Lonnigan, Texas

Dear [Your Name Here],

Thank you for your [informative] [humorous] [spite-filled] email regarding [the identity of the woman in the snake poster] [penile enhancements]. I was delighted to receive your correspondence.

In response to your comments about [the recaps] [my mental health] [my girth], you'll be pleased to know that I'm [hard at work on the one] [calling the cops] [hung like a lobster]. Thanks for asking!

The sheer volume of email I have received on the subject of [the identity of the woman in the snake poster] [penile enhancements] unfortunately prevents me from responding to you individually. However, please accept [my warmest regards] [the attached restraining order] [$49.95 + shipping and handling] in lieu of a personal reply. I look forward to hearing from you again in the future.

Sincerely Yours,
Aaron

P.S.: Eight and three quarters.

Nastassja Kinski. Check. Richard Avedon. Check. This link. Check. And it certainly is refreshing to know that such a large percentage of the TWoP readership consists of horny snake fetishists who reached sexual maturity in the early 1980s. Advertisers just love knowing that sort of thing. And so as of 7:00 PM on Friday, November 7th, I have now received 324 e-mails in response to a throwaway question that I had almost forgotten about asking by the time I turned that last recap in. Three hundred and twenty-four, people. I got seventeen in the first twenty-four hours, eighty-two in the first forty-eight, and they just kept on coming day after day after day. Our official winner in this little contest, by the way, is one Jim M, who posted a mind-bogglingly low StINK (Start to Identifying Nastassja Kinski) of 412, which means his answer hit my inbox less than seven minutes after the recap was posted. Damn! Nice work, Jim. You StINK! And just because I'm a big giant stats nerd, here a few other interesting tidbits about the responses I received: more than 65% came from women, Ms. Kinski is significantly more popular in England than she is in the United States, and the only person in the entire bunch to supply an incorrect answer had a return address at MIT.edu. I've also gotten at least one more response in the time it took me to write this paragraph. NK = 325.

Immediately after the billowing dust of the opening credits reveals that this episode was penned by Daniel Knauf himself, we fade up on the image of a blood-soaked man we've never seen before lighting a cigarette. Wow. Thanks, Dan. Don't mind if I do. Flickahh. Smokey McBloodstain's refreshing nicotine interlude is cut short, however, by the appearance of a young nurse dressed in a white nun's habit with a giant red cross emblazoned on the chest. The Photoshop filter motion blur distortion that some bored editor has chosen to apply to this scene has the effect of making that red cross look likewell, a red cross. But a crossier sort of cross than the normal red cross, if you know what I mean, and I doubt that you do. Regardless, that'll be mildly important later. Following the nurse's lead, Dr. McBloodstain ditches his cigarette and enters the swirling confusion of a surgical tent at the M*A*S*H 4-3-7-7. Just so you know, that last joke is a lot funnier if you happen to be a dyslexic Alan Alda fan that spends way too much time playing with calculators. And while Doc McBloodstain's patients are no doubt grateful that he's decided not to keep puffing away while he works, I'm thinking that maybe they should be a little less concerned about the perils of secondhand smoke, and a lot more worried about the fact that Doc isn't wearing gloves and just washed his hands in a bowl filled with other men's blood. Oh, yeah. That's sanitary.

At any rate, we soon pan around the tent to reveal any number of soldiers suffering from some very nasty battlefield wounds. We also see a Russian Orthodox priest scurrying about to administer the last rites (or whatever their Russian Orthodox equivalent might be, because we'll be discussing my lack of Christian sacramental knowledge later in the recap). Finally we end up staring at the face of a badly wounded Russian soldier, whose left eye has been burned and oh-so-symbolically blackened. Get it? It's difficult to determine whether this is in fact Pvt. Funboy, because the blood and burnt skin covers most of his face, and also because the camera swoops back all dramatically so we can see that he's missing his left arm (get it again?) and also both legs. I had intended to use the rest of this paragraph to tell an amusing anecdote about a marginally famous homeless guy in Pittsburgh who hangs out near my office, because the dude is missing his right arm and left leg, and no one who's ever seen him can figure out what kind of accident would cause injuries like that. And then I realize that there really isn't anything amusing about that story, and decided not to bother.

So Ben of course wakes up from the dream we all knew this would be, but when he pulls back his blanket to get up, he's shocked to discover that his own arm and legs are missing. Yeah, yeah. Been there, recapped that. But then we get a new shot, and it's a beautifully composed image of Brother Justin, kneeling peacefully in front of an ominous desert sunrise. Ooooh, pretty. And spooky, too.

Ben "wakes up" yet again, and this time Lodz is crouched in exactly the same position as Brother Justin, blocking out the rising sun. That will be the first of many such connections between those two this week. Lodz rather nicely invites Ben to breakfast, but Ben tends to be a little grumpy before he's had his morning mochaccino, and so he flatly refuses the invite. Then again, when isn't Ben grumpy? Lodz's diurnal rhythms must be finally kicking into gear as well, because he cranks up the smarm exponentially as he warns Ben that the dreams are only going to get worse. Ben: "I'm not talking to you. So nanny-nanny boo-boo, I can't hear you!" "You will," answers Lodz. "Soon."

Lodz strikes out across the midway, and the camera pans around to find Samson, who has been watching this little exchange with no small degree of curiosity. And then the camera pans around even further, and we see Pa Pimp reclined in the passenger seat of his car, getting drunk at 6:00 in the morning and singing along to Ella Fitzgerald's "Paper Moon." Why is that song following me, I wonder? Ma Cooch comes out and busts him there, although she's actually surprisingly nice about it. In fact, she even climbs into the car with him and suggests that they drive off for a little picnic. "Already got ya some dessert packed up here under this kimono," she purrs, as she pulls his hand under there to check out theer, tuna noodle casserole she's been carrying. Pa, however, isn't exactly "rising" to the occasion. Maybe that's why they call him "Stumpy." Speaking of which, I'd like to thank the two saucy flatmates from England who emailed this week with an offer to have my babies, and tell them that I plan on checking out Orbitz as soon as I finish the recap. Pa flees from the car without saying another word, and Ma is left there alone with her tears and an unused wicker basket.

And then for some reason we cut to an extended shot of Random Roustie #00's butt, as he carries a barrel away from the camera. Then it turns into a shot of Sofie's "breasts" as she passes 00, and carries a pair of baseball gloves over to where Jonesy is working on a car. And I'm not kidding, either. Go back and check your tapes. That was a very bizarre framing choice. Sofie admonishes Jonesy to "think fast," and then drops one of the gloves on the ground beside him. Tim DeKay is actually under the car working on the transmission, by the way. And seeing as how he's never been one to let his castmates' erogenous zones upstage his own, he makes sure to jiggle a bit as he rolls out from underneath.

Fortunately for these two, there just so happens to be a perfectly flat, wide-open meadow nearby, where they can play catch in peace before a photographically interesting background. You know, as opposed to the usual dust storms, killer coal mines, towns filled with Opie-looking rapists, horny zombies, and dead cooch dancers hanging from trees that the carnies usually like to surround themselves with. Sofie throws like a girl, by the way. It's so bad, in fact, that Jonesy tries to psych her up by relating an old trick from "back when [he] used to hurl." Which is probably an unfortunate choice of terminology, given that I just referenced the reason we all saw him hurl three weeks ago. At any rate, his suggestion is that she picture the face of someone she really hates in the catcher's mitt. "Let's see, who could that be," he asks, bringing the mitt up to stare into it. "Oh, yeah. Hi Momma." Heh. Sofie giggles a bit, and Jonesy further observes that "for a body that don't talk, she sure do got a lot to say." You have no idea, Jonesy. But at least he didn't call her a rutabaga. Sofie sadly confesses that Mommatose doesn't like any of her friends, which prompts Jonesy to look worried and ask if there are any exceptions to that rule. "Well there is you, of course," replies Sofie. "She's got a mind you walk on water." Oh, I think we all know that "walking" isn't really what Jonesy like to do with water. Jiggle, jiggle. Sofie does add that Mommatose ain't too fond of Libby, and Jonesy does a horrible job of concealing the fact that he agrees with that notion wholeheartedly. He stumbles through a ridiculous attempt to cover this obvious flirtation faux pas, but it's no use. Sofie stomps off in a huff, and poor Jonesy is left to pick up her glove and stare at her rapidly receding backside. In fact, he's so mad at himself here that he actually forgets to spit.