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The episode begins with John out and about and staring at that naval radio station we saw back in Episode 2. But, since he forgets to leave a note, everyone assumes he's missing. Instead of being relieved at no longer having a grinning oddball repeating everything they've said, everyone is quite concerned. Butchie and Kai spend most of the episode looking for him, enlisting Bill's help. Then, they have sex -- Butchie and Kai, I mean. Bill is mercifully left out of that, thankfully, because there are just some things you can't un-see. Speaking of people having sex, Mitch and Cass totally do it, as part of Linc's evil plan to...make sure Mitch is too preoccupied with having sex to see Linc sinking his talons into Shaun, I suppose. Linc is shockingly short of specifics. The plan is going great, at least until Cass sees Mitch levitate. Dr. Smith does not have not have sex in this episode. Instead, he begins by quitting his job at the hospital and then spends the rest of his day wandering the earth, like Caine in Kung Fu. His travels take him to the Snug Harbor, where he has some face time with Ramon, and to the Yost house, where he finds Linc doing the dishes -- yeah, don't ask -- and back to the Snug Harbor to diagnose Palaka's wrist and declare that John is A-OK despite all the fresh stab wounds and blood. That's right, I forgot about John! He has the misfortune to run into four guys who don't like it when people repeat what they've just said -- one of them ends up using John as a pin cushion before dumping his body near the border. Fortunately, Vietnam Joe stumbles across John, and even more fortunately, Vietnam Joe is able to heal those wounds with just a touch of his hand per John's instructions. By the time this show is over, I think every character will have been healed by every other character -- my bet for week is Dickstein in the conservatory with Professor Plum. Our episode ends with Bill opting to spend the evening with Freddy, because Zippy the Bird conveyed to him that the two should be friends. Yeah, you read that correctly. I don't think we should rule out the possibility that maybe Zippy just wanted him out of the house for some quiet time. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously: Shaun Yost was miraculously healed of his broken neck thanks to the recently risen-from-the-dead parakeet belonging to nervous shut-in Bill. Shaun's dad Butchie appeared to have gone through rehab without noticing. Shaun's grandfather, Mitch, appeared to be headed toward an adulterous liaison with the cute young thing that's actually on surf-impresario Linc's payroll. Cissy presumably gargled gallons of hot lemon water to keep her pipes limber for her daily screamfests. John Monad and Kai went off to bone, and he made her see God -- yet they managed to keep their clothes on.
And...credits. What freaky musical genius is locked in the bowels of HBO? And is he or she shackled to a freaky editing genius? Because say what you will about the show, the credits are keeping that HBO streak of awesome openings alive. (See also: Carnivàle's credit sequence, Deadwood's opening, each of the four credit sequences for The Wire, Six Feet Under's credits, Big Love's opening, and, of course, the intro for The Sopranos. ["Rome, maybe not so much." -- WC])
You know, if I hadn't just seen the credits, I would have sworn my TiVo got stuck on VH-1 Classic, because the opening sequence looks like a 1980s New Wave video. We see a perfectly sculpted swoop of hair, a chiseled jaw, a landscape empty but for an ominous military building. Can't you just anticipate the moment when the man opens his mouth and begins singing about how we'll glow in the dark after the Cold War heats up? Aren't you missing that soundtrack as we go from the first shot (John very far away from the Naval radio receiver) to the second (John appearing to have moved to a different angle without, you know, walking), then back to the first?
After that short, bafflingly synthesizer-free interlude, we're back in what passes for civilization. Palaka rolls a shopping cart of supplies across a street, narrowly misses getting hit, and waves his duct-taped hand in outrage at the car that had the nerve to honk at him. But that's all background to the real action: Dr. Smith is meeting Mark Lewinski, the liability attorney at the hospital. Lewinski sourly says, "Good copy in the paper does not necessarily mean an uninterrupted night's sleep for the hospital's liability attorney." Dr. Smith refuses to be guilt-tripped, guilelessly offering, "Would you like me to prescribe some barbiturates?" Lewinski would not. What he would like: "Some sort of accounting as to how a patient could be admitted with a flatline E.E.G., be oxygen-deprived for twenty-seven minutes, be worked up for a C2 fracture, then exit the side door of our hospital within two hours." Dr. Smith deadpans, "I believe he left piggyback." We soon get to the heart of the conversation: Lewinski's sure the Yosts will eventually stop screaming at one another/ shooting up/ levitating long enough to hire an attorney and sue the pants off the hospital. Dr. Smith does not. This is not because he thinks it unlikely that the Yosts will eventually stop the hollering/ shooting up/ levitating. Anyway, Dr. Smith dismissively says, "The hospital has a public-relations problem. This should solve it." He's quitting. Dr. Smith tosses over an envelope and quotes, "I misread the Yost boy's tests which, on recognizing my mistake, I destroyed." Lewinski applauds Smith's forthrightness. He adds, somewhat cynically, "Inhuman hours, excessive overwork?" "Put that in a P.S.," says Smith. He gets up from the table and wanders off without another word. Lewinski watches him off, a little cheesed off that Smith doesn't seem fazed in the least.
We switch to the Yost House. Butchie lurches into the kitchen, wearing his skivvies and wrapped in the kind of crappy velour couch throw you see people selling in the same places that deal in pictures of Native Americans looking into a pond and seeing their buckskin-clad forebears weeping in the reflection or pewter pen holders molded to look like a Gentle Faerie Quene And Her Unicorne Steed. Cissy puts down her cup of hot water with lemon. Butchie asks, "Surfing -- Shaunie?" and Cissy wearily chuckles as she says, "Yeah, he had a slow day yesterday." And -- aieee! -- the velour throw has a unicorn on it! I wonder if Butchie bought it while stoned to the gills on smack. Anyway, mother and son share an awkward silence in the kitchen, and then Butchie says he's about to hop the back fence and go look for John. The reporters are camped out in the front yard.
Cut to Cass sitting in bed, looking up at the ceiling with an expression of complete self-loathing on her face as Mitch smugs, "Sometimes to save what you love, you have to be willing to lose it." We switch to the bare-chested Mitch continuing to justify his adultery: "It's like surfing. If you do it for the wrong reasons, it's just a dead game." I look forward to seeing how this line of thinking plays out with Cissy: "Baby, no -- if I had been sleeping with a woman half your age for the wrong reasons, it would have been a douche move. But here, I risked losing you because I love you." Anyway, Cass tries to head off more of this claptrap by reminding Mitch that his leg is filled with puncture wounds from his nocturnal fence-hopping. Mitch is confident that the herb poultice he'll whip up will fix his leg good as new. Then Mitch begins groping his way up Cass's torso, carrying on about how heat flows from chakra to chakra while managing not to notice that Cass is looking like she's just fled to her happy place. Suddenly, Cissy's perpetual bad temper makes a lot more sense. Sharing a bed with an oblivious jackass for decades could fray anyone's nerves.
Meanwhile, Kai has woken up alone and discovered that John is nowhere to be found. She quickly gets dressed.
John, meanwhile, is bopping down the road, still lost in his own private New Wave music video. A van pulls over. Alas, it is not the rest of his bandmates, come to remind him that man's innate fellowship will save the human race from nuclear annihilation. It's a bunch of sketchy-looking dudes.
Back to the hotel. Cass has turned on the hot water in the sink, hoping to sterilize her flesh and possibly melt the memories of the last twelve hours right out of her skull. Unfortunately, the objet d'horreur is outside yammering for her attention. Cass comes out to see Mitch levitating.
Now that the good doctor's got plenty of free time, he's decided to spend it looking for Butchie at the Snug Harbor Motel. We see Palaka and Freddy in the parking lot; Palaka's got one of those sun shields that helps you develop melanoma 50% faster than merely suntanning alone. He's saying, "'Is two days off a crime? Do I ever get to fuckin' relax?' That was you, boss, in your sleep during the night." Freddy flatly tells him, "I don't talk in my sleep." Palaka waves around his good hand to indicate that he'll believe what his boss tells him to. Then he catches sight of Dr. Smith and says excitedly, "Physician. It's that physician." Hands up, all you who think the word choice was deliberately meant to prod viewers into murmuring, "Heal thyself."
Cut to Ramon trying to clean Butchie's place. Dr. Smith comes by to ask if Butchie's around, and Ramon says, in a tone of sweet incredulity, "You didn't read the paper? That family had a miracle last night." Dr. Smith nods and says, "At the hospital. I was Shaun Yost's doctor." The rubber gloves-wearing Ramon goes to shake Smith's hand, and catches himself at the last minute; he removes his gloves and they shake hands. Ramon offers to clear out and let Dr. Smith wait for Butchie in peace. It is a measure of Dr. Smith's current state that he's all "Wait in a junkie's squalid hotel room? Sounds dandy!"
We cut to a considerably cleaner hotel room. Linc is in it, and he's incredulously saying, "In other words, you want to talk about all this strange shit going on, you're an expert in the field -- that is what I brought you in for?" Cass protests, "Okay, Linc, I get it." Linc icily replies, "If you got it, you'd still be in that room with him." Cass protests, "He went out to get a poultice for his knee." Linc says, "You should be embarrassed to have to tell me that." Cass flares, "Fuck you!" and stomps toward the door. Linc doesn't even raise an eyebrow as he replies, "The correct answer would be, 'While, you, Linc, are signing Cissy, I'm going to try to sell him on moving out of his house for good.'" As Cass leaves, we see Linc roll his eyes in the universal expression signifying "What does it TAKE to hire good, amoral henchpeople?" I loved that expression when I saw it on Stringer Bell, I loved it on Al Swearengen, and I love it here.
Meanwhile, John is with a bunch of guys who are opening flouting California's container laws. The guys pull into what appears to be a commercial landscaping outfit -- what look to be tens of thousands of dollars' worth of palm trees in their wooden containers, awaiting planting -- and drive past a gardener who is, I would guess, clearly in on whatever scheme they're about to pull with John.
And that scheme would be the "Let's rob the simple guy" number. The driver says, "John from Cincinnati, it's time to chip in. We're down to our last beer. Gas too." John has been studying the guy to him, mirroring his tough-guy faces. The thug offers, "How about I fuck you up, vato." John gives him an amiable pat on the arm and cheerfully suggests, "How about I fuck you up?" The thug does not take this in the jovial spirit with which it was offered, and punches John. The driver flicks open his switchblade and asks, "You think this is joke, carbon?" John solemnly replies, "I think this is a joke." The driver wheels around and snarls, "I'll cut your fucking heart out." John snarls back, "Cut my fucking heart out." The driver says, "I'll show you your heart while you die." John confidently says, "Show me my heart." Desperate not to lose face in front of his gang, the driver snarls, "You ready to look, you fuck?" Still confident and unafraid, John says, "I'm ready." The driver screams in frustration, "Fuck you!" and stabs John in the leg, and then in the heart. John falls to the back of the van, still giving the driver his usual open and unsettling gaze. Frothing with rage, the driver shouts, "You stare me down? You stare me down?" Then he adds softly, "I ain't afraid to be the last thing you see." Really? So all that panicky screaming was just a front? Good to know if I'm ever in a similar situation. The other guys in the van are all, "Hey, sometimes you have to treat a total headcase like a human pincushion. Otherwise you're not a real man."
Then we cut to Kai walking into Butchie's lair. She and Dr. Smith exchange cordial greetings, and she quickly lets him know that she's looking for John. We quickly find out that neither John nor Butchie is in the room. Kai amiably asks, "Things slow at the hospital?" "I've resigned," Dr. Smith replies. Kai gives this its deserved response: "Whoa." As she walks out to look for one lost man, another calls after her weakly, "I'm going to check on Shaun in just a bit."
We cut to Cissy in a big ol' Fidel Castro hat and Nicole Richie sunglasses. All that's missing is someone to come in and say, "La Presidenta! Your anteojos are bonita, but your hair, it could use some VO5 hot oil treatment." What we get is actually much better: Linc, who says in a vaguely insulting way, "Good idea, Cissy." Cissy smacks off the glasses and hat and tells him that Shaun's back on the waves. So why are there reporters camped out in front of the house and not at the beach? See, this is why it's a bad idea to outsource your reporting to India. Linc admiringly drawls, "Out with the groms like yesterday never even happened." Cissy is rattled by that, and finally asks, "You got something you need me to sign, Linc?" He tries to throw Cissy completely off her game by being straight-up honest with her: "Today isn't yesterday, Cissy. And I'm not clear on what the new rules are, but I know the old ones have been cancelled." Cissy blusters, and Linc continues, "Do you know everything you need to know, dressing up like Michael Jackson while your boy's out in the water with fifty assholes pointing a camera at him? Works for me. Of course, all those other kids in the water with Shaun...I've signed them already." Cissy mockingly asks, "And I need you? Your steadying hand?" No, what you need is a good conditioner and a decent hairbrush. Linc points out that Mitch is hardly the steady hand here, and Cissy blusters more because Linc's hit a nerve. She then stomps out, telling Linc, "You want to help? Stay -- do the dishes." Yes, Linc. And while you're at it, burn that vile unicorn throw. Linc heads into the kitchen, sighs, and resigns himself to dishpan hands.
Butchie charges into the surf shop and is greeted with "Shit!" He is not fazed by this. He probably gets that a lot. Kai lets him know that the reason she's not thrilled to see him is because she was hoping John would be with him. Then they move on to why John might have taken off. Butchie sensitively asks, "Did he freak out about boning you?" Kai replies, "He doesn't even know what boning means. Maybe I'd have wound up showing him, except my pussy overheated like it was cooking on a George Foreman grill. My tits too -- like in a blast furnace." Butchie looks stunned by this. Not the ease with which Kai slings around the colloquial terms for her own anatomy, but rather how she's accessorizing it: "You got hardware in your box?" Then he gets all hyped because the metal implants in his head were overheating too: "It felt like my head was going up in smoke -- faaaaaack!" Kai's all, "It was. We were in my trailer, figuring out he was a virgin? And John says, 'See God, Kai,' just like that. And then I went into some hallucinatory state. And there was smoke coming out of your head!" Butchie can only reiterate, "Fuck!" The two decide to go look for John together. Kai grabs the front of Butchie's shirt and yanks him down, saying, "For not knowing what the word meant, I wonder how John got the idea to bone me." As Butchie leads Kai out by the hand, he explains, "I was trying to tell him he picked a nice person to like."
And now, it's time for media criticism, courtesy of Bill and Zippy the zombie parakeet. Bill says, "This fills me with misgivings, bandying words like 'miracle' in the newspaper headline. This can only attract new types of shitheel into that boy's life, which wasn't short of shitheels before." Yes, but won't the variety provide a pleasant diversion from the types of shitheel Shaun has to put up with now? Bill stalks to the end of his living room, passing a circular wire staircase with the treads padded with bubble wrap, and tells Zippy they'll be keeping their distance from the pending trouble, since he doesn't want to risk the wrath of Cissy. Bill is also afraid of communing with fellow well-wishers like Freddy and Palaka, or the guys at the Snug Harbor; he'll stay in his house and wrap layer upon layer of bubble wrap on his stair treads. And then Bill tears off some duct tape with his teeth, loops out into the type of anti-Clinton rant my rock-ribbed Republican dad used to muster as a special treat for me every time I went home, and then swings back into expository lucidity: "That will never happen again, a sequence of events so complicated that Butchie Yost, aged ten, could help the only woman in the world that, when I pass a remark about some airhead pisspot that I collar, she has the sweetness to recall, 'I wonder if it's that Yost boy that used to help me with my groceries.' I throw him a break because of my darling Lois, keep one eye out for him since I unloosed him on society. Looking out for Butchie would later cross my path with Shaun, when Butchie became a junkie dumpster tenant. Now who in his right mind would believe that that sequence of events could be repeated?" Don't y'all answer at once. I personally am still working out the chronology, since Bill is not what we'd call a master of the linear narrative. Bill concludes, "That boy is gone from us. And I don't regret one thing." He looks up at the top of the stairs and says roughly, "Children or not, the time I spent with you was the joy of my life."
Butchie is down by the pier, chattering animatedly with some kids about whether they've seen John. It's illuminating to see how comfortable he is among his emotional peer group. He and Kai walk down the pier under a wheeling seagull. We see yet another miracle: neither one of them gets crapped upon by that airborne guano factory. Butchie tells Kai, "The first time he asked me what I wanted was right there." Kai replies, "Should we put up a plaque?" She grins to let him know she's taking the piss. Butchie does that thing where you swing your leg up and kick someone's butt while you're walking. Kai does it back and gives him a look. Oh, Kai, don't even go there.
We cut to Linc dusting the Yosts' house. Dr. Smith lets himself in. Linc coolly says, "Shaun's surfing. Mrs. Yost's at work." Dr. Smith notes, "And you're pitching in, cleaning house." Linc channels his inner Dylan McKay: "What is this, a restricted area?" Dr. Smith humbly says, "That wouldn't be for me to say." He stretches out a hand, introducing himself as Michael Smith. Linc is not one to let slights go: "Linc Stark. We didn't introduce ourselves at the hospital when you were throwing me off the floor." Dr. Smith points out that, there, it was for him to say. Linc concedes that people need room to do their jobs, then continues, "Of course, your job's over now, am I right? Unless you get sued...negligent oversight, incompetent evaluation, emotionally damaging for the family." All the while, he's busy dusting away. I...sort of see a new market here for neat-freak masochists: a housecleaning service that will emotionally abuse you while they do your baseboards. Who wants to front me the first round of funding? Anyway, Dr. Smith guilelessly says, "I'm not here to protect my ass." Linc insincerely positions himself as the guardian of the Yosts' best interests, and pointedly says, "They don't have time for hangers-on and losers making the trip any tougher." Dr. Smith mildly asks, "Are you related to the Yosts?" Linc dusts a picture frame as he replies, "Not by blood." "Maybe you just smell it in the water," the doctor says, still deceptively mellow. Then he asks, "Which does it make me, Linc -- a loser or a hanger-on -- if I believe a miracle might have got [Shaun] well?" Linc doesn't miss a beat as he replies, "It makes you a fanatic." Dr. Smith takes his leave: "Tell Mrs. Yost and Shaun I stopped by." Linc rolls his eyes with another "I am a man under constant siege by idiots" looks as he says, "Absolutely."
Over at the Yosts' surf shop, we see Cissy as a woman under constant siege by reporters, if by "constant siege" you mean "one clumsy ruse to buy a wetsuit" and "reporters" is "one guy." And then we get the episode's token Cissy freakout. While this is going on, Shaun decides that he's not in the mood to take his friends' ribbing either.
Vietnam Joe has found John. He comes over and notices John -- feet propped together, arms stretched out, hands bloody, a wound piercing his side -- and asks, "Jesus, what happened?" John looks at him, in great and silent pain. Vietnam Joe promises that he'll be back with his truck, to get help: "I promise I'll be back for you." John chokes back a sob. (I am sort of there with him; Vietnam Joe's horrified, reflexively compassionate response made me unexpectedly verklempt.)
Bill has a knock on the door. He hollers through it, "I'm in my underwear and I don't want any magazines." Butchie hollers hello, and Bill dramatically whispers, "That's Butch!" right before he flings open the door...and notices Kai standing there too. Bill blusters, "Well, my testicles are on display to the neighborhood. Get in here!"
Kai and Butchie hustle in, and Butchie fills Bill in on John's disappearance. Bill asks where Shaun is, explaining, "In relation to that guy going missing, when was the last time you saw your son?" Butchie uncomprehendingly says, "Last night." In the background, Kai is finally calling in to work. She needn't have bothered; Cissy doesn't appear to have missed her. Bill notes Kai's conscientousness and asks, "She's got a couple of brains -- what's she doing with you?" Butchie gives him a look, all, "Don't even start." Bill confirms that John didn't abduct Shaun. He then asks, "Now this John who is missing -- and not a pervert -- what else do you know about him?" That he's a slightly better-dressed version of Zippy the parrot? Butchie and Kai walk over by the stairs -- where Butchie points upstairs and mimes the universal symbol for "dead," explaining what happened to Lois -- while fielding Bill's inquiries. Bill comes out, clothed, and says, "That would raise the question of mental health." Both Kai and Butchie guiltily back away from the bubble-wrapped stairs. Anyway, a few sentences later, Bill has volunteered himself to join in the search for John.
Oh, good, more of the Metaphysical Minute With Mitch show. After Cass comes in, he asks, "What do you think [about] my levitation?" Cass claims she doesn't know. Mitch was not really interested in an answer; he was interested in an opening, which is why he plows ahead: "You feel, over the years, that maybe something about you is special. And you assume, I guess, that the thing that's special has to do with what you're good at...and now, maybe it turns out I go up in the air, Shaun heals, and maybe all along, this feeling of being special wasn't about athletics or years of spiritual discipline. Maybe it's about family." Cass does not reply, "The same one you bailed out on?" Instead, she asks if Mitch would like to stay in the hotel room, rather than rejoining said family. Mitch continues musing: his theory appears to be something along the lines that he and Shaun are the iteration of Homo sapiens sapiens, Butchie is good only for having introduced "joker in the deck" John to this situation, and yes, he'd certainly love to shack up in the hotel for a while: "Just 'til we get this all kind of figured out." Cass can barely conceal her disgust at this, and quickly stammers, "I wonder if the store's open yet, where you can go get your poultice."
Dr. Smith has now made his way down to the pier. He hangs around for a moment before grabbing his bike and preparing to go.
And that is how we segue to a scene where someone needs a doctor. John is slumped against the passenger-side car door in Vietnam Joe's ride, and Joe is anxiously apologizing for the bumpy ride. He adds, "I'm sorry I can't help." John finally speaks: "Pull over, Joe. Joe, pull over." The frantic man does. John takes Joe's hand, places it over his wound, and then says hoarsely, "You can help." We switch to Joe's face, which is frozen in an overwhelmed, uncomprehending sob.
Then we switch to Cass's hotel room. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, but she was so overtaken by some feeling that she's slid to the floor and is gulping for air. We see that she's having an out-of-body vision: Cass sees Vietnam Joe discovering John in the clearing, she sees him wounded, then the van, then the Snug Harbor motel, then John by the Naval radio receiver, then John placing Joe's hand over his wound. Cass then sees John smiling faintly at Joe and she gets another long, lingering shot of the Snug Harbor sign. After that, she gets up, grabs her bag and jacket, and takes off.
Dr. Smith is wandering back toward the Snug Harbor as well. As he goes to put his beverage cup in a nearby dumpster, he sees a middle-aged woman trimming her rosebush. After a short and awkward conversation, the good doctor comes away with an Avon catalog. I recommend the Skin-So-Soft -- it's great for mosquitoes.
Meanwhile, Butchie and Kai have wandered back into Butchie's home, squalid home. It looks slightly less so thanks to Ramon's ministrations. The two prepare to part reluctantly: Butchie says he'll stay at the hotel in case John shows up, and Kai tells Butchie she'll call him if John swings by the shop. Butchie awkwardly walks over and says, "I'll catch you later. Thanks for walking with me." He leans in to peck Kai on the cheek, and she leans into it. Kai...seriously, just do not even go there. She laughs, all, "Thanks for the peck." Butchie's nervously laughing too as he says, "I know! What the fuck was that about?" Kai looks at him again one more time -- Kai! No! Don't go -- too late. She's climbed Butchie like a tree.
We switch to Dickstein pulling into the Snug Harbor. Ramon gossips, "Butchie's in his place with that blonde. Previously they were looking for his surf student." He also points out Freddy and Palaka, stubbornly attempting to relax in the parking lot. Dickstein comments, "Yesterday was a three-ring circus." Don't go thinking things have settled down yet, m'boy. Here comes Dr. Smith. Palaka is overjoyed. Ramon asks, "Forgot something, Doc?" "I left my dignity," Dr. Smith replies. He asks if Butchie's back, and Ramon grins that Butchie's currently occupied with a young lady. Dr. Smith is now officially adrift. As Palaka heads over for an out-of-network consultation, Barry Cunningham pulls up in his Prius. (Of course Barry drives a Prius.) As Dr. Smith peels away to look at Palaka, Barry comes over and brightly says, "I'd like for us all to work together, and I've blurted it out, and I'm glad!" In the reel that's playing in Barry's head, this would be where Dickstein and Ramon begin playing the Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor to his Debbie Reynolds, and a sprightly musical number would ensue.
And now, Dr. Smith has his second-weirdest doctor-patient interaction in the last seventy-two hours as Palaka tells him, "For no reason that you'd realize, but last night when you were talking to Butchie? I was under that half-pipe." Dr. Smith is not sure if that means he and Palaka have already been socially introduced, and he asks, "Do you want me to examine your wrist?" Channeling his inner ingénue, Palaka goes wide-eyed and asks in charming innocence, "Oh, do you do informal diagnoses?" Even from several yards away, Freddy can catch this act. He rolls his eyes.
Meanwhile, Ramon is busy asking Barry exactly what he means. Barry explains, "Let's consider we're permanently associated. Oh, is that too overtly gay?" Barry, nearly anything you utter -- including lines like, but not limited to "Gimme my thirty-ought-six and some bullets," "I don't care what you say about Peyton Manning, Heath Schuler's the best damn passing QB the Vols ever saw," and "Nice tits!" -- will sound too overtly gay. Anyway, the upside to this is that Barry envisions a working business partnership. Bill's sudden arrival cuts off what could have been a promising monologue about equity and vesting.
Bill walks over to Freddy and says, by way of greeting, "Butchie Yost." Freddy blinks and says, "In his room." Bill adds, "Apprising him of the results of a search. No cell phone. Suppose you gotta explain these days." Freddy replies, "I could give less of a shit." Bill turns to go, and Freddy softens a little, adding, "He's with that strange-haired girl." Bill turns around and asks, "Doin' what"' and Freddy's hardened again: "How the fuck would I know?"
Dr. Smith tells Palaka to get his wrist x-rayed and set. Palaka ripostes, "I should file tax returns too, Doc, but the government--" We are all diverted by Vietnam Joe's arrival. Bill speaks for us all: "What is this nonsense now?" Dr. Smith excuses himself. Joe gets out of the car and says, with some asperity, "I fuckin' touched him and he fuckin' healed." Dr. Smith comes over and introduces himself as a doctor, asking, "What's the problem?" Joe replies, "No problem at all, medic. Let him make a fool out of you." As Dr. Smith moves in to examine the patient, John says, "You helped me, Joe." Vietnam Joe blusters, "You keep mouthing off like that, frat boy, and I am liable to knock you out." Dr. Smith establishes -- sort of -- that John's not in pain. Joe shakily asks, "It's bullshit, right?" Dr. Smith replies, "It's a healed wound with fresh blood. I don't know what it is." Joe replies, with less conviction, "It's a phonied-up gag." Across the lawn, Bill angrily says, "It's a bunch of goddamned nonsense." Dr. Smith gently pulls John to his feet. Vietnam Joe immediately gets in his face and channels his outrage: "I guess it's time to find out which warped, rear-echelon asshole at the VFW bar where I drink thought something that I confided to him about events in-country was worth the abuse for a fucking chuckle!" John says, very gently, "You didn't leave me behind, Joe." As Joe grabs John by the collar, Dr. Smith impotently tries to pull him off. Joe swears, "You listen to me, frat boy. You're going to tell me who it was! And then I am jumping in that van and driving to that gin mill, and I am going to do some damage!" John looks at him with pity, and replies, "Tomorrow is another day." Joe stares back, as if struck by revelation. However, he blusters away, "I'm undertaking inquiries tomorrow!" John gives Dr. Smith a smile like "People afraid to believe -- whaddya gonna do?"
Meanwhile, Kai is busy devouring Butchie's tonsils. Oh, lord, I don't even want to think about Butchie's probable tooth decay owing to heroin-related dry mouth, or how it would make his breath smell or taste. Anyway, something catches Kai's attention, and she hops down. Butchie gallantly apologizes, "I haven't been high in three days. I'll get hard over mud." Both of these geniuses miss the fact that Butchie's gone three straight days without getting dope sick, and Kai overlooks the fact that, by the property of transference, Butchie's equated her charms with those of a hog wallow. Instead, she invites him to her place. Bill interrupts the moment by knocking. Butchie hollers through the door, "We just completed our quadrants." He opens it, and Bill shares the news that John's safe. Then he casts his eyes down, as is his wont, and blurts out, "My God, you have an erection. He's right outside. Jesus Christ!" Bill hastily sees himself out. Butchie heads back over to Kai and coos romantically, "I wanna bring the hammer down back at your place." Kai asks, "What if it's now or never?" Both of them agree that they'll do a drive-by check up on John, then hit the sheets at Kai's place. But before they head out, Butchie fiddles with his jeans, saying, "Let me just fix this unsightly bulge."
Back outside, Dr. Smith and John are staring silently at one another. Bill heads over to talk to Freddy some more. There's some spitting and hissing since, as retired cop and drug dealer, these two are antagonists. John tells Dr. Smith, "Bill's not Freddy's first 'Bill.'" He pivots around, the better to observe the verbal ping-pong match. A few back-and-forths later, John tells Dr. Smith, "Freddy's not Bill's first 'Freddy.'" John then pivots ninety degrees. After a moment, Dr. Smith does too. They watch Kai and Butchie exit Butchie's place. In a warm and reassuring voice, John says, "You're in the right place, Doc." Dr. Smith looks at him and replies, with sardonic amusement, "So you say." John adds, "Tomorrow is another day." Well, fiddle-dee-dee.
Butchie and Kai come over. After Dr. Smith assures them that John's all right, Kai belligerently says, "Well, his clothes are sure fucked up." John channels the accents of his tormenters and echoes their earlier line: "That's how we do it in the I.B." Bill drives off, and as he does, John messes with his head a little more by pointing at his own eyes and saying, "I got my eye on you, Bill." Oh, Zippy is going to have his little ears talked off tonight. "We got all three rings working now," comments Ramon laconically.
But wait -- here's the headliner. Cass rolls up to general ogling (everyone with an XY chromosome) and suspicion (Kai, who remarks, "That chick works for Linc"). As John heads over to her, he turns and tells the assembled multitudes, "Cass needs a place to work." He gets into the Porsche. Butchie speaks for the assembled multitudes: "What the fuck?," while Kai wonders if Cass's already tired of Mitch and moving on to less odious pastures. Butchie is weirdly impressed with John's ability to summon beautiful women to fetch him at will.
Dr. Smith says his goodbyes; across the parking lot, Ramon wonders if there might be a position for house physician. His co-workers look at him. I can't figure out if it's a look like "You're a loon" or a look like "Say...that's a brilliant idea, Donald O'Connor!"
Upon hearing John say, "Vroom-vroom," Cass decides it's time to go, and turns over the car. Dr. Smith promises to stop by and see Palaka and Freddy the day; they give him some lip. John tells Cass, "Butchie wants to bring down the hammer." Kai swivels to look at her lust object, and Butchie has a look like, "I'll be damned -- he can read minds." Kai asks, "Do you mind, John?" John, who has pressed his bloody hand against Cass's face, brightly says, "I do mind!" Butchie decides that means John doesn't mind. John throws Butchie a shaka and impishly says, "Get rid of the unsightly bulge." Now it's Kai's turn to smirk. Cass drives them off as Butchie gloats, "The Yost Surfing School: in twenty-four hours, I will have you in the water or in some pussy!" That...is a pitch that will be remarkably effective at helping select a specific customer demographic.
We get a shot of Mitch luxuriating in the hotel armchair and ottoman. On the bed are a stack of clothes, so new they're still in the wrappers or with tags on. As Cass comes in, he explains to her, "The alternative apothecary has a lending library. Light reading." And it hits me why I detest Mitch as a character so much. It's because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and this is ground zero for the type of vapid, smug dilettante who's confused self-involved navel-gazing with spiritual development, dietary choices with religious discipline, and a scattershot reading list with genuine scholarship. Mitch tells Cassie he's reading Levitation For The Illuminated and it is so, so obvious that he thinks he's reached some sort of apotheosis. Cass decides that now is the time to tell his Serene Holy Ersatzness that he's not staying in the hotel room. Mitch strains to hang on to his serene and holy demeanor as he asks why. Cass shows instead of tells: John will be staying with her now. Cass leaves for a moment, and Mitch muses, "The joker in the deck." John points to his healed side and quips, "I better have a good health plan." Heh. Mitch begins packing up and asks, "Do you need to stand aside as I pass, or are you just going to part like the Red Sea?" John rolls his eyes like he's actually thinking about it, and then nimbly steps to the side. Mitch heads out.
We then transition to Kai leading Butchie into her place. She kneels down on her futon and futzes with a CD, saying, "I'll spare you the candles, but you can't say the music blows. And no fuckin' laughing, Butchie." Butchie indicates that he's not exactly in a giggly mood. Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" comes on. Butchie is trying to figure out what's going on here, and asks, "Was this playing the first time I threw up on you?" Kai tells him, "It was playing at our junior prom." "I missed our junior prom," Butchie tells her. "I know," she replies. Oh, lord, just stab us all in the side, Milch -- it's obvious Kai's fantasized about this since this song first came out, and she's determined to make this happen like she imagined. Kai breaks the tiny, awkward silence by warning, "And no freaking out about my piercings." Butchie points the cranial hardware hidden beneath his lank and unwashed hair. Kai continues, "Knowing about 'em is one thing. Seeing 'em is different. No freaking out." Butchie dives on the bed, wraps an arm around Kai's shoulders and says, "All my ladies set off the airport's metal detectors, or they're not my ladies long." He's a real silver-tongued devil, isn't he? Kai snuggles on his chest, and Butchie adds, "And let me say this: with the compact metal detector right here in my tongue, I will find everywhere your metal may be hidden." Oh, okay -- silver-tongued devil with a few upgrades. Kai looks up and teases, "Barry White is in the house." Butchie kisses the top of Kai's head with surprising tenderness. I hope they have "In Your Eyes" on loop, because otherwise, "Mercy Street" could be a bringdown.
Cut to Cass appearing in Linc's hotel room door and telling him, "I threw Mitch out." Linc replies, "Good thinking," and promptly closes the door in her face. Ha! Then he sighs and looks at the wall, all, "Why must my minions be so stupid?" Then he yells a termination agreement through the door. As Linc continues to bellow, "A couple of strange things happen, you decide God's taking over for Santa, deciding who's naughty and nice, he's firing up that coal log to burn the naughty in Hell," Cass walks off. Linc opens the door to continue his tirade and is a little put out to discover that Cass has gone. We see him standing in his hotel room, looking a little lost and uncertain.
Mitch and his sack of belongings have ambled back to the homestead. He peers in through the closed screen door. Alerted by the clatter of wind chimes, Cissy comes over. Mitch asks her, "Shall we try it again?" Cissy shakes her head and asks him, "Through the door?" Mitch opens the door and steps in. Frankly, I'm disappointed in Cissy. She had enough time to get the locks changed.
Cass is making up a room divider out of the ottoman and the desk chair. She tries to explain to John that by day, it's her office, and by night, it's his sleeping area. John smiles and lays down his clean towels on the bright red armchair, the ottoman, and the desk chair. When Cass asks whether John minds sleeping on the floor, he tells her, "See God, Kai." "'Cass,'" she corrects him. "See God, Cass," he amends. Cass asks what he means, and he replies, in his parrot-voice, "Work over there." Cass kneels on the floor in her work corral. John remains standing by the bed.
We then switch to Bill's house of birds, where he is indeed fulminating on the hapless John. He then adds, "The sole change from what I said to you , Zip. The last overlap between me and the Yosts: Butchie asking for my help with the search. A P.S. My assistance. And then, in the concluding chapter, the final completion and finish." Zippy has had enough of this. He...telepathically conveys instructions to Bill that Bill finds "senseless and offensive." He tells Zippy, "I deal with that shitbird only to put him in bracelets, and I'm surprised you'd need me to say so." Zippy rebuts with a squawk, and Bill sighs, "Is what you envision relative to those people, I balance the Hawaiian's bad influence?" Zippy bobs. Bill replies, "That would outstrip by a full triple somersault every unlikely set of circumstances." Yet he heads out.
We see Freddy cooling his heels in his designated spot in the parking lot. Bill pulls up, parks right to the lawn chairs (Palaka's is empty), and hops out. Freddy sees this and grumbles that Bill's interrupted his peaceful evening. Bill comes over with "cup of joe, Winchell's assorted dozen." Mmmm, Winchell's. Why can't you come up to the Bay Area? Bill stands there awkwardly before asking, "Where's the dwarf with the dangling arm?" Freddy says that Palaka's in the bathroom. Bill says confidentially, "I'm here on orders from my bird." Freddy's straining to keep his expression indifferent, but an eyebrow shoots up of its own accord. He replies, "If you're waiting for me to ask you what you're talking about, plan on falling over dead before I do." Bill sits down and explains, "My bird Zippy conveyed to me, despite the obvious dissimilarities between us, we become friends." Despite himself, Freddy asks, "He used the word 'dissimilarities'?" Bill corrects him: "He conveyed. I never said he spoke." Freddy suggests that Zippy might have meant a different man with the same name. Bill demonstrates why it's tough for him to make friends: "You'd think that, you degenerate nitwit."
Bill and Freddy's nascent buddyship is disrupted by a blonde in a shiny red Mustang. Both men rise as the woman walks over, and she tells them, "I'm looking for Butchie Yost?" He's not there, but Freddy leers, "You, uh, care to leave a message?" No, she does not care to. As she walks off, Freddy quietly adds, "On my face? With your ass?" Bill sputters, "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! What my bird was thinking, to dispatch me to you, I haven't the vaguest goddamn idea." The blonde roars off. Freddy grabs a coffee and makes a stab at friendship: "I got a lizard back home who changes shapes." "Chameleons, they call 'em," Bill says enthusiastically. Freddy gives him a look, sips a coffee, and...we're out.