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You ever hear the old adage about how if you show the audience the gun in act one, you better have it go off in act three? Well, David Milch apparently hasn't. Or he scoffs at your long-held notions of narrative. Because he shows guns aplenty in this episode, and the only one that goes off is the one Kai fires into her CD player, even though it can't stop "In Your Eyes" from playing out of it. Because you cannot kill Peter Gabriel.
So the first gun is pulled by Vietnam Joe, who waves it in direction of the VFW Hall bartender he presumes put John up to last week's stunt with the stabbing and the not dying and the miraculously healing. But the bartender did not put John up to that stunt, which makes Joe think that there may be something a might bit other-worldly about our mysterious visitor from the Buckeye State.
The other gun belongs to Cissy, and she produces it to ward off Shaun's mom, who was that thin, blonde-haired woman who showed up at the end of last week's episode. Shaun's mom is a porn star, you see, and she left Shaun on Cissy's doorstep before hightailing it off to the San Fernando Valley -- this has left Cissy understandably perturbed, so she spends most of the episode setting a new record for most screaming by a series regular in an hour-long show, eclipsing the standard set by Amy Brenneman in the second episode of Judging Amy. It is possible that I just made that record up.
Shaun's Mom the Porn Star just wants to clap eyes on her son, and she finds an unlikely ally in Butchie, who convinces his mother that the Porn Star means no harm. Cissy finally agrees to let this mother-and-child reunion take place, though perhaps she was too hoarse from all the shouting to register any dissent. Shaun's Mom the Porn Star also finds a very likely ally in Linc, who's in the market for a new Gal Friday now that Cass has taken in John as a boarder.
Speaking of Cass and John, they spend the day in Balboa Park, filming what promises to be the most pretentious, meandering documentary to ever get rejected by IFC. In that sense, Cass's movie has very in common with this episode, which squanders all the momentum and goodwill of the past few weeks with this plodding, rudderless offering. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously, on John From Just Outside West Covington, Kentucky: Bill's testicles were on display for the entire neighborhood. Oh, and John went missing -- well, "got stabbed" would be more accurate, and "got miraculously healed by Vietnam Joe, who was more than a little freaked out by this turn of events" would be more accurate still. Mitch slept with Cass and then levitated -- we'll let you decide which is more disturbing. Reporters skulked around the surf shop trying to get more dirt on Shaun's miraculous recovery; shockingly, Cissy reacted poorly to this. On orders from his bird, Bill hung out with Freddy the Drug Dealer. A mysterious blonde woman showed up looking for Butchie Yost. Also, Cass kicked out Mitch to take in John, which caused Linc to fire her, and Mitch went crawling back to Cissy. So now you're up to date on who's aligned with whom.
Credits. Everybody says that there's nobody meaner than the little old lady from Pasadena. But obviously, they haven't meant the screaming surf matron of Imperial Beach.
Morning breaks in Imperial Beach, with Cass waking up in her hotel room. The good news is that there's no longer an aging, mumbo-jumbo-spouting hipster in her bed; the bad news is there is a fully-clothed Morrissey lookalike lying on her floor, with his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. Between this and John's non-sleeping over at Butchie's place, I think we've established that he does not engage in what you humans call bed rest. A flicker of regret for taking in this weirdo flashes across Cass's face...
...though really, it shouldn't, given the alternative. The Yosts are lying in bed when the phone rings. Though the phone is on his side of the bed, Mitch looks over at Cissy expectantly. One ringie-dingie. Two ringie-dingies. Three ringie-dingies...finally, Cissy rolls over Mitch to answer the phone. Must be their thing. In my house, that thing would be called "The Last Thing I Ever Did Before My Wife Hit Me With The Sock Stuffed With Oranges." "You know I want to tell you some things if you'd want to listen," Mitch says, as Cissy is picking up the phone. Excellent timing, my man. Seriously, just some top-drawer husband behavior there. Tune in week, when Mitch offers Cissy some helpful cooking tips right after she serves up dinner. Cissy opts not to hear the wondrous things Mitch has to say in order to continue answering the phone call. She bolts out of bed: "Stop. Shut up. Whatever you want, you're not getting it." Boy, someone hates telemarketers. "Wherever you are," Cissy continues, "fucking stay there, and leave us alone!" Boy, someone really hates telemarketers. As Cissy hangs up, we hear a car engine starting up just outside the Yost home. Cissy runs outside the house just in time to see the mysterious blonde lady in her fancy red sports car, executing the most spiteful three-point turn in automotive history before speeding off. "Fourteen years late," Cissy mutters, returning to the house, as Shaun comes out of his room wondering who just peeled out in front of the house. By that cryptic "fourteen years late" remark, kiddo, I'd guess it was your birth mama.
Cissy orders Shaun to get dressed, drop all plans of surfing with his pals, and accompany her to work. Mitch tells a protesting Shaun to do as he's told, and then, when grandson is safely off-camera, asks Cissy in sotto voce what's going on. "What's happening," Cissy says, through teeth clenching a cigarette, "is that the B-side bombshell has decided that she could make more money off of Shaun than in porn." So to recap: Shaun's birth mama, name of Tina, has returned to Imperial Beach from her career as an actress in movies that address provocative adult themes about relationships and hopes and dreams and marital aides. "If she thinks she is getting him away from me," Cissy continues, "she has taken one too many money shots." Hey -- I saw One Too Many Money Shots. Very disappointing. No logical character development at all.
Back at the hotel room, Cass is going to the bathroom -- we can tell because of the (thankfully) off-camera flushing noise -- and John is standing literally inches away from the bathroom door. If he does that parrot-lines-back thing and asks her if she just took a dump a man could be proud of, I am going to chuck the beer bottle I'm holding at my TV set. Fortunately, he does not. That still doesn't stop Cass from being understandably freaked out by walking out of the bathroom and walking right into John's sternum -- not "that blowhard old dude I just slept with is now levitating" freaked out, but freaked out nonetheless. "Work here, Cass," John says with a majestic sweep of his arm. Cass points out that she'd love to, but she's kind of low on funds and unlikely to see a windfall any time soon, what with being fired from that lucrative henchman-to-evil gig. And there's a bit where she wraps a towel around her head and ululates like she's in some Middle Eastern bazaar, moving John to observe brightly, "Fucking towelheads are going to get themselves eradicated." And what was the point of that exactly, Milch? Anyhow, Cass is broke and the product of an unhappy home and "no longer able to trade on my sex, and I need to make some money." "You need your camera, Cass," is John's reaction to all this. You need a more unforgiving editor, Milch, is Mr. Sobell's.
We join Bill in his palatial estate just as he finds himself on the receiving end of a squawk from Zippy. "Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me," Bill says in increasing exasperation. "Do not confuse my admitting a mistake -- like a gentleman -- with a check made out to you to subsequently go berserk." I guess those squawks are Zippy making more demands of Bill. Wonder what's he's asking now -- go form a bowling team with Dickstein, Ramon, and Cunningham? Go get me a Dove Bar? Let me crap in your pocket some more? Whatever it is, it's got Bill flustered. Responding to another squawk, Bill concedes that he got along well with Freddy -- "Twenty-six years in law enforcement, I am able to co-exist with shitheels" -- but notes that "the subject you raise now concerns a different kettle of fish." And that kettle of fish is apparently John, with Bill still smarting from their "I got my eye on you" exchange from four episodes ago. Zippy squawks some more, and Bill seems resigned: "So this isn't an even-handed back-and-forth? This is me on the receiving end of you delivering unalterable instructions." Bill storms off to go urinate. It says something that of the three scenes we've had so far, the most compelling dialogue has been not between Cissy and Mitch nor between Cass and John, but rather between Bill and his squawking bird.
We cut to Freddy and Palaka watching rain fall from their room at the snug harbor, so perhaps they can give Bill and Zippy a run for their money, repartee-wise. "You don't want to go bandying that shit about," Freddy says out of nowhere. "Just ask that girl, Marie, about bandying about my...sleep talk." Ah, that -- Palaka's faithful account of Freddy's sleepy-time mutterings from the last episode. Apparently, Marie is resting in peace -- and pieces -- on the Big Island. Palaka finally grasps what Freddy is talking about and -- brain surgeon that he is -- repeats the very dialogue Freddy has just told him not to bandy about. Freddy tries changing the subject: when is Palaka going to get the X-rays Dr. Smith recommended? That'd be never. "Physicians, they toss it off. 'Get yourself an X-ray' like 'light, go left.'" Yes, we can't trust doctors and their reliance on additional data to determine a course of treatment -- I recommended leeches to suck out the bad humors in your body that are clearly responsible for the fractured wrist. "Just remember what I said," Freddy says, cutting off Palaka's anti-medicine blather. "That other thing." "Believe me, it's recorded," says Palaka, pointing to his skull. "In here." Be careful that it doesn't die from loneliness.
Elsewhere, Vietnam Joe walks into the sort of bar that considers a microbrew to be half a glass of Budweiser. "I'm not pulling out this time," he says, with steely determination to the bartender, who's busy setting up for the mid-morning rush. To show just how steely is his determination, Vietnam Joe flashes his sidearm. The bartender, named Ernie, is surprisingly calm. "I can give you a soda or a Clamato, Joe," the bartender says, as he goes about his business. "But I can't serve you liquor at all. Not as long as you're holding that gun." A Clamato? Seriously? Shoot him, Joe. Shoot the mad dog dead! Joe has apparently concluded that Ernie spilled the beans about a particularly traumatic war experience to someone who then conspired with John to pull off last episode's "first I'm stabbed, then I'm not" act; Ernie isn't exactly sure what Joe is going on about. "I never repeated your story to anyone, Joe," Ernie says simply. "I don't believe you ever told us." Joe is clearly troubled by this revelation, and slips into a Vietnam-induced reverie -- it involves punji sticks and comrades left behind and Vietnam Joe sobbing to God for forgiveness, and Jim Beaver acts the hell out of the scene. Really, he does. There, I said something nice about this episode. Anyhow, it ends with Joe composing himself and concluding that John's stabbing wasn't part of some VFW-inspired prank and that he should lean more on Ernie the Understanding Barkeep for support in dealing with his past. Again, good scene.
You know what's not such a good scene, however? More of Cissy, the cursing, snarling wild woman of Imperial Beach. She's at the surf shop now, dragging Shaun behind her and demanding to know where Kai is and taking the Lord's name in vain. So, you know, typical morning for her. Shaun is instructed to stay in the store and keep the doors locked. He asks who was outside the house, but he's met with more fiercely delivered instructions on not letting any persons unknown into the shop. "I'm never going to get to surf anymore," Shaun pouts. "That should be the worst of our problems," Cissy spits, making a sudden move to the counter and causing Shaun to flinch. "Have I...ever hit you?" a wounded Cissy demands? Only verbally, Shaun's eyes seem to say. "If I hit you, you'll know it," Cissy says, before leaving. And we are supposed to be rooting against the porn star to regain custody why exactly?
Linc is strolling outside a fashionable hotel when Tina pulls up to the valet in her red sports car -- the wages of sin may be death, I guess, but it seems like the benefits package is pretty good. Linc is standing to a statue of a guy sitting on a bench when Tina strolls by; he makes an awkward joke about said statue and because this is TV and because he looks like Luke Perry, she's charmed. If this were real-life and he looked like, oh say, Mr. Sobell, he'd be staring at the business end of a mace dispenser. This is the exact same time that John and Cass come strolling out of the hotel past Linc and his new-found lady friend, which is awkward. "So, did you get your end near the lady, my brother?" Linc asks John. I think we all know that John is just going to brightly say, "I got my end near the lady, my brother" and keep walking, so let's say that he did, and get on with this scene. Cass and John walk off ("I boned her and broke her jaw," John says; "Guess I'll have to give her a combat bonus," Linc quips), and Tina seems to conclude that Linc is some sort of pimp. In a sense, that's an entirely accurate description, but I think she thinks he's a literal pimp. It's just as well because Linc seems to assume that Tina is some sort of hooker. Ah, misunderstandings.
Cut to Cissy making a beeline for Kai's trailer, where Kai and Butchie are still sleeping off the least sanitary love-making ever engaged in since the Enlightenment. "Kai!," Cissy screams while shaking the trailer. Hmmm -- don't think I quite captured the way Cissy shouted that. Here, let's try this -- grab your tongue and, as quickly as you can, try and yank it out of your throat by the root. Now, just before the pain causes you to temporarily black out, try and say the word "Kai" at the top of your lungs. That's sort of what Cissy sounds like here, as she delivers the rest of this dialogue: "GET. TO. THE. SHOP. ... SHUT. UP. AND. GET. DOWN. THERE. AND. KEEP AN EYE ON SHAUN.. ... LOCK. THE. DOOR. BEHIND. YOU. DON'T. LET. ANYBODY. IN. ...THAT PORN SLUT WHO MADE SHAUN WITH MY SCUMBAG SON AND LEFT HIM ON MY DOORSTEP FOR ME TO RAAAAAAAAAAAAISE IS BACK IN I.B DON'T. LET. ANYBODY. IN. SHE MIGHT HAVE HIRED A LAWYER! TO SERVE PAPERS! I'M GOING HOME SO THAT IF SHE COMES BACK, I WILL BE THERE TO PUT A BULLET IN HER HEART."
Couple of three notes about this sequence: 1) It was as unpleasant to listen to Rebecca DeMornay scream these lines as it probably was for you to read them all capped and italicized like that; 2) the thousan-yard stare that Butchie has throughout this -- remember, he's there in Kai's trailer -- is priceless; and 3) what strange social hierarchy exists where the deadbeat surfer junkie family can look down upon the porn stars? These are questions that will haunt me long after Rebecca DeMornay's voice stops echoing in my ears.
Back to the hotel, where Linc is still operating under the theory that Tina is some sort of hooker -- man, this is just like an episode of Three's Company, only much, much skeevier. But just before they can begin with the always uplifting act of human love in exchange for carefully negotiated sums of cash, Linc notes that he's having chest pains. Or maybe this is some freaky-deaky role-playing thing he's into -- quick, I need CPR...only I think you should administer it much, much lower. Nope -- he's having legitimate chest pains. Well, that will kill the whole hooker-john bond of trust.
Out at the pier, Vietnam Joe is still busy ruminating about all he's heard and seen the past 24 hours: "I put Frat Boy in my truck. He took my hand to his belly...and said I could help. And if I wasn't wasted or it wasn't a joke, I did. He took my hand to his belly...and he healed." At that precise moment, Joe catches a fish. Uh oh -- looks like Dr. Smith is going to have some company in the disciple camp soon.
Back at the lavish Yost estates, Mitch is meditating. Never has the act of quiet contemplation and reflection been so utterly contemptuous. Because there weren't enough jerks in this scene, Cissy storms in still stewing about the return of Tina -- since Shaun's miraculous recovery just hit the papers yesterday and Tina couldn't possibly have been keeping tabs on Shaun before that, Cissy reasons, this is obviously some carefully timed money-grab. She goes for her cigarettes -- "Do not smoke in here, Cissy," Mitch says. "Jesus Christ," Cissy screams, because that is what she does. At this point -- flustered wife, family situation in flux, general chaos afoot -- Mitch decides it's high time to bring Cissy up to speed on his levitation status, in that he did it and it wasn't a hallucination like everyone thought. "So what about the fascinating sinus-infection theory?" Cissy sneers in a way that implies she didn't find it fascinating in the least. Mitch counters that his levitation "was witnessed." This, Cissy finds even less fascinating. "Forget it," Mitch says wearily. "Well, thanks for the okay on that," Cissy snaps back. "Let's see how long it takes me. There. Done." Mitch tries to stammer out that his levitation might be connected to something -- presumably John's arrival or perhaps Shaun's resurrection -- but Cissy interrupts to observe that Mitch is a jerk. Which is a true enough observation, though still, it's kind of rude to interrupt a guy mid-exposition. "Instead of floating," Cissy says, with increasing hostility, "I wish you could fly 500 miles an hour into a fucking brick wall." Now, who's being the jerk, hmmm? Cissy reaches for her smokes; Mitch snatches them away. Argle-bargle grumble rage! Cissy goes to smoke in the house; Mitch makes plans to slink away from his unhappy home life. I feel like I'm watching a rerun here.
Back at the surf shop, Shaun has shown the ingenuity that has made America great by turning a Diet Coke can into a makeshift bong. It's the great taste of grass with just a hint of NutraSweet! That's Ganja-flavored Diet Coke -- ask for it by name! Kai arrives just in time to kill the buzz on this burgeoning party. The Diet Coke bong is consigned to the recycle bin, and Shaun's pleas to flee to someplace else in San Diego County are dutifully ignored. Anyhow, Kai decrees that the shop is going to open for business and that Shaun will hang out there and not give her any grief. That is our takeaway from this scene -- that and the fact that no matter how delightful you might find the work of Greyson Fletcher and Keala Kennelly (and mind you, I like them both fine), any scene where it's just the two of them acting opposite of each other is unlikely to wind up on The Actors Studio's "Do This" reel.
Back at the fancy-pants hotel, Linc's unusual approach to foreplay -- grasping his chest and contemplating his mortality -- continues. Tracy repairs to the bathroom to dampen a cloth for Linc's fevered brow. That makes Linc feel a little better, but not enough to carry through with his and Tina's hastily-negotiated liaison. Boy, I hope he kept the receipt. "We don't give refunds," Tina says. That's no way to generate repeat business, young lady. "You want me to leave you a Midol?" Tina asks as she walks toward the door -- Linc says he'll pass on the menstrual-cramping medication and, presumably, the insult to his manhood that her offer implies. But he would like to know his would-be hooker's name. "Tina Blake," says Tina Blake. Linc looks positively impressed, though Tina can't believe he didn't recognize her. "I never let myself watch porn," Linc says. "Otherwise, I'd never do anything else." Really? Not even watch sports? Because you can use a picture-in-picture feature to do both. Or you could set up a whole bank of TVs to watch the two. Or...I've thought this through a little too much, haven't I? "I feel like I'm meeting Babe Ruth," Linc says, with more than a hint of admiration in his voice. "Did he fuck a lot of people at once?" Tina mutters. Well...probably. Though not on film. At least not in the talkies. Linc introduces himself. "I feel like I'm meeting Babe Ruth," Tina replies. Did he have chest pains before trying to bone a porn star?
Cissy, still a smoldering cauldron of split-end rage, picks up the phone and places a call: "Yeah, just to let you know, wherever you're being useless at the moment, that piece of trash your son came out of is back in I.B." Ah, so she'd be calling Butchie then. Unless of course she has another son she regularly showers with abuse -- it's entirely possible. Outside, Mitch has packed up his things and can be seen departing the premises for what seems like the seventy-third time in five episodes. Seriously -- if you have to take off a shoe to count the trial separations, it is perhaps time to move the hell on. "I hope you're fucking happy," Cissy snarls into the phone, as she watches Mitch leave. Well, he's not around Cissy at the moment, so he's more likely happy than un-.
And we're at some sort of street fair, watching Cass and John stroll among the great unwashed. It's all handheld cameras and quick cuts and...well, it's really tedious, to be quite honest with you. But because I am a professional, here goes: there's a "Question 9/11" sign and a dancing person of indeterminate ethnic original and a Hare Krishna-looking dude who John is simply fascinated by, and Cass is filming it all, because she's an artist, goddammit, and a documenter of truth and a...no, sorry. Tedious. Can't continue.
Back at the nice hotel, the Babe Ruth of Porn and the Babe Ruth of Surfing Impresarios continue their summit. Tina wants to know if Butchie ragged on her all the time; to be quite honest, Linc says, he never heard Butchie utter word one about her. "'Cause he loved me so much," Tina snorts. "Knowing Butchie," Linc says flatly, "that would probably be why." "When we knowing each other, he'd less ignore you than knock you into a wall by accident," Tina remembers with a smile. Sounds like a delightful courtship. Linc asks if it was Tina's idea to call her offspring Shaun; she nods. "We'd come off tour," Linc said. "And Butchie would go to Mitch and Cissy's house, threatening to burn that place down because they wouldn't call him that." Aw, see -- it is love. Or horrible dysfunction. Oftentimes, it's hard to tell the difference. Anyhow, Linc points out that it's a smart play to maybe not let Butchie know about this little get-together. "I don't know yet if Butchie's talking to me," Tina says. Linc offer his assistance -- advice, a shoulder to cry on, the sinister influence of pure, unadulterated evil. You name it. Tina nods.
Over to the street fair -- ethnic drumming, John dancing with a group of burn-outs and hippies. Film it all, documentarian! Film it, lest the world be deprived of one pretentious, impenetrable frame of your self-indulgent student film!
At the motel -- the craptacular Snug Harbor, not the swanky place Linc is staying -- Butchie is pacing about his room and scratching his neck and face. Only fitting, since his patina of filth makes me inadvertently itch. There's a knock at the door. Butchie peers through the peephole, chuckles ruefully, and opens the door to reveal Tina standing on the other side. "What do you want?" he demands. "Not bad. How have you been?" she retorts. They are like the Tracy and Hepburn of the Aughties, if Spencer Tracy were hopelessly hooked on heroine and Katharine Hepburn did a lot of gang-bang movies in between Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike. If Tina's wondering why Butchie's so cross, he notes that it was she who left the "baby on [Butchie's] parents' doorstep" when Shaun was two hours old. Tina counters that they didn't exactly have a doorstep of their own: "Or a bed. Or food in the refrigerator." Oh sure, break out Maslow's hierarchy of needs -- real mature there, Tina.
Anyhow, Tina would like very much to see her son, but Butchie scoffs at the very odd timing of these sudden maternal feelings. "I never forgot I was his mother," Tina says, all-choked-up-like, which cuts Butchie's snit of self-righteousness dead in its tracks. "Turn off the fucking faucet, Tina," Butchie says, simultaneously opening the door to his room. Tina comes in and surveys the place with a look that seems to say, "Yup, really regret my decision not to leave my son to your care." "So you know what I do," she finally says. "Yup," Butchie snorts. "Everybody...at the same time." Oh, snap. You sure laid the moral smackdown on her, drugged-out surfer dude. Tina counters that she plans on retiring to become a full-time mother, but Butchie tells her to revise her long-term plans. "Cissy's a pretty good hater," he adds. "I suppose you putting a good word in is out of the question?" Tina replies spitefully. Clearly, she doesn't realize that people don't exactly rise in Cissy's estimation on Butchie's say-so; Butchie clues her in. "Me coming out against you would probably improve your chances," he says. Well, Tina's not the type to take no for answer -- not unless it's the safety word in one of her movies, at least. "Tell her I'm going to see him," she says, determined. "Once, anyway. Tell her not to stop me." "Or what, are you going to set yourself on fire?" Butchie scoffs. Too late -- she already did that in MILFS on Fire, volumes 4 through 6 -- ask for it at your local video store without ever making eye contact with that holier-than-thou clerk. Butchie promises to pass along that message, at any rate.
Street fairs! Masked wrestlers! "Question 9-11" signs! Guys in turtle suits! Film, Cass, film! When the squares see this movie, it will blow their minds.
At Stately Yost Manor, Cissy is taking another trip to Flavor Country courtesy of her cigarettes when Butchie slinks in and asks whether Shaun is still being held under lock and key. Who wants to know? Cissy asks. Rather than go through a whole "Well, certainly not Tina, whom I was definitely not conversing with at my hotel room just a little while back" routine, Butchie cuts straight to the chase: "She wants to meet her son." Cissy finds the pronoun-noun combination in that request odd: "Her son?" she asks sarcastically. Butchie points that Tina is looking to retire from the business, but Cissy finds the use of the word "business" even more laughable. "Smiling for the camera while six guys come in your face," she sneers. Yes, but that's just the romantic-comedy genre. Butchie becomes less deferential: "Just one visit, and she's gone," he says, with growing irritation. Nobody tells Cissy Yost what to do, and certainly nobody challenges her to a voice-raising competition. "It's not your business," she practically spits. "And if it were your business, tell me what good could possibly come out of letting him meet her?"
Butchie volunteers that he is the President for Life of the Tina-Blake-Can-Go-Fuck-Herself Club -- his words, not mine, but right is right. Besides, if she doesn't get to see Shaun, Butchie frets, "I think she might do something stupid." "Because everything up until now has been high math," Cissy retorts. What Butchie means is that Tina might kill herself; that sound you hear is Cissy playing the world's smallest violin to accompany the wocka-chicka soundtrack of Tina's movie. "Who doesn't think about killing herself?" Cissy demands. "Who doesn't think about it every day of her fucking life?" Uh...people with grounded stable home lives? I'm just spitballing here. But enough hating on Tina -- let's direct some wrath Butchie's direction. "I thought you were an idiot before you started shooting dope," Cissy sneers. "But you were a 12-year-old genius compared to the stupid fuck you are now. As much acid as I took, I was never as stupid as you." See, this gets back to that whole stable home life crack I made earlier. And on that uplifting observation, Butchie exits stage right. Cissy calls after him that if Tina comes near Shaun, "she won't have to kill herself, I'll do it for her." As if to underscore that that's a promise, not a threat, Cissy goes to the hall closet, takes out a shoebox and pulls out the kind of snub-nosed revolver people used to use in 1940s gangster movies.
Outside the surf shop, Kai is locking up while muttering sarcastically about "another day of sensational business," while Shaun has reached the conclusion that it's his mother who's got Cissy acting more unpleasant than usual. Shaun wants to know why his mother would come back. "Probably see you," Kai offers. "Probably see your dad," she adds, with just a hint of bitterness that Shaun notices. "Come on, get in," he says, getting into what I can only assume is Kai's jeep and not his, since he's like 14. "I'll stick around and give things a chance to work out." That there is the triumph of youthful optimism over the reality of bitter experience, young Shaun.
Butchie is meeting Tina at a local coffee shop, doubtlessly to deliver the news of Cissy's veto. "Tell you cunt mother that if it's because I'm no good, that's one thing," she says, and I honestly pity Butchie having to serve as the go-between among these two. "But if it's 'cause I left Shaunie at the door, I didn't leave him because I didn't care. I stopped an hour before, and I didn't leave him. 'Cause when I rang the bell and waited across the street, nobody answered. And I came back, and got him, and sat with him in the cab. And when she came home, I came and rang again. And I didn't walk back to the cab until I saw she got him." Well, Terrific Mothers Monthly won't have to worry about tearing up this issue's cover story, but at least it's more insight into the not-altogether-monstrous mind of Tina. Her point: she was in no position to properly care for a kid, so she left him with someone who was. Tina gets up to leave and asks Butchie to tell Shaun that he grew up handsome and congratulate him on his fine win and near-death experience in the competition. "Come on," Butchie says quietly. "Tell him yourself." Well, that's one Yost on your side, Tina. But I suggest when you repeat the story about leaving Shaun at the doorstep to Cissy, you leave out the whole "cunt mother" preamble.
As night falls on Imperial Beach, Cass and John have returned to her hotel room -- really, if she's off Linc's payroll and broke, how come her room hasn't been re-keyed and her luggage deposited in a dumpster? -- doubtlessly to edit all that wondrous footage of Hare Krishnas and drum lines into the most tedious YouTube clip ever. "Work here, Cass," John says, touching Cass's cheek. And he keeps his hand there, while Cass paces about the room, wondering if maybe she might should re-align herself with Linc, lest this stupid movie she filmed today go unfinanced and unwatched. All this cheek-touching understandably unnerves Cass, who tells John that maybe he oughta unhand her cheek "and go up in the air like I saw Mitch Yost do in this very room." Cass has figured out that something's going on and that John seems to be the middle of it. Perhaps that's why she removes John's hand from her cheek and puts it on her left boob; "Go up in the air for Cass-Kai," she instructs John. "The camera's up in the air," John says. Oh, I'd say a lot of things are up in the air, my man -- Mitch, the camera, the point of this goddamn show. Cass seems as irritated by all this as me: "Get your hands off me," she says, releasing the hand she put on her own boob. "It's in the camera?" Cass asks incredulously. "It's in the camera," John repeats before tapping his left boob. "Work here, Cass," he says. This is like an Abbott and Costello routine only without the laughter. It's in the camera. What's in the camera? I don't know. Third base.
Back at the Yost house, Cissy sits stewing and smoking in the kitchen. Shaun lies on his bed looking ceiling-ward. And Butchie and Tina wait outside in Tina's fancy red sports car, trying to summon up the nerve to stare down Cissy. "Let's hang out all night and steal their morning paper," Butchie mutters. This is about the point that Kai is wandering down the street toward the Yost house and spots Butchie with his ex. Fellahs, a little morning-after etiquette tip from your old pal Mr. Sobell: after a night of passion, don't let your new lady friend spy you sitting in a sports car with the porn star you impregnated. Seriously, it's, like, eight times worse than not calling the day. Kai looks sad and scurries off into the night. Oblivious to all this, Butchie tells Tina that her decision to drop off Shaun probably saved Mitch and Cissy from a fate worse than...well, apparently worse than their present condition. Because instead of focusing on Mitch's injury and Cissy's general unpleasantness and the serial infidelity and the acid, they could turn their attention to raising Shaun. Or some such thing. "It wasn't a burden you put on her," Butchie said. "You know, getting Shaun to hold was a gift. She held on real tight for a long fuckin' time."
You will be relieved to know that Kai didn't run off to go cry her eyes out somewhere. Instead, she's hoping over the back fence -- the entrance of choice to the Yost home for anyone who's anybody -- to notify Cissy that her son and bete noir are waiting outside. All Cissy hears is someone rattling around outside, and all she thinks is that it's probably Tina mounting a rear assault -- probably one of her movie titles, incidentally -- so she takes out the gun and, man oh man, are we about to see some sort of tragic misunderstanding here involving gunplay? We are not. Because that would be interesting. Instead, Cissy sees Kai through the window, stashes the gun in a basket, in the kitchen and scolds her about the foolishness of sneaking about. And Kai's all like, hey, did you know Tina is outside? And Cissy's like, she is? And the audience is like, yeah, and it's been that way for two minutes now -- do you think maybe we could speed things along here? Anyhow, Butchie and Tina have begun the long walk up to the house, and Cissy spies them and starts freaking right the hell out. "Oh my God! Oh my God!" she cries. "Shoot me then. Take that gun and shoot me if you'd like her to see him." Say, now there's an idea! Kai is less accommodating however -- she's all "Gun? Frantic, screamy woman? Ooh -- bad combo." She grabs the gun and orders Cissy to sit down at the kitchen table and enjoy herself another good healthy cigarette.
There's a knock at the door, and Cissy looks at it like some sort of goblin is on the other side, selling magazine subscriptions. Kai goes to answer. She opens the door wordlessly and stares down at the ground as Butchie and Tina come in. Cissy is now clutching a cigarette and staring wordlessly at Tina. Butchie looks expectantly at his mother. Nobody says anything. "She only wants to look at him, Mom," Butchie says. "Then she'll go." No one says anything again. Then, Cissy scootches her chair out of the way. "He's sleeping," she whispers. (Well, he isn't -- the camera has shown us several times that Shaun is lying in bed, taking all of this in.) "Do not wake him up." Also, don't confuse his mind with your crazy porn values, porn lady -- in our house, we teach young men that plumbers and TV repairmen are compensated properly with cash. Butchie leads Tina to Shaun's bedroom. That was a lot less confrontational than I had been led to believe it was going to be.
So, reunion time. Butchie opens the door, and Shaun's lying on the bed, arms folded behind his head. His eyes are closed now. (Faker.) Tina looks at him for a little bit, and then she turns to go, shutting the door behind her. Shaun's eyes pop open. Fakey faker who fakes.
And with that, Tina is on her way, pausing to thank Cissy on her way out the door. Cissy's still sitting at the table. Kai is still standing there, hiding the gun behind her back. Butchie sees Tina to her car, opens the door for her, and slinks away. Again, nobody's talking...at least not until we get back into the house, where Kai is taking her leave of Cissy. "Where are you going with my gun?" Cissy demands. "To someplace where you can't fire it off, emotionally volatile lady" appears to be the answer. As Kai steps outside she catches Butchie's glance; he starts to walk toward her until she gives him the international hand gesture for "Stay away, heartless cad!" and stalks off.
Hey, here's two guys we haven't seen enough of this episode -- Freddy and Palaka, sitting in front of their motel room, starring up at the stars. Freddy asks Palaka what he sees. Oooh -- wrong guy to ask to be all deep. Palaka says, "The stars. Uh...clouds. Of course, lower down. ...Partial moon. ...Plane going who knows where." Freddy looks like he regrets asking the question: "A bloodbath," he mutters. Palaka does not seem to catch on: "Destination bloodbath," he says jollily. "Plane going who knows where, all aboard!" "Prepare for war, my brother," Freddy says darkly. "Prepare for war! All aboard!" Palaka replies. "Plane going who knows where! All aboard!" Freddy stares at Palaka, as if to wonder how his sins have condemned him to share the earth with someone so blitheringly stupid; Palaka stops mid-antic and cringes under the weight of Freddy's stare. Anyhow, we get to the reason for Freddy's darkly contemplative mood -- he's giving his Hawaiian business to Moana. Who's Moana? Why do I have a feeling we're in for another week of character exposition further down the road? Because Freddy informs us that Moana will probably interpret this act as a threat against his life and that Moana will pre-emptively show up to kill Freddy. So you have that to look forward to, folks. Meanwhile, Butchie skulks into the Snug Harbor alone. Freddy and Palaka observe that he does not look dope sick, and, rather than attribute this to John's presence and the other odd things happening round these parts, they conclude that he's buying drugs off of somebody else. They resolve to find out; so you've got that to look forward to as well.
Kai arrives back at her trailer, which she finds depressingly Butchie-free. Ah, but who needs the love of a fella when you've got a handgun? Kai fires off a shot into her boombox, prompting it to begin playing the same version of In Your Eyes that she was snogging to, not 24 hours ago. Oh Kai -- gun violence against Peter Gabriel albums is not the answer to your problems. Unless it's to his early stuff with Genesis, which is really inaccessible and doesn't hold up well. Fire at will upon "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway." "Fuck you," Kai says -- presumably at life in general and Butchie in particular and not at Peter Gabriel who has done nothing to offend anyone.
Just when you thought Tina might be A-OK, we see her walking into a hotel bar where Linc is busy imbibing. "We know each other," Tina says to the barkeep, perhaps a little too defensively. The barkeep just wants to know what Tina wants to drink -- she and Linc are free to converse or barter money for sex or form a union of pure evil that threatens the Yosts and therefore all of humanity, so far as it concerns the bartender. And that's how it should be, really. When I go to my local watering hole, the last thing I need is for some nosy suds-jockey getting all up in my grill about my plans to control the West Coast surfing scene. I think you'll agree. Linc's curious to see if Tina got in to see Shaun (she did) and if there were any casualties (only that Peter Gabriel CD). "How do you feel?" Linc asks. "Like now I gotta leave town," Tina says. No, no, no, Linc insists -- stay here. You can come up to my room and we can drink and form unholy unions and end this episode with a general sense of unease about what's to come. And so they do. "Keep me in the game," Linc whispers to Tina as they leave the bar. This probably bodes ill for everybody, Shaun most of all.
So. Here's the thing about TV shows. You usually have to take an episode or two just to introduce all your characters, set up the story and give the viewers the assurance that, yes, they'll want to spend an hour out of their lives every week watching your show. So when you've got a 10-episode season -- coincidentally John From Cincinnati's slated run -- that's 20 percent of the season, you've got to devote just to letting people know what the show is about. So it is imperative that you make the remaining episodes you have count, that you don't take a week off, that you don't waste time with a lot of thumb-twiddling. And this episode? Look at those thumbs twiddle. Think back to the very best shows that have been on HBO. The first season of Six Feet Under. The Sopranos, before HBO drove a dump-truck full of money up to David Chase's house and convinced him to string things out a couple seasons too many. Any season of The Wire. Can you honestly look back at any of these shows and see any wasted effort, any episode that made you say "Boy, I could have skipped that one without any problem?" I would suggest that you could not. I would further suggest that you could say that about the last hour of John From Cincinnati, after two fairly promising episodes. And at this stage in the game, it's getting a little infuriating.
But that's just me being cranky. week on John From Cincinnati: Vietnam Joe, Bill, and John go on an adventure, not unlike The Goonies. Shaun tells Cissy to go piss up a rope and goes missing, prompting Tina's return to Imperial Beach. Oh and Cissy pulls a gun on John -- get those healing hands ready, Vietnam Joe!