards?" Now that would have been funny. Jonesy stares at Ben with a big old grin on his face, and we cut to…
A bowtie-wearing Samson, seated in an office with the priest we saw in the opening scene. "A revival?" wonders the priest. Samson assures him that Sheriff Butterfield has them all wrong, and that they're really a bunch of God-fearing good Samaritans who travel from town to town preaching The Word. "We all came to The Lord when a young stranger come into our midst," explains Samson. "His name? Benjamin St. John." Cute. But for a carnival with an extra "E" and a totally superfluous accent grave in the title, I'm surprised they didn't go with the British pronunciation of "Sinjun." ["Dorkily enough, I thought the same thing." -- Sars] Samson reminds the priest that Ben was in town earlier and "caused quite a stir." He also promises to split the gate 50/50 with all the local churches. The priest's church, of course, is the only one in town. Well, except for St. Andrews, that is. "What say we let the Catholics take care of Catholics," offers Samson, and the priest readily agrees. Yeah! Screw the Catholics! (And no, that's not a pedophilia joke.)
It's nighttime in Carnieland, and the revival is just getting into gear. Seemingly not at all confounded by the fact that none of his daughters are gyrating half-nakedly nearby, Pa Pimperson fills the role of barker quite admirably. He shouts that Ben has just returned from a "triumphant tour of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and the Holy Land." Hey! I've been to all those places! Shout-out? His daughters, meanwhile, work the door, handing out programs. You know, Carla Gallo cleans up nice when she's not talking about the grit in her teeth.
Elsewhere, Sheriff Butterfield pays Samson a little visit at his trailer. He's pissed, and he doesn't give a "tinker's damn" if Samson calls his show a revival or a carnival. "It's a clip joint, plain and simple," he bitches. Damn. Dude needs to relax and clip a joint his own self, if you know what I mean. And if you're watching this show, you probably do. Samson just smiles, and explains that he's answering to a higher power now. "Who? The Lord?" sneers Butterfield. "Carolyn Strauss? Chris Albrecht?" "Nope," replies Samson, "the Bill of Rights." He tries to claim freedom of religion, but Butterfield isn't buying it. Suddenly continuing with our theme of curiously fortuitous passers-by this week, however, is Samson's new priestly best friend, who proclaims it to be a beautiful night for a revival. He also loves the idea of having some "old-time evangelism" to "shake out the cobwebs" and "stir up the spirit." I'm sorry, is this a revival or a vacuum cleaner demonstration? Samson assures Butterfield that the operation is "one hundred percent legit." "I never heard an honest man use the word 'legit,'" Butterfield answers. Somewhere in America, MC Hammer curses at his TV screen and then calls up Webster to see if he wants to score some hookers and blow.
Backstage, Lila is doing Ben's hair in preparation for his big debut. Well, I guess she would know best. Ben, by the way, is all gussied up in a black tux that could easily be the same one he found in the baggage trailer last week. Adrienne and Gabriel wander into the tent, and both look positively flabbergasted when they see him. "Dear Lord!" she exclaims. This doesn't do much for Ben's self-confidence, and Lila is forced to manhandle him back into the chair so she can continue applying Dippity-Doo. I don't even want to speculate on what the Fab Five might have to say about all this. I am, however, enjoying the mental image of Carson's head exploding. Samson strolls in to join them, immensely pleased by the fact that they have a full house just waiting to begin. He stops short, however, and gets the same shocked expression on his face when he sees Ben. "It's like seeing a ghost," whispers Adrienne. This gets Samson peeved, so he kicks them out of the tent to get ready for the show. Then he asks Lila who picked out the tux. "It was Lodz, wasn't it?" he adds. And just for the record, he asked if Lodz picked the tux, not if it was Lodz's tux. He also tries to buck up little Ben by telling him that he's going to "knock 'em dead." Which is sort of a weird thing to tell a faith healer, but whatever. Ben checks his new look in the mirror, and then succumbs to his stage fright and tries to back out. Samson reminds him that it's too late to quit now, and then tries to convince him that he looks like Valentino. It would have been funnier if he'd just told Ben he was 2 legit 2 quit.
On stage, Pa Pimperson is delivering his sermon. Which means that I should probably start calling him Father Pimperson. "Four years ago I was a salesman," he preaches. "A sinful man, full of lust and cheap hooch." Just like me! "Selling lightning rods and Ray Bradbury novels door-to-door," he continues, "cheating good, honest farmers out of their hard earned pay. I mean, have you ever actually tried to read The Martian Chronicles? It's crap!" He goes on to say that he made a career out of "seducing their wives" and "seducing their daughters," but it's the hilarious facial expression on that last one that really sells it. But why no cutaway to Carla and Meatloaf's Daughter? He's not quite through yet, though. "I was a drunkard, I was a thief, and I was an adulterer. And now I'm running for governor of California! Vote Pimperson, everyone!" Okay, not really. But he does say that he was a "profane man, ruled by profane desires, with a one-way ticket to eternal damnation." On Greyhound, no doubt. All this bad behavior finally came to a head, he explains, when he was ironically struck by lighting. Um, okay. Are you sure it wasn't a falling ham?
Backstage, Ben has more stage fright, and Samson has more lines convincing him to go on anyway.
Father Pimperson, meanwhile, tells the captivated audience that Ben healed him, and he's been on the heavenly path ever since. "Ladies and gentlemen," he shouts, "I give you the right Reverend Benjamin St. John!" Samson shoves Ben out on stage, causing him to trip on his way up the steps. Heh. Now I know why he didn't just tell him to break a leg. Ben looks petrified, but he follows Father Pimperson's lead and takes a seat in the center of the stage. Samson, however, heads around to the back row, where he joins Lodz & Lila (StLaL = 1,132). He immediately begins to chew out Lodz for selecting that particular tuxedo, and Lodz practically cackles with glee when he hears than Ben is wearing it.
Up on stage, Father Pimperson explains that Ben's abilities are limited. "His constitution is such that he cannot lay his hands on but one poor soul a day," he announces. "To do so otherwise could prove fatal." Hmm. I wonder if that's what happened to Wilt Chamberlain. The crowd "oohs" and "ahhs" when they hear this, and Father P asks if there's anyone among them who needs to be healed. Practically everyone in the audience eagerly raises their hand, including the blind woman, the guy with crutches, the really, really ugly girl, and the dude with only one tooth. What's much more fun, however, is trying to guess why the perfectly healthy-looking people want to be healed. Does the priest have hemorrhoids? Does that lady in the second row suffer from irritable bowel syndrome? Who knows?
Pimperson finally settles on a woman in the very back who's seated in a wheelchair with a shawl covering her entire head and face. Gabriel grabs the chair and lifts her up onto the stage, where she's prompted to reveal that her name is "Gertrude" and she's suffering from "stomach cancer." Ah-ha! At long last we get an explanation for why she's so damn skinny! What? Oh. Gee, I hope that didn't spoil anything for you. Anyway, Pimpy P works the crowd a bit more, getting them to groan and moan in sympathy for "Gertrude." Then he orders them to start chanting "Jesus" over and over again. "Jesus…Jesus…Jesus," they cry. "Jesus…Jesus…J-E-S-U-S, Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" That last joke is funnier if you live in New York, by the way. And are a total masochist. The crowd is totally into it at this point, and even Lodz and Lila are chanting in the back. Samson looks around, amazed at how perfectly things are going. Up front, Ben looks progressively more and more nervous until "Gertrude" pulls back the shawl just enough so that he can see that it's really Adrienne Barbeau. My God, how stupid is this kid?
His fears thus allayed, Ben reaches out and grabs Gertrude's legs. Father P does the de rigueur "we command Satan's cancer to leave this woman's body" bit, but he sadly eschews the forehead-smack, which is totally my favorite part of any good old-fashioned healing. "Gertrude" suddenly jerks forward in her wheelchair, gasping for all the world like Ben's hands were a lot higher up on her thighs than they actually were. This causes the crowd to gasp in unison themselves, and Father Pimperson prods her to get up out of the chair and walk across the stage to him. She does, and then collapses into his arms with relief. Touchdown! The crowd goes wild. Fade to black.
We fade back up on an idyllic-looking house, in what are obviously pre-dust-bowl times. In fact, I think this may be the very first time we've ever seen the color green on this show. We fade to the veranda, where Scudder and an unidentified woman are standing. She's crying her eyes out, and Scudder is doing that really annoying trick where he flips a coin along the knuckles of his hand. I say it's really annoying only because I've always wanted to be able to do it and I can never get it right. John Savage also has his hair brushed down in front of his face to make him look younger, but unless he's supposed to be twelve here, and she's supposed to be Mary Kay Letourneau, there's just no way the timeline makes sense. But we can worry about that later. All you need to know for now is that the music on the soundtrack suddenly begins to skip, repeating the phrase "the night time, the right time" over and over again until Ben wakes up under his truck and Random Roustie #27 shuts off the nearby gramophone.
Breakfast in Carnieland. Random Rousties #14 and #63 lift Samson up onto a table so that he can address the troops. It seems that Ben's performance was so successful that they were able to afford fresh eggs for breakfast. Everyone is understandably thrilled by this, especially if you assume that they've just been eating rotten eggs up to this point. But that's not all! They also got bacon, fresh orange juice, and a half-dozen back issues of Lewd & Little. So it's a party all around. Everyone jumps up to get their food, patting Ben on the back as they pass.
Cut to later, with Ben seated at a table with a bunch of other rousties. Jonesy sends him off to get more orange juice, and the other guys promptly steal all the good food off his plate. Heh. The joke turns out to be on Jonesy, however, because Ben bumps into Sofie, who's wearing a particularly fetching red blouse today. She offers him a highly sarcastic "congratulations," which he shrugs off with a classic "aw, shucks" expression. Way to miss the point there, kid. He does, however, manage to ask after her mother without using the words "turnip," "creeping willies," or "threesome," so it's good to see that his tact is improving. Sofie reports that Mommatose is finally talking again, and then heads back to her trailer.
This gives Samson an opening to remind Ben about being ready for the 10:00 AM service that morning. Ben, however, has some business to attend to in town, so he asks to borrow one of the carnival's cars. Samson gives him permission, but not before smiling real big and calling Ben his "gold mine."
In town, Ben finds the proprietor of the general store Jonesy visited, but the guy claims to not know anything at all about the woman in the picture or the Big Sky Farms truck. Except then he reveals that he actually knows pretty much everything about the Big Sky Farms truck, because he says it used to belong to Mrs. Donovan, who owned almost the entire town until bad times hit. Now all she's got is a creepy old house and a bad case of dust pneumonia. And also Mac from Night Court, but we'll get to that later. Ben wants to head out there right away, but when he learns that it's already 10:15 he hightails it back to the carnival.
Upon returning to Carnieland, Ben finds a huge traffic jam blocking his path. He asks what the problem is, and a woman tells him there's a healer in town who cured cancer the night before. Judging from her awkward posture, and in the interests of continuing our game from before, I'm guessing this lady is just hoping Ben can do something about her bunions. But I could be wrong about that. Ben tries to walk the rest of the way, but he's quickly recognized and mobbed by people who want his help. Jonesy has to force his way into the crowd to rescue him, but the best part comes when Gabriel tosses Ben over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carries him to safety. Hey! Watch where you put those hands, Gabe.
Out in California, the nickel tour is already well underway. Clancy leads Otho and Brett through the main hall, boasting that they'll be able to accommodate well over two hundred people once the new pews are completed. Of course, no one seems to find it odd that they're building pews but leaving the red velvetesque Asian whorehouse color-scheme intact. Too bad there's not an interior designer born into every generation. Upstairs, however, Iris and a few others are painting the new "children's shelter" a bright shade of white. Clancy reports that the boys' dorm is almost finished, and will eventually be able to house a dozen kids. Aww. That's sweet. It's just like Boys Town. If John Wayne Gacy had been elected mayor. He also explains that the girl's dormitory is already complete, although he does so in a tone of voice that it makes it perfectly clear that he's a bit embarrassed about why an establishment like Mr. Chin's might already have suitable accommodations for a large number of wayward young women. He takes a moment to introduce his sister, and it's here that we learn that last week's unfortunate Bald Townie just happened to be Otho's nephew. Uh oh. "I'm amazed at how much work you've put into the place," grumps Otho. "I just wish you'd come to us before." He then pawns the unfortunate explanations off onto Brett, who reveals that entire block has been slated for demolition month. Oops. "That is unacceptable," replies Clancy, and Brett offers to exchange Mr. Chin's for a big, empty roadhouse about five miles outside of town. "I'm not a fool," answers Clancy. "I know this has nothing to do with city planning. It's all about the migrants. The Okies, the geeks, the roadites, the sportos, motorheads, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, and dickheads…they all adore me. They think I'm a righteous dude, and you can't stand it!" "Oh yeah?" shouts Glenn Shadix. "Well, I know the name of another righteous dude who can solve your problems; it's Jesus Christ, and he's in the book!" Okay, not really. Instead he just leans in close to deliver his big threat, and when you consider all the weight Glenn Shadix has lost recently, that's mighty close indeed. "Now you listen to me, Reverend," he snarls. "We're offering a nice piece of property in exchange for this cracker-box, or we can exercise eminent domain for fair market value, which I'd say, looking at the place, is about $50." Which, you'll note, is precisely what his nephew offered last week. Otho does, however, also offer to throw in the value of "a dead cow's fart." Hmm. Guess we now know who the tough negotiator is in the Townie family, huh?
Clancy stomps out of the room without another word, and Iris runs after him. Out in the hallway she tells him that she's familiar with the roadhouse, and that it's not that bad of a place. One can only assume she heard about it from Patrick Swayze's brother, who plays Creepy Ugly Naked Tattooed Guy. Although I'm telling you right now that if Kelly Lynch ever shows up on this show, I'm totally out of here. ["Even if she shows up with Sherilyn Fenn? Man, tough crowd." -- Sars] Clancy repeats his assertion that The Lord was very clear in specifying Chin's, and then screams, "No!" really, really loudly. This causes Otho in other room to suddenly grab his throat and start choking. Heh. You have failed me for the last time, Associate Bob. The other councilmen quickly hustle him out of the room and down the steps, and it's never made clear whether he survives or not. I'm going to pretend he died, solely so that I can work in the phrase "I loved my dead, thin Otho." Iris gives her brother a pretty nasty "What did you just do?" look, and Clancy looks at first defiant, then finally ashamed. And that's the last we'll see of him this week.
Carnieland. Sofie is spoon-feeding her mother, and Mommatose is once again going on and on about Ben. Apparently she wants Sofie to drive Ben somewhere, and just as we hear this, Ben comes a-knocking at the trailer door. "I was wondering…" he starts, and Sofie immediately answers, "I know. Meet me at the Chevy." Hee. Mommatose looks as pleased as a completely paralyzed woman can look.
Cut to the car, as they cruise down a well-traveled back road. Sofie tries to pump Ben for information, but he's not exactly forthcoming. In fact, all he's willing to reveal is that it's about "family business." That's funnier if you stop to remember that the family business could very well be biting the heads off chickens.
Eventually, they arrive at Mrs. Donovan's house. To the surprise of only the very few HBO-equipped Amish viewers, it turns out to be the house we saw earlier in the dream sequence, only significantly more decrepit. If you watch very, very closely, or if you have an exceedingly quick trigger finger on your pause button, you can actually spot the figures of Scudder and his lady friend quickly fading in and out on the far left corner of the veranda. It's not clear from Nick Stahl's quizzical expression whether we're supposed to believe he saw them too. In any case, he and Sofie head up the front steps and knock tentatively on the door. It's answered by a run-down looking butler in a ratty black vest, and I was all set to dub him "Calculus Entropy" until I realized he's actually Mac from Night Court. Apparently, Mac has eaten all the weight that Glenn Shadix lost. And maybe Bull Shannon too, from the looks of him. Mac initially tries to turn them away, but then he recognizes Ben as the healer. How could he do that, you ask? Well, don't ask. There's no good answer. "You're the miracle man!" he gushes. "Come on in. We ain't got time to fritter." Aw. The word "fritter" is almost as much fun as "flabbergasted." Almost.
Mac leads them upstairs, where we find an elderly gray-haired woman coughing in her bed. "I knew you'd come," she croaks, before hacking up about half a lung. Mmm, phlegmilicious. Ben sits down on the bed beside her, and Mrs. Donovan gives him the once-over before announcing, "You've got his eyes." To his credit, Ben does not reply, "All the better to see you with, my dear." Instead he just looks confused. Mrs. D orders Mac to take Sofie downstairs, and as soon as they're both gone, Ben pulls out the "Gentleman Geek" photo and hands it over. She laughs, and sighs, "Crazy old bird," before admitting that she hasn't seen him for at least fifteen years. "Old Hack Scudder and me," she whispers, "we got thick as thieves, we did." Oh, that's nice. Way to tell the kid you banged his father, lady. Ben also hands over the picture of his mother, which Mrs. D correctly identifies, although she also adds that she never met the woman, and only heard about her from Scudder. "Have you heard from him since?" asks Ben. "Just dreams," she answers. "You know that. Sent you one about me, Ben Hawkins. You got the gift, just like him." Ben is shocked by this, not least because we're finally getting some explanations here. "You might not see it as a gift," she continues. "Probably think it's more of a curse. Fact is, it's both. There's rules, boy. You give life, you gotta take it from something else. Could be an acre of wheat, could be [Mac's] old bird-dog Jim. Could be that little girl you brought in here." And then, because we certainly wouldn't want to have too much exposition, Sheriff Butterfield comes bursting into the room, demanding that Ben leave his house immediately. It takes a bit more shouting and glowering, but Ben eventually leaves without learning anything else.
In the car on the way home, Sofie is just chock full of questions. Ben, however, is still chock full of shut-the-hell-up-bitch. Under continued questioning, he tries to convince Sofie that the woman was his grandmother, but he's not very believable. Eventually she just screeches the truck to a halt and demands that he get out. Now. "I want to know who you are!" she yells. "I want to know what you did to my mother!" The only problem is that she still refuses to believe that he didn't hurt Mommatose. Rather than completing our burgeoning Darth Vader reference circle by saying, "Your lack of faith disturbs me," Ben instead decides to just get out of the car, and Sofie angrily puts it in drive and tries to run him down. Ben dives off the side of the road, and stands back up to yell, "Crazy damn bitch!" at the receding taillights. Heh. Sofie is apparently one of those girls that gets off on the pimp-talk, because she slams on the brakes and reverses back to where he's standing. After clarifying that he did indeed call her a "crazy damn bitch," she orders him to get back into the car. Ben, however, displays the sort of petulance that's not uncommon in people who've just been almost run over, and decides to sit down by the side of the road instead. Sofie shuts down the engine to try to wait him out.
And speaking of waiting, by the way, Samson is getting increasingly frantic, as the show is about to start and his main attraction is nowhere to be found. Eventually he gives up, and orders Lila to prepare Random Roustie #9 to take Ben's place. "Think they'll buy it?" asks Jonesy. "These birds?" answers Samson. "They'll buy anything. Now leave me alone. I've got some magazines to read."
Cut to later, as it's now dark, and Ben is still sitting by the side of the road. He's shivering in the cold nighttime air, and also smoking a cigarette. Flick, ah…that's better. Nothing says "I'm sorry I tried to kill you because I mistakenly thought you molested my comatose telekinetic mother" quite like the refreshing taste of nicotine. "Can I have a cigarette?" inquires Sofie. "Can I drive?" replies Ben.
Back at the revival, we get yet another lively hymn. Once it comes to an end, Father Pimperson launches into his healing spiel again, and this time the "victim" is Meatloaf's Daughter, who claims to have been "runned over by a thresher." There's no way I can do literary justice to the torrent of fake blood that's pouring down her legs in this shot, so just know it was pretty funny. I haven't seen ham like this since, well…ever. I'm Jewish, you know. The crowd is just as wound up tonight as they were last night, and even Lila gets to shout out a few "Praise Jesuses" from the back row.
Just as Random Roustie #9 is about to start the "healing," however, there's a cry from the back of the tent. It's Sheriff Ron Butterfield, and he's carrying his mother in his arms. "You're gonna help my ma, you son of a bitch," he announces, and Father Pimperson frantically tries to explain why that just isn't possible. The crowd, however, must really like the Butterfield clan, because they demand that she be the one who gets healed. Or maybe they're just not Meatloaf fans. Sheriff Ron suddenly realizes that Random Roustie is an imposter, but before anyone can get to worked up about it, Ben shows up to conclude our fortuitous passers-by trilogy for the night. Well, thank God for that, huh?
Ben strides purposefully up to the front of the tent, and lays Mrs. Donovan down on the stage steps. "I need to know them rules," he whispers. "I don't want to have to hurt nobody." It's obvious that he's planning to perform a real healing here, but then he looks around the crowd and realizes what the potential consequences might be. Just to make sure we get the point, said consequences include a little girl, a cute librarian type, and Sofie. Apparently Ben likes his women young, stern, and brunette. I knew we had something in common. Mrs. Donovan gasps and shakes, but she does manage to uphold the ironclad Carnivàle no-extraneous-exposition contract by refusing Ben's offer of assistance. "Don't touch me," she moans, and Ben immediately leaps on this opportunity. "You all saw," he announces. "She don't want to be healed! She doesn't want it." Sheriff Ron looks stricken, but Ben only cares about getting more information. "When [Scudder] left you," he begs, "where did he go?" Mrs. Donovan musters just enough strength to whisper, "Babylon," and then she's gone for good. Farewell, Ma Butterfield. You should have known better than to try to advance the plot. Fade to black.
Fade back up on Ben and the rousties packing up the tents while Random Roustie #18 plays a mournful tune on his harmonica. An angry Samson finds Ben, and wonders aloud exactly what he was planning to do if the woman had really wanted to be healed. Ben answers this question with a meaningful silence, as carnies are wont to do, and Samson remains ambiguous (as carnies are also wont to do) about whether or not he realizes what Ben is actually capable of. He does, however, tell Ben that he won't be a headliner anymore. "You're shoveling shit," he adds. "It's latrine duty for you." Which opens up a whole can of worms in regards to the logistics of the carnival's traveling restroom facilities, but I think we'd all just prefer it if I didn't go there. Am I right?
After delivering his now patented "We got dust to shake" catchphrase (which sadly doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "What are you gonna do?" or "Fuck"), Samson climbs into his own truck with Jonesy. "Where we headed?" asks Tim DeKay, and Samson answers with a series of highway directions straight out of the 1930s version of Mapquest. "That's gonna take us awful close to Babylon," observes Jonesy. "No, it's gonna take us TO Babylon," replies Samson. Which is perfectly fine with me, as long as it's not Babylon 5. "Jesus Christ," Jonesy complains. "On a bicycle," Samson adds. And then the trucks pull out, and we slowly fade to black.
week: Dust storms! Flirtatious townies! Back flips! And Yom Kippur! If you like the recaps now, just wait until you see what happens when I have to fast while I write them!