Previously on Hidden Palms, Liza found Greta's blood-stained Halloween costume from the night Eddie became Dead Eddie hidden in Cliff's room. But more importantly, Cliff and Nikki did it! And Greta and Johnny almost did it! And then we found out Cliff and Dead Eddie's Mom have been doing it! Finally this show starts delivering on its promise.
We open this week with Greta at the country club, lamenting to Johnny the fact that her father has chosen to stay in town and publicly make out with college-aged floozies. Johnny takes her back to his house, where Greta gets twitchy at the sight of Johnny's bedroom, which used to be Eddie's bedroom. She proceeds to get even more freaked out when Johnny produces the bloody Halloween costume that Liza found. At least, we're left to assume she's freaked, since God knows what she's feeling at a given moment with that godawful acting.
Meanwhile, Cliff and Maria -- a.k.a., Dead Eddie's Mom -- roll around post-coitally, basking in their dirty, nasty afterglow. "You're talented," she pants. "Yeah, I used to play the French horn," he smirks. Nasty! Thank God for Cliff, man. She says she had a lot to deal with, after Eddie died, but Cliff should plan on seeing a lot more of her from now on. Cliff, however, has to split, which instantly flips Maria's "jealous harpy" switch. Cliff's response is a glorified "Down, girl," which is why we love him so.
Back in Johnny's room with the bloody angel costume, we're treated to an especially poorly acted scene in which Greta says it's none of Johnny's business, Johnny claims some bullshit eminent domain wherein the fact that he lives in Eddie's room entitles him to an explanation, and Greta gives in and spills. Eddie never showed up at the Halloween party at the club that night, after hearing from Cliff that he and Greta slept together, so Cliff left to go find him. Greta was worried about "what Cliff might do," so she went to Eddie's house, too, and when she got there, Eddie was dead and very bloody. Cliff convinced her to lie about being there and to give him the angel costume so he could destroy it, which he obviously never did. She claims that this, at long last, is the truth. She better hope it's not, because if it is, she's got less to do with the plot than poor Jessie Jo, The Sage And Sober Drag Queen.
Greta's dad spots Karen at the Club and asks for her help in finding a birthday present for Tess. He does so in his usual smarmy/flirty way, and Karen just walks right into it, letting him sniff her arm to get the scent of a perfume he should buy. Bob shows up after Skip leaves and tells Karen there's something about that guy he just doesn't like. Shot in the dark here, Bob, but was it the way he smelled your wife's arm? Karen says -- literally, if you can believe it -- "He's not so bad, once you get to know him." Karen, Karen, Karen. The arm-sniffers are always bad news. Stay away!
Back in Cliff's bedroom, where he's working hard to live up to his "gets more ass before noon than you do all day" slogan, this time with Nikki. She giggles and compares him to "that little battery bunny." Wow, I feel like I now know an awful lot about what Cliff is like in bed. I could write a term paper on it, or something. With end notes and everything. He asks her to be his date for his mom's birthday party tonight, and Nikki gets all gushy about how she's never been on a real date, because she's not the dating type, she's the twelve-shots-and-a-cloud-of-dust type. I absolutely love the fact that Nikki sees herself as this wrong-side-of-the-tracks, damaged girl who's too fucked up for Cliff, meanwhile Cliff is kicking puppies and screwing housewives and dismembering you with his eyes.
Tess and Karen golf and talk about Tess's birthday party. In the span of about fifteen seconds, Tess goes from calling their caddy "tight pants" to explaining to Karen that her attraction to Skip is based on their "sexy 'I hate you' chemistry." And this is the part of the recap where I re-iterate how much I love Sharon Lawrence. Even that painfully self-referential dialogue manages to sound better coming out of her. Course, Tess's good vibes get trampled a bit when she finds out that Skip intends to bring his college-aged floozy to the party with him. So to retaliate, she recruits ol' Tight Pants Steve -- ol' Tight Pants Gay Steve -- to be her date for the party and occasionally make out with her and such.
Liza's garagabatory. Johnny's just told her Greta's side of the story, but Liza's not buying it. She locks the angel costume up in a locker and hides the key. She intends to give the police the dress and let them sort it out. Johnny begs her to wait one night -- Greta's going to confront Cliff about keeping the costume and then...something will happen. Cliff will go all Bond villain and confess his crimes while he lowers Johnny and Greta in a vat of acid, I don't know. Liza says she'll wait one more night.
She may not even have to wait that long, as Greta's confronting Cliff right now at -- wait for it -- the country club. Christ almighty, you guys, even the Walsh kids congregated away from the Peach Pit every now and then. So she tells Cliff that the bloody dress has been found and their story is out in the open, and before Cliff can properly respond, Skip hollers to the both of them and starts joshing about how Cliff is really the kind of guy Greta should be going for. Michael Cassidy is all kinds of awesome here, twisting his face from a scowl to a mask of exaggerated joviality and back again, managing to suck up to Skip, twist the knife with Greta, and betray juuuust the slightest hint of simmering rage underneath. And he manages to make Greta flounce off, too. Which Cliff chalks up to "Women," and he fist-bumps Skip. Hee. Cut to Cliff tearing up his bedroom once he's confirmed the angel dress is indeed missing. Later on, he creeps into Johnny's room and they have it out, Cliff giving his version of events, only in Cliff's version, Greta was the one who left the party first, and Cliff only came later to find her cradling Eddie's dead body. Pushing all sort of buttons -- including the "Daddy killed himself in front of me" one -- Cliff manipulates Johnny into once again suspecting Greta did something nefarious before Cliff showed up.
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That night, Cliff shows up in Liza's garagabatory to menace her/profess his innocence. After he leaves, Liza discovers the bloody angel costume dress is gone. Oooh, another mystery! Who do you think took the dress? I say Nikki.
At Tess's party -- which is at Johnny's family's house -- Cliff tries to convince Johnny that Liza's not to be trusted, which I can't imagine would have much success. Then Johnny tries to warn Nikki that Cliff isn't to be trusted, which goes over just as poorly. Maria shows up and spies Cliff and Nikki making out, which you'd think would drive her into a fit of Middle-Aged May-December Lady Rage, but instead just leads to her and Cliff humping in her dead son's old bedroom. Nikki sees them, of course, but instead of falling face-first into some Cuervo, she waits for Cliff to find her later and reads him the riot act. While his denials are delightfully disgusting ("She's like a second mother to me!"), Nikki isn't buying them and she tells him they're finishes.
In "All About Skip" news, Bob tells Skip to keep his hands off his wife, Skip tells Johnny to be careful with Greta, and Tess's bid to make Skip jealous fails when he spots Tight Pants Steve getting handsy -- and later, lipsy -- with another dude. Maria sees him and says hello, and it's glaringly obvious that Something's Up when she's the only woman in the room he doesn't greet with a full-body canvass. Later, Skip tries to dance with Karen, and he's all aggressive and drunk and his hands are all over the place, and Bob spots them and hauls off and clocks Skip in the jaw. It leaves a big ol' mark on his face, but it doesn't seem to hinder him any when he ends his night by planting a big fat birthday kiss on Tess.
Liza shows up at the party and Johnny manages to prove he actually is just as dumb as Cliff thinks by questioning Liza's motives, accusing her of jumping to conclusions, etc. Skip overhears this whole conversation, by the way. When Greta shows up, Johnny tells her that between her version of events and Cliff's, not to mention how he's an easily-manipulated dumbass, he just doesn't know who to believe. And, yes, Greta does respond to that by flouncing off in a huff.
Outside, Johnny finds a sobbing Nikki and tries to comfort her. She tells him about Cliff's cheating and says it was with the mother of the kid who used to live in Johnny's room. To Johnny's credit, this actually registers as A Big Deal, and you can almost hear the groan of the gears turning in his head.
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Finally, Maria clandestinely meets with Skip, and we learn that it was Maria who summoned Skip to come back to town. "We have a problem," she ominously intones. "Yes we do," creeps Skip.
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