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In my Father's recaplet, this episode made a lick of sense. Sadly, you people are stuck with me.
So things begin routinely enough with Cissy spewing venom about Tina -- ah, normalcy! Unfortunately, Shaun overhears this put-down of his birth mother and storms out. leaving Cissy so dismayed that she turns to Butchie for help. In short order, Butchie convinces Tina to return to Imperial Beach, importunes upon Kai to fetch Shaun, and convinces Cissy to invite Tina over for lunch. "Young Henry Kissinger," Cunningham snorts among all this back-and-forth negotiation, but I think he's selling Butchie short. Henry Kissinger just had to formalize the Paris Peace Accords -- Butchie manages to bring Tina and Cissy together with the only casualties being a couple of cans of tuna fish.
Speaking of bringing people together, John unites Vietnam Joe and Bill in a group outing to track down the guy that stabbed John a few episodes ago. Or so he would have his believe. Because midway through this stakeout of the Mexican border, John passes out...
...and magically appears in front of Cissy, who is thinking about offing herself. Over Shaun's snit fit earlier? Perhaps. Or maybe because she apparently molested Butchie in an acid-fueled haze, lo these many years ago. To which I say "yuck," and may I just add "ewwwww." So Cissy doesn't shoot herself, nor does she gun down John.
Ah, but John's not done appearing in front of people. He visits Cass in her hotel room to ask to borrow her camera. He appears before Linc to tell him to get back into the game. And both Linc and Cass appear at the Sung Harbor where everyone -- Dickstein, Ramon, Cunningham, Butchie, even Palaka -- is sprucing the place up for the grand re-opening. And then John appears to deliver some sort of freaky-deaky Sermon on the Mount in which -- despite the fact that I am a proficient English-speaker -- only two out of every five words makes any sort of sense. Oh, and Freddy plays the saxophone and Bill --yes, Bill appears there magically, too -- plays the harmonica.
And after all this, John goes back to waiting with Vietnam Joe and Bill back at the border. "Well, this was time well spent," Vietnam Joe says flatly. Hey, he said it, I didn't.
On the bright side, no Mitch this episode, so that bumps things up a whole letter grade. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on John From Milford...well, not a whole lot happened plot-wise. Shaun's mother -- who works in the porn industry, and not behind the camera, either -- showed up in Imperial Beach, and first Cissy was going to shoot her and then she didn't. Instead, Tina the porn star was allowed to look into her son's bedroom while he pretended to sleep. Vietnam Joe still thought that John tricked him about that whole self-healing stab wound thing, but then realized that he hadn't. Mitch and Cissy fought, which sort of happens every episode, only this time, Mitch left, hopefully for good. And John helped Cass film the kind of video that lets struggling art-school students feel good about their own work.
Credits. There's a world where I can go, and tell my secrets to. In my room. In my room. Mind the ghosts, please.
We open with Cass sitting on the bed of her hotel room -- footage of her unbelievably tepid student movie is playing on her computer, but she's sort of staring off into space, trying desperately to find something else to grab her attention. I can sympathize. She gets up, paces about the room, stops in front of her computer, fixes her hair, and finally hits pause. Then, there's a series of jump cuts -- Cass on the bed, kicking off her boots; Cass walking around, flicking a lighter; Cass adjusting the hideous painting hanging on the wall in her room so that it's level (seriously -- is there anything uglier than the paintings used to decorate the walls of hotel rooms? Sports jackets warn by professional hockey coaches, I suppose, but I've always thought they just steal the patterns from the art hanging in the hotels they stay in while on the road. See, Cass? Now I'm wasting time!). Cass enjoys a cigarette. She plays with a pencil. She writes herself Post-It Notes and then crumples them angrily. Now, it's time to raid the hotel mini-bar -- out come the bags of corn chips and pretzels and what-have-you until Cass uncovers a candy bar that she digs into with relish. Cass -- seriously, that candy bar is going to cost you, like, $32 -- there is not enough creamy nougat in all the world to justify that expense. And weren't you just telling John an episode ago how broke and desperate you are? I'd hate to see someone as young and pretty as yourself wind up in debtors' prison over a Snickers. Anyhow, more pacing and humming and now Cass is drinking the miniature bottles of booze from the mini-bar -- that's another $83 a piece right there. And that's the scene -- perhaps it is to show us the creative process; perhaps it's to pad out the episode because it was running short this week. Who really knows? Anyhow, in case you're interested, here's a glimpse into my creative process:
1) Pour myself a stiff drink.
2) Sob for twenty minutes about regrettable life choices.
3) Drink No. 2.
4) Trick some gullible intern into finishing my assignment for me.
Hope that proved illustrative.
Elsewhere in Imperial Beach, Cissy's on the phone, spewing venom about Tina. Bold, bold talk for someone who folded like Superman on laundry day the night before. "Just because every degenerate in America jerks off to his mother's videos," Cissy shouts over the phone, and we'll cut her off there because Shaun is lying in bed, eyes wide open, drinking in every last hateful syllable. It's apparently Mitch that Cissy's on the line with, and I don't think I'm getting ahead of myself when I say that this will be Mitch's only appearance in tonight's performance, and I, for one, couldn't be more ecstatic. Seriously, Milch -- if you can guarantee me that Mitch assumes cameo-like status on this program the rest of the year (and maybe takes Cissy with him), you will not hear one negative peep out of me for the remainder of calendar 2007. Deal?
Shaun comes in, and Cissy, having completed this morning's angry outburst to Mitch, wishes him a good morning. "You didn't have to shout about her, Gram," says Shaun, ignoring Cissy's question about whether she woke him up. "I knew already." And with that, he slaps a DVD down on the table still in its original plastic wrapping -- Moist Thighs, Pink Bottoms 3 is the title, and Tina is our cover girl. Now let's pause it here for a second. At the risk of making you think less than you already do of your old pal Mr. Sobell, let me confess to watching, owning, and quite possibly financing my share of adult features. And I draw upon this considerable expertise to tell you that Moist Thighs, Pink Bottoms strikes me as might bit twee for a title, unless there's some sort of Merchant Ivory producing team in the porn business whose work I'm not familiar with. I mean, what were your rejected titles, Milch? Unsavory Sexual Practices by Tawdry Lasses? Tales of Ribaldry and Shame? "I say, Miss Gilchrest -- your bottom is looking decidedly unpink today." "Is it, Lord Mawbry?" "Indeed. I am afraid I must give it the thrashing of its life." I...seem to have wandered off topic. "Where did you get this?" Cissy screams about Shaun's illicit porn stash, but he's already out of the house. By the time Cissy get outside, Shaun is already on the street; he turns to her and says, "You hurt my feelings, Gram. You did." And having put his grandmother's shit in the street, he rolls off on his skateboard, hopefully to call other people in this show on their crappy behavior. ("Grandpa, nobody cares about your mystic bullshit. Dad, maybe hose yourself down every once in a while.") Cissy looks stricken.
Speaking of things that will make you look stricken, let's cut to Linc's hotel room, where the erstwhile Dylan McKay is giving Tina a $1,000 tip for what I can only presume is their re-enactment of the torrid deflowering scene from Moist Thighs, Pink Bottoms 3. Man, I really hope Linc isn't tipping 20% or else my entire concept of what the market will bear just died whimpering in the corner. Linc seems to be under the impression that this tip will cover Tina's telling him just what an impressive lay he was. "You fucked me cross-eyed," she says flatly. "I never took a cock that big, and you handle it like a champ." Now you're just being patronizing, Tina. She tells Linc to "do better than you did with Butchie." Linc asks if she's referring to Shaun, and points out that it seems increasingly unlikely that the Yosts will let him anywhere near the prodigy. "Stick around," Linc pleads. "Help me think." "Yeah," Tina scoffs. "That's what I'm good at." As the former Mayor of Carmel used to say, everyone's got to know their limitations. "I had a good time," Tina says, not at all flatly this time, before walking out of Linc's room. That's exactly what Brenda said, back in the day.
Out in the great outdoors, we see a blanket from which lots of smoke is billowing. Some sort of Native American sweat lodge? Yeah, that was my first instinct too, and we'd be right if we define "Native American" as "Vietnam Joe" and "sweat lodge" as "hole in the ground where he smokes reefer." Joe is rousted from his herb-fueled unwinding by the sound of rustling in the nearby underbrush and the voice of everyone's favorite crypto-mystic Morrissey lookalike. "Don't be afraid, Joe," says John -- perhaps not the first thing to expect from someone who lives on a diet of marijuana and 'Nam flashbacks. Indeed, Joe has his sidearm drawn and at the ready, before he scolds John that he's cruising for another near-fatal bruising. Looking around Joe's compound, we see that he's balancing that whole smuggling-immigrants-across-the-border career path with a healthy interest in horticulture -- five hundred plants! -- though the crop he's growing is not the sort you'd show off to the 4-H and especially not to the DEA. Anyhow, John's not here for gardening tips: "Justice must be served, Joe," he intones. "The vato must get his due." In case you're not up on your slang, John is referring to the gent who tried to aerate him a few episodes back. "Well, if ever there was a crime that cried to heaven for redress, it'd be getting gutted and left in a ditch," Joe concedes. John suggests involving the police; Joe is not too keen on that idea -- you know, what with the massive marijuana farm he operates. John was apparently referring to Bill -- an ex-police officer and a Vietnam veteran not unlike Joe. Anyhow, Joe motions for John to get in the van. "Zippy told Bill we'd be over," John says. Of course he did -- he's a very thoughtful parrot.
Kai is stocking the shelves at the surf shop when Cissy stalks in, still smarting from the morning's smackdown from Shaun. Cissy wants to know if he stopped here. "Shaunie?" Kai asks. "Who else would I be talking about?" Cissy says pissily. I don't know -- Mitch? Butchie? Someone else with the XY chromosome? Awfully vague pronoun, "he." Kai asks if Shaun is surfing; Cissy replies, with increasing pissiness, that Shaun left with his skateboard, not his wetsuit. "Well, I wonder if maybe he's skating," Kai says with the weariness of someone regretting the lack of Monster.com postings for surf-shop clerk. "Would you go see?" Cissy asks, only it doesn't sound like much of a request. "You busy, Cissy?" Kai fires back. "Time for your ball-buster booster shot?" Ah, how wonderful it is to see someone -- anyone -- call Cissy on her shit. It turns out, though, that Cissy is insisting on Kai's going out to look for Shaun because Shaun loves Kai; his feelings about Cissy are up in the air after this morning. Cissy lets it slip that she never actually mentioned to Shaun that Tina paid him a visit last night, though he did overhear her slagging his mother's unorthodox career on the phone to Mitch. Kai snorts that Shaun was well aware what his mother did for a living -- one of his dopey pals gave him that Moist Thighs, Pink Bottoms DVD (hopefully not in the two-for-one package with its less-successful follow-up effort Wanton Ladies With Low Self-Regard Take Off Their Tops For Your Illicit Pleasure). Cissy is so incensed by this -- imagine, the thought of teenaged boys circulating porn amongst each other! -- that she misses Kai's larger point: perhaps Shaun is upset not by Cissy's cruel comments about Tina and her profession but rather because he's well aware that mom's in town and that Cissy is not playing straight with him. "Well, maybe if you'd go and fucking ask him, we'd know," Cissy snaps. Wait...I'm having a John Monad-like vision...it's Cissy...in her surf shop...beaten to death with a surfboard. On her way out the door -- oddly, she isn't skipping and singing hallelujahs at the chance to be out of earshot from Cissy -- Kai asks whether she's heard from Butchie at all. Cissy has not, and testily wonders why Kai's asking. "For my website," says Kai. "'Me and the Yosts: Information I Don't Give a Fuck About.'" Too late, Kai -- I registered that domain weeks ago. Anyhow, Cissy instructs Kai to find out "what he's being such a little jerk about." Kai shakes her head: "How can anyone help you, Cissy, when you won't see what's right in front of you? ...Which is, whoever you don't drive away runs away on his own." She's right -- Butchie, Mitch, Shaun, the viewers...
And now, the scene you've all been waiting for -- the Bill Jacks/Vietnam Joe summit, as brokered by John and Zippy. "How do you stand the constant cheeping?" Joe wonders over the constant cheeping. "Every one hatched in this home," John says sweetly, causing Bill to start. "Be aware that if you speak in that voice again," Bill seethes, "I will break every bone in your body." "What's your policy," asks Joe, trying to change the subject, "on guests smoking herb?" Bill's policy is not to permit it, thanks for asking; Joe's face falls as if someone just told him that Christmas has been postponed until mid-January. "And your smart-ass friend here," Bill continues, "with his Charlie McCarthy imitations, skates on very, very, very thin ice." "How about in the backyard?" says Joe, trying a different tack. But Bill is on a roll: "Which I am liable as not to pound his head through. With my fist. And hold him, gagging and thrashing beneath the surface of, 'til he drowns." "The ice," says Joe, indicating that he's able to follow along, weed or no. John, meanwhile, sips a glass of tea and continues to talk in the same sweet voice as before: "Chamomile, Billy -- wonderful." And here we get to the nub of Bill's complaint: John is apparently imitating (or, perhaps more accurately channeling) the late Mrs. Jacks. "What the hell are we doing here?" Joe mutters to John/Mrs. Jacks, which causes Zippy to start chirping. "Go ahead, Zip," Bill says wearily. "You're the big cruise director. Entertain them while I get back my composure." Instead of Zippy, however, John gives the instructions in his Mrs. Jacks's voice: the three of them -- John, Bill, Joe, though apparently not Zippy -- are to apprehend the fellow who stabbed John. A stricken Bill asks his wife if she's in any discomfort; John says that she is not. Bill then asks his wife if John is pulling a fast one on him; again, the answer is no. "Oh, for Christ's sake," says Bill, losing what little composure he has left. He'll go on this little adventure with them, but first, he wants them to go outside so that he can pull himself together. Really, some yeoman's work in that scene from Ed O'Neill who -- whether you love this show, hate it, or just feel generally indifferent to it -- is clearly the best thing about John From Cincinnati. I will tolerate no counter-argument or rebuttal.
In the hotel room, Cass's creative process has moved on to the write-on-the-bed-while-waiting-for-your-room-service-order phase. I believe it was in this phase that Steinbeck finished the first draft of The Grapes Of Wrath, incidentally. The food arrives, and Cass signs for it -- apparently, she's planning on paying her rapidly-escalating bill with Monopoly money and arcade tokens. And soon she's dancing about the room, banging on the metal room service lid with a fork -- I'm sure the person in the adjoining room must be loving his or her stay at this hotel. Seriously, time, just sleep at a youth hostel.
Grab your grubbies, your work gloves, and your industrial-sized oil drum of disinfectant -- it's clean-up day at the Snug Harbor. There's Palaka -- sore hand and all -- scrubbing out the pool, while Ramon sweeps the pool deck. Dickstein and Butchie -- of all people, because, who better to conscript into a clean-up day than the guy who never bathes -- are marking out what looks to be a shuffleboard court. Only Freddy is not participating, standing in the doorway of his motel glowering and trying to place a cell-phone call. Clearly, this is a deeply symbolic scene in which Milch is suggesting that the entire community must pitch in, metaphorically, to clean the rot inside our souls. Or perhaps somebody just realized that the place was fucking filthy. Either way. Anyhow, Butchie may be trying to help mark off where the shuffleboard court is going, but Dickstein gently questions his ability to pull strings taut, and relieves him of that duty. Perhaps Butchie could help paint. "Paint, I huff," Butchie says. Yeah, so better sit that one out too then, champ. Butchie has grasped the first rule of appearing helpful -- be so singularly terrible at everything that people wind up doing all your work for you. This is the only thing that has kept me employed since about 2003.
About this time, Cunningham strolls up, a potted hanging plant in each hand. He exchanges morning pleasantries with Freddy, though it's a fairly one-sided exchange. The guess is that the crowd Freddy usually hangs with does not greet him with a hearty "How are you today?" but something more along the lines of "I swear, I'll have the money week" or "Please don't cut off my thumbs." Anyhow, Freddy is not quite sure how to answer: "How would you be, drowning in lowlifes?" he demands. "I'm sure I'd be gasping for air," Cunningham replies thoughtfully, before handing off a potted plant to Freddy -- it's for the room, you see. Anyhow, Freddy tries to explain that he was on the phone with Hawaii -- this must be that awkward transfer of power Freddy mentioned at the end of last week's episode -- and Cunningham smiles brightly and moves on. "Don't ask if you don't want to know," Freddy snorts, only a little bit hurt, while he angrily sets down the plant. Hey, Freddy -- I want to know. Especially if it saves us another scene with Cass dancing the jitterbug on her hotel bed while guzzling down those $4 bottles of Evian they leave in the room now.
Instead, Dr. Smith rolls up on his sweet ride -- a bicycle. He inquires with Butchie as to the health of John (hanging out with Cass the last time Butchie checked) and Shaun -- good, so far as Butchie knows. "Lot of quick healers in this zip code," the doctor jokes. Palaka, meanwhile, continues scrubbing the pool while muttering things about doctors that don't sound like jokes -- not piercing insights into the state of health care circa 2007, exactly, but you can tell that he's irritated. Perhaps the shock from the wrist that was broken three days ago is finally beginning to set in. Anyhow, Dr. Smith stops by to ask how Palaka's feeling, and the dark mutterings stop. How'd those x-rays turn out, Dr. Smith asks. "Everything's good, you know," Palaka tries to bullshit. "Healing up good, like gangbusters, you know." Dr. Smith wonders which bones turned out to be broken. "Oh," Palaka says, after thinking it over some. "Most, if not all." Dr. Smith notes that it's odd Palaka's not wearing a cast. Hey, I'm going to use deductive reasoning here, doc, and conclude that maybe he didn't go see a doctor like you told him. "My sense would be you should have a cast on that," Dr. Smith says. "Yeah, well, chocolate-vanilla, doc, right?" Palaka says rhetorically. Anyhow, Palaka seems miffed that Dr. Smith didn't attend to him personally -- also, I'm guessing, emergency rooms terrify him. "Push comes to shove, fuck all of ya," Palaka mutters at Dr. Smith, which brings Freddy sprinting from across the parking lot. Nobody insults a trained medical professional under Freddy's watch! As Palaka goes on muttering and scrubbing and moping that nobody cares about him, Cissy speeds into the parking lot in her sports car. This surprises everyone, Butchie most of all, who steps away from a gaping Dickstein to go meet his mother.
"In some situations," Cunningham says, "'you moron piece of shit' may be heard as a blessed solicitor." Butchie is as puzzled by this as I am, but Cunningham doesn't stop to explain, cheerily saying hello to Cissy. "I'm sure your mother doesn't remember me," Cunningham says when Butchie asks if they know one another -- "yeah, sorry," Cissy agrees testily -- "but she expressed what I took for a kindness a number of years ago." That...probably wasn't Cissy then, pal. I'm guessing her act of kindness will be her first, at least in a good long while. Anyhow, the Yosts go off to talk, leaving Cunningham holding his plants. "One mother's rebuke of her son," Cunningham muses, "even if vile and obscene, may be taken as kindness by another whose mother is not at hand." Random guess: years and years ago when some spot of unpleasantness was happening to Cunningham, possibly by Butchie's hand, Cissy came and ripped into her son, sparing Cunningham further humiliation. Or perhaps he's just spewing nonsense -- he'd hardly be the first on this show.
Back to the "Pity Poor Palaka" drama. Dr. Smith offers to take him for an x-ray, and to set his cast for him; Palaka pissily declines. Freddy suggests that Palaka reconsider the doctor's generous offer. Palaka demurs. Freddy threatens to jump down into the pool and give Palaka something to really clean up -- as in the contents of his skull. Palaka accedes to everyone's wishes: "Who better than the source of my fracture to force me into giving up enjoying myself?" Now it's Dr. Smith's turn to object to all this. Hey, doc, Freddy seems to be saying, once you've broken one wrist, it's easy to make it two. "Here, drive my car," Freddy says, tossing the keys to his rental to Palaka's one functioning hand. "Unless you want to ride on his handlebars." You mean like the opening credits to Laverne & Shirley? Well now I'm disappointed. Goddamn you, David Milch, for depriving me of that visual.
Inside Butchie's hotel room -- and pity the poor bastard who draws this room as his assignment on Clean-Up Day -- Cissy says that she wants Tina to see Shaun. Butchie looks around like he's just been told he imagined the entire last episode -- sadly, you didn't, my man -- and asks, "Which one of us was high last night, Ma?" This angers Cissy more than you think it might; she protests that she wasn't high. "I'm just saying," Butchie offers defensively, "unless I was loaded, Tina saw him." No, what Cissy has in mind is a formal face-to-face meeting -- no fake sleeping on Shaun's part, no ducking in and ducking out under Cissy's baleful glare by Tina. And the reason for this change of heart. "I fucked up this morning," Cissy says sadly. "I said things. I mean, I said the truth. I was talking to your asshole father on the phone. And Shaunie heard me talk about her." Because he was listening in on the call, Butchie asks. Cissy's not so sad anymore: "Oh, you fucking moron," she exclaims. Butchie pauses before laughing off this latest insulting, concluding that Cissy must have been yelling for Shaun to hear her. Yeah, you can tell pretty easily when Cissy's yelling -- her lips are moving. Only Cissy's not yelling now -- she's genuinely stricken that she hurt Shaun's feelings, that he walked out, and that he's never coming back. Anyhow, the reason for Cissy's appearance at the Snug Harbor -- other than to alternate acting sad and vulnerable with showering her son with verbal abuse -- is to ask Butchie to get in touch with Tina. That could prove to be problematic, Butchie says, since Tina has left Imperial Beach. "I'll never see him again," Cissy says quietly. "You want me to go looking for him?" Butchie offers. "I asked Kai," Cissy says much less quietly. Seriously, you could create a pretty fun drinking game with this scene taking bets on whether Cissy's line will be delivered quietly or at the top of her lungs. Cissy's quiet and sad? Drink. Cissy' screaming? Keep drinking -- for God's sake, keep drinking. Anyhow, Butchie offers to call Tina on the phone. "Isn't that the fuck what I came to ask?" Cissy screams. (Drink!) And with that, Cissy leaves. Not a lot of direct eye-contact going on in that scene, for those of you playing along at home. We follow Cissy as she storms through the courtyard under the sad gaze of both Cunnigham and Dickstein. "I'm afraid of my fiancée," Dickstein says. Funny how the sight of Cissy reminded him of that fact, huh?
Speaking of Tina -- and we were, for most of that last scene -- she's driving out of the Imperial Beach area and fighting back tears. This is probably the worst time to run into one of her many fans and well-wishers, so naturally that's exactly what happens. A guy pulls up to her in a pick-up truck. "Hey, Tina," he yells. "How's your ass?" Um...fine? And yours? "Got all your tapes," Loudy McLoudmouth louds. "Came to most of them." Yeah, probably not the compliment you imagine it to be, sir. In my idle moments, I sometimes think about what I'd say if I ever found myself in a conversation with an adult movie actress whose work I'd seen at one point or another -- you know, like at a dinner party. Shut up -- it could happen. Anyhow, what the devil would I say? "I'm a great admirer of your work"? "You seem really enthusiastic about pizza delivery boys"? Whatever tack I should take in such a social situation, I'm pretty sure this cheerful exchange we've just witnessed is not it. Tina's sad face confirms my suspicion.
After a quick shot of Butchie fumbling with a cell phone -- presumably to call Tina -- and promising to himself that he is going to get high, we go out to where John, Joe, and Bill are sitting in a van down by the border. A commercial on the heartbreak of shameful flooring is blaring on the radio. Do I have to tell you which of the three people in the van starts imitating the commercial? (Hint: Joe is busy surveying the landscape with his binoculars, and Bill is too preoccupied with looking uncomfortable.) "I would like to know our motive," Bill says, "and our specific purpose. And I will not directly ask a moron." Guess you're going to have to field the question then, Vietnam Joe. They're at the road where Joe came across John's stabbed body, and since John has been repeating words like "vato," Joe assumes that this is as good a place as any for the stakeout. And on that note, Joe suggests that they all enjoy a good spliff. "On that, I take no position," Bill huffs. Though he is adamant that the radio -- still in the midst of the longest flooring commercial ever recorded -- be turned off. Done and done.
Tina continues driving -- this time without the interjections of her fanbase, thankfully -- when Butchie finally manages successfully to punch seven digits into his cell phone. Tina answers. "Where the fuck have you been?" Butchie screams. The conversation sort of degenerates from there, with Butchie using a vulgar term for women you really should never use if you hope to keep all of your teeth, as well as a common racial slur against African-Americans that you should also not use in conversation, even if you're recording a rap song. This repeats a couple of times -- Butchie calling Tina, getting agitated, spewing vulgarities to the point where Tina hangs up, and then calling her back to apologize before he apologizes again and then works himself to spewing the same vulgarities. It's sort of funny, but not so much as to mitigate the ugliness of the language. Yeah, I realize that the coarseness of the language is supposed to say something about Butchie's character, but I don't find it particularly inventive or daring -- it's just crude and easy and unchallenging. I guess that makes me a square, but really, I could care less. And my TiVo agrees -- during this scene, the hard drive stuttered and froze with the picture sticking on Butchie mid-slur. You owe me a goddamn TiVo, Milch. Anyhow, the long and the short of it is that Butchie asks Tina to come back to see Shaun, at Cissy's request, and that Tina asks Butchie not to get high, and that it is very uncomfortable watching a predominantly white cast toss off racist words as easily as if they were using adverbs.
(The rest of this episode comes courtesy of technology, a friend who would rather remain anonymous, and a very liberal definition of fair use under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.)
We're in Kai's trailer now, which doesn't answer the burning question: what the hell is Cissy doing there now? This seems to be straining the bounds of the surf-shop-owner/surf-shop-employee relationship. Anyhow, we soon figure out what Cissy's doing there -- she's come to reclaim her firearm, which she finds under Kai's mattress. That gun has now made more appearances in the last two episodes than Bruce Greenwood.
Back at Vietnam Joe's van, Bill has either rethought his lack of a position on enjoying a good spliff, or he's experiencing the mother of all contact highs. At any rate, the barking about his fibromyalgia has ceased. With his binoculars, Joe spies someone matching the description of John's assailant -- Mexican, male, ambulatory -- and hands the binocs over to Bill, who takes a peak and orders John to "confirm the sighting, trooper." John takes the binoculars from Bill...and uses them to stare at Joe. Ah, hilarity. Bill redirects John's gaze to the suspect: "He stab you, yes or no?" Vietnam Joe points out the folly of phrasing any question to John that way and -- as if to illustrate his point -- John agrees: "He stabbed me, yes or no." As Bill and Joe re-evaluate how they're spending their afternoon, John sets down the binoculars as a serious expression comes across his face. "Better she tries to kill me and fails than tries to kill herself," he says. If we're talking about Cissy, John, let me be the first to say: let's not be too hasty here. Nevertheless, John shuts his eyes and passes out -- the first time he's closed his eyes for any length of time in this series, by the way -- and a confused Bill declares that John is unconscious.
Or not. Definitely not. Because not one scene later, John's standing in front of Cissy's kitchen window while she's staring at the gun, thoughts of suicide visibly on her mind. "Cissy Yost!" John says, and those thoughts have turned to homicide, judging by how quickly Cissy reaches for that handgun. "Are you sitting in your kitchen on 7th Street, thinking about blowing off your head with your gun you got back from Kai's trailer?" John intones, in the manner of that flooring commercial he was listening to earlier. "Have you completely run out of whatever let you put up with your asshole husband for thirty-one years? Do you feel that everything you ever touched in your entire life, you turn to shit and mud? Are you ashamed, Cissy, that once, when Mitch was on one of his bullshit retreats and you were loaded on acid, and Butchie was thirteen and he had just won his first contest and you were so proud of him for not being Mitch and you went into his room and he was whipping his skippy and you said, 'Let me show you how to do that'?" Okay, that's probably the most disturbing run-on sentence I've ever heard. Also, it explains a lot. Also, also: yuck. To illustrate his point, John makes the international symbol for jerking off; Cissy gasps and covers her mouth. John speeds up his motion; Cissy grabs the gun and pulls the trigger several times. The gun clicks, but there are no bullets in the chamber -- stupid Kai practicing stupid gun safety at a time like this. "Have you wanted to kill yourself every day since, Cissy," John continues, "and not even known it? And turned yourself into the worst ball-buster known to man so that no one would be with you and you wouldn't have to be afraid that you would ever do something like that again? That's how ashamed of yourself you were?" Cissy's sobs seem to indicate that the answer is yes. "Do you think now that Shaun, who you loved so much and tried to make a life for, now you turned around and hurt his feelings so bad? Do you hurt so bad, that you just want it to quit and be over? Everything?" Now Cissy is nodding. "Well, let me tell you about our offer, Cissy," John says brightly. Unless it involves her not screaming anymore, John, I have to say, I'm not interested. "We prefer you don't," John continues. "We wish you wouldn't." Cissy -- John does not speak for all of us. "Our offer is, keep going," John says, "feeling just as miserable or worse. Hold the gun under the spigot and turn the water on. Spare Shaun finding you dead in the kitchen, and as a bonus, you'll also receive his love. Act now, Cissy. Baptize that fucking pistol." And Cissy does. When she looks up from the sink, John is gone. I think she should have held out for improved flooring.
And now we get to meet that fiancée who has Dickstein so scared. And no wonder -- no one puts a surgically-altered Baby in a corner! Because the fiancée is played by Jennifer Grey, people -- or at least, her duly-appointed stand-in. Anyhow, Jennifer Grey -- Daphne is her character's name -- thinks Dickstein has been spending too much time around this Barry Cunningham fellow and all his weird little hangers-on. Dickstein points out that Cunningham's retainer tops his annual salary by $12,000 since he graduated law school. And what if Cunningham's relatives try to argue that he's a few numbers shy of a complete lottery ticket, Daphne asks. Cunningham doesn't appear to have relatives, Dickstein points out. "And I would contest that motion," he adds. Anyhow, at the café where these two lovebirds are dining, there's a funny-talking bald guy who's apparently a Butchie Yost groupie who runs a Yost website, apparently from the café's computer. He is only interesting because his apparent love interest is none other than Trixie of Deadwood fame. Ah, Trixie -- you were on the Milch show that didn't require me to review the entirety of Western Religion within half an hour of watching your program just to make heads or tails of what's going on -- how I miss you. The other notable thing that happens here is that when funny-talking bald guy gets all agitated, Trixie lifts up her tank top and slides it over the guy's face. I have got to start eating breakfast at a different sort of establishment. Anyhow, the scene ends with Daphne insisting on meeting all of Dickstein's new friends. Dickstein, I suggest you warn her in advance about the Hawaiians.
Back at the Snug Harbor, Ramon is trying to sell Cunningham on the relaxing properties of raking; I can't help suspecting that Ramon is trying to con Cunningham into doing his work for him, but Cunnigham, bless his heart, gives it a few tentative rakes. "Doesn't the Yost boy skate as well as surf?" Cunningham asks, as the raking continues. "How he gets around on land," Ramon agrees. Maybe then the pool should remain empty, giving Shaun someplace to skate, Cunningham ponders. "Tell me now, before I go for the hose," says Ramon. Yes -- a filled-up pool would certainly cut down on the skating opportunities.
Away from the pool, Butchie is on the phone with Kai, using a lot fewer vulgarities and slurs than during his conversation with Tina. Anyhow, Butchie is trying to convince Kai to get Shaun over to Cissy's so that he can finalize the terms of the meeting with Tina. "Young Henry Kissinger," a rakeless Cunningham observes -- and I know that's a clever slam and all, but really, Butchie is a doing a masterful job of triangulation here among Shaun, Cissy, and Tina. Maybe there's a professor's gig at Georgetown in his future, and a Nobel Peace Prize, and a series of war crimes. Kai is reluctant to retrieve Shaun from the skate park he's currently at unless she can confidently say where she's taking him: "I'm not taking him to Cissy's until I know Tina's going to meet him there." "Tell him Tina's going to meet him," Butchie responds, which seems more hopeful than definitive at this point. Kai seems dubious that Cissy would have Tina over for lunch after all the fussing and feuding from last night; Butchie stresses that he's working on it. "I better not get him to that house, Butchie, and have Cissy freak out in front of Shaun again," Kai says firmly. "Because then he'll never want to fucking go back there." Butchie thanks Kai for her participation in this scheme and hangs up so that he can psych himself up for the unpleasant phone conversation. That's when we hear a saxophone playing a slightly flat and not altogether on-key version of "My Favorite Things" -- it's Freddy, standing in the doorway of his hotel room, making like Charlie Parker. Cunningham claps politely. "That's how I relax," Freddy shouts. Frankly, I prefer the raking. So does Ramon: "Was he tuning up, or was that a tune?" "Rodgers and Hammerstein," Cunningham says, helpfully. "Not their best phase." Oh, Barry Cunningham -- we have much in common, you and I, including our disdain for The Sound Of Music. Perhaps, in a less narratively dense show, I might have called you friend.
Enough debate over what the best phase for Rodger & Hammerstein was (The King & I, easily): let's head back to the skate park, where Kai is trying to convince Shaun to come on home. "Your Grams sent me," Kai tells Shaun. "She feels bad. She wants to know if you want to see your mom." Shaun is understandably skeptical that Cissy would want such a thing: "She hurts everyone's feelings," he says. And their eardrums. And apparently their psyches, if John is to believed. But Kai counsels forgiveness: "Your Gram's your Gram, Shaunie," she says simply. When Shaun disappears back into the skating bowl, Kai shouts after him to remember who financed that promotional video with her own money, and who got him in the surfing contest through sheer force of will and vocal chords that could be heard in Outer Mongolia. "And who's been there for you, every fucking minute of your life?" she adds. Cissy, that's who. Shaun descends into the bowl again, before popping up and following Kai to her Jeep. So that's one person on board for this Shaun-Tina reunion.
And here's Person #2 -- Tina, who pulls up into the Snug Harbor parking lot. Courteously, no one here asks how her ass is, although Cunningham takes one look at the drama about to unfold on his property and motions for Ramon to hand him the nice, soothing rake. Funny. Butchie tells Tina that he's calling up his mom, and when Tina asks where Shaun is, Butchie flashes the least convincing thumbs-up sign this side of Ebert and Roeper. He fills Tina in on the meet-Shaun-at-Cissy's-house plan, and while Tina has her reservations, it's too late for that -- Butchie is already resuming the high-stakes negotiations with his mother. "Tina's here," Butchie tells his mother over the phone. "And she wants to know if you could host a lunch for her and Shaun." You do not need to press your ear up to the phone to hear Cissy scream "What?" But Butchie is most insistent. "What does that mean, she wants me to host a lunch?" Cissy demands. "What do I know?" Butchie protests. "Just lay out some tuna fish or whatever the fuck you do." Or cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off -- those are very popular in some circles. Anyhow, Butchie negotiates the following arrangement -- Cissy won't host the lunch, but she'll leave out tuna fish makings for Tina so that she and Shaun can meet in Cissy's home. Let's see Henry Kissinger try to hammer out that agreement; it probably would have ended with Cissy and Tina joining forces to bomb Cambodia.
Anyhow, the Shaun-Tina sit-down is nigh. While Shaun waits in his bedroom, Cissy gives Tina some last-minute instructions on serving her grandson tuna fish. How does Shaun like his tuna fish, Tina wants to know. "Salt," Cissy says, her voice breaking and her eyes fixed on the flooring. "Pepper. Pickles. Lemon juice. Two tablespoons of mayo. Is how I make it. I don't know how he likes it. I never asked him." And with that, Cissy leaves. Cissy -- I say this with some regret but...that is one terrible-ass tuna fish sandwich recipe. It is quite possibly the worst thing you have ever done...you know, other than that whole molestation thing we learned about earlier. But the shitty tuna fish recipe -- that's not good either.
Kai returns to her trailer and realizes that she had a visitor -- and, more important, that said visitor removed the pistol she had carefully and obviously stashed under the mattress. Look out, Peter Gabriel -- none of your CDs are safe.
While Cissy broods -- and smokes -- in Mitch's clubhouse (it could be worse, Cissy -- Mitch could be there), Tina goes about chopping up pickles for Shaun's tuna fish under Shaun's watchful gaze. No one will be seated during the heart-stopping tuna fish sandwich-making scene. Butchie strolls up to the house, doing his level best to look casual -- this happens at about the same time Cissy emerges from the clubhouse and sneaks over to the main house to try and catch a glimpse of what's going on. Butchie and Cissy catch a glimpse of each other and scamper off in their respective directions -- the effect is almost exactly like watching Shaggy and Scooby stumble across the crotchety old hotel owner disguised as the monster. Zoinks! Whoompf!
About this time, Velma Kai pulls up, catching Shaggy Butchie unawares. Did you know your mom's got a gun, Kai asks Butchie. He does -- Cissy apparently gets skittish about prowlers whenever Mitch is off following his bliss. No, Kai repeats, Cissy has a gun right now -- as in, the gun she retrieved from Kai's trailer after waving it around last night. Sure, there are no bullets in the gun -- Kai took those out, by the by: "But I don't know if it's all right that she wanted to go and get it." Butchie figures that Cissy isn't a danger to herself: "She just looked me in the eye like she's got centuries of ball-busting left in her." With that issue resolved, Kai asks Butchie if he's been driving Tina around, with just a little too much interest to come across as dispassionate on the subject. Butchie scoffs and says he walked over from the motel to make sure his carefully-bartered summit was going off according to plan. "Give me a ride back," Butchie says. "I'm exhausted." Kai smiles; she is very clearly relieved that Butchie won't be appearing in a private re-enactment of Moist Thighs, Pink Bottoms 3.
The clean-up efforts at the Snug Harbor continue apace, not that Daphne is contributing much, other than to sneer to Dickstein about how much fun she's having. The lawyer protests that he made a commitment to help out. "No, I'm just saying this is so much fun," Daphne repeats with no conviction whatsoever. "I'm so glad we reconciled." Good news, everyone -- it's another castrating female character in the Milch-o-verse -- that trope never gets old, not even for a second. Meanwhile, Palaka has returned from the emergency room, his right wrist encased in plaster. Dickstein introduces him to his fiancée while Palaka babbles on: "It's not something I'd want to do every day, medical treatment, but it's also something not to be afraid of." At this point, Dr. Smith rides up on his bicycle. "There's the assassin," Palaka says happily. "There's the murdering cutthroat who treated me. There's the prison torturer from the Abu Ghraib prison." Palaka is trying to sound all jovial while saying this, but it's worth noting that he's backing up rapidly away from Dr. Smith and his menacing ten-speed of doom. Freddy regards all this with measured contempt; Daphne makes an emasculating observation of some sort in Yiddish to Dickstein. In the meantime, Palaka asks Freddy to "do [his] cast the first honor, please." Freddy takes the pen and writes something rather lengthy that makes Palaka giggle -- I'm guessing it's a thinly veiled threat about further physical violence in case Palaka ever gets out of line. Either that, or "Get well soon, pal."
The re-enactment of the critical scene from Tuna Fish Sandwich-Making Trollops continues in the Yost kitchen. Shaun asks Tina if she's planning on sticking around for a while, which causes Tina to pause from making Cissy's horrible tuna fish recipe. "I'm not sure," she eventually replies. She brings the tuna fish concoction over to the table where a loaf of Wonder Bread -- bland, able-to-survive-the-coming-Armageddon Wonder Bread -- awaits. "Should we make one for my Gram?" Shaun asks. "Sure," says Tina, although it's clear that she hadn't been considering the possibility. Shaun smiles enigmatically. Squish, squish goes the tuna fish as its spread on the bread. That sound will put your off your food.
It's chow time at the Snug Harbor. Cunningham and Ramon are setting up the grill, as the other characters mill about wordlessly. The wind picks up, perhaps a little ominously. And who should breeze in at this point but good ol' John from Cincinnati -- hey, John, shouldn't you be back in the van with Joe and Bill? Or making sure that Cissy doesn't kill herself? No matter; the others seem to take no notice of him. "Who's hungry?" Ramon asks. Hope it's hungry for long, not-always-coherent speeches, because that's what J from the C-to-the-nati will be serving up, monologue-style. The transcription of John's speech comes courtesy of Steve Hawk's blog and the inventors of the copy-paste function. The comments are mine, which we'll try to restrict to stage directions and shot descriptions.
"If my words are yours, can you hear my Father?" John begins, as Ramon and Cunningham continue to set up the grill. "Can Bill know my Father, keeping his eye on me?" Butchie and Kai walk up to the motel at this point. "Can I bone Kai and Butchie know my Father instead?" John asks. The camera follows John as he walks across the motel parking lot.
Now we're in Room 24 -- you know, the one that causes Barry such consternation. The door opens, and John walks in. Cut to the outside of the motel, with John walking out of Room 24, carrying a guy in his arms. The guy doesn't look too good, and not just because he's entirely black-and-white. He looks kinda sorta dead and ghostly. Hey, I guess Room 24 gave up its dead after all. John sets ghostly dead guy on the bench behind where Kai and Butchie are standing. "My Father's shy doing his business," John says, as the camera pans to Kai and Butchie. "Kai helps my Father dump out. Bill takes a shot. Shaunie is much improved." Now the camera cuts to John: "Joe is a Doubting Thomas. Joe will save Not-Aleman. Joe will bring his buddies home. This is how Freddy relaxes. Cup o' joe, and Winchell's variety dozen." As if to say, "Yes, we're talking about that Freddy over there," the camera cuts to Freddy, standing all Freddy-like with his arms folded. Back to John: "Mitch catches a good wave. Mitch wipes out. Mitch wipes out Cissy. Cissy shows Butchie how to do that. Cissy wipes Butchie out." We cut to Dr. Smith, with his arms folded and looking at the ground, while Freddy stands a few feet away. Then, over to Butchie and Kai. "Butchie hurts Barry's head. Mister Rollins comes in Barry's face." Since the camera goes to ghostly dead guy, I'm going to assume this is the unfortunate Mr. Rollins. On a nice long shot with John standing in the center of the shuffleboard court -- the triangles are pointing to him -- while all the assembled characters are facing him, John continues: "My Father runs the Mega-Millions."
We're back in Joe's van now -- John is in the shotgun seat, still passed out, while Joe scans the landscape for knife-wielding vatos. Nobody says nothing.
Over to Cass's hotel room, where she's lying stomach-down on the bed and the contents of the wet bar are littered across the room. The door opens, and John walks in. Say this for him -- he gets around. And he's got something to say: "I need your camera, Cass." Wordlessly, Cass picks up her car keys: "It's safe in the trunk of my car, John." He takes her hand and leads her out of the room.
Linc is walking mopily in front of a surf shop -- presumably not the Yosts' -- where he stares at a surfboard in the window with "Stinkweed" written on it. (That's apparently the name of Linc's surf operation.) Suddenly, John's reflection appears in the window. "Time to get back into the game, Linc Stark," he says. John, I bet you say that to all the fellahs. Linc stares at the window some more -- we see the reflection of Cass's car driving off.
Back at the hotel, night has fallen, and people are enjoying their hamburgers and chips, while John continues to speechify: "Fur is big. Mud is big. The stick is big." Cass is now there, getting out of her sports car. "The word is big," John continues. "Fire is huge. The wheel is huge. The line and circle are big." Hey, everyone -- it's Linc Stark, lurking on the periphery. John: "On the wall, the line and circle are huge. On the wall, the man at the wall makes a man from the circle and line." Butchie and Kai are now sitting down, eating, in front of the bench containing Dead Man Rollins. "The man at the wall makes a Word on the wall from the circle and line," John says, as Freddy eyeballs Dr. Smith who is tossing out his plate. "The Word on the wall hears my Father," John says, smiling, before we cut over to Cass. "The zeroes and ones make the Word in Cass's camera," John says, touching Cass's cheek with his index finger. He takes her by the hand and leads her over to a horse statue, while Linc watches from the shadows. "In the Word on the wall that hears my-Father-in-Cass's-camera," John continues, as Dr. Smith looks around, vaguely troubled, "the good one Mitch catches doesn't wipe Cissy out. In the-Word-that-hears-my-Father, Cissy shows Butchie something else." We get a close-up of Butchie here -- he's looking more thoughtful than usual. "In-my-Father's-Word, Cissy shows Butchie in Shaun." Now we follow Butchie's gaze to Kai. John is still talking: "In-my-Father's-Word, Tina raises Shaun at lunch." It's a long shot now, of John standing in the shuffleboard court again -- Cass is right to him, and Cunningham, Dickstein and Dickstein's fiancée can be seen looking in John's general direction, if John is, in fact, physically present. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. John? "In Cass's-camera, Butchie lays the court out for Barry, and Mister Rollins watches, and he doesn't come on Barry's face. In Cass's-camera, Butchie knows Kai kept the faith. In-my-Father's-Word, the Wave lifts them up." John does that thing with his foot here that he did back in Episode 1 when he met Shaun for the first time -- I guess you could say he's drawing a line and a circle in the dirt.
So here's where things get weird. ("Get?" you ask. "Okay, weirder," I concede.) Bill gets out of his green truck -- he's apparently not back at the van with Vietnam Joe anymore either. Palaka exits the motel room with Freddy's saxophone and hands it over to his boss. "You think you overcame a milestone in stride," Palaka says sleepily. "thing, it's four hours later, and you've been napping from unrecognized stress." Shut up, Palaka -- John is talking. "In Cass's camera, Bill doesn't bump his head on the stairs," John says. And yes, a set of circular stairs just like the ones in Bill's house magically appear in the parking lot; "I cannot do this," Bill grouses, as he climbs the stairs. Freddy walks over to the stairs, sax in hand. "In Cass's camera," John continues, "as long as he's being stupid, Bill gives Lois a kiss." Bill is at the top of the staircase now, with a harmonica in hand; he and Freddy share a glance before they break out into a sax-and-harmonica duet. I won't be buying their self-titled debut album.
John continues: "In His-Word-in-Cass's-camera, the internet is big. Nine-Eleven is big, but not every towel-head is eradicated. In His-Word, We are coming Nine-Eleven-Fourteen. In my-Father's-Word, Bill sees how Freddy relaxes." Ramon walks past Cunningham, and we get an establishing shot of the hotel courtyard -- John is in the center, holding court and surrounded by the other characters; Linc is standing very far away. "In Cass's-camera, Ramon wants to know who's hungry," John says, as Freddy launches into what sounds like the introductory notes of "What A Wonderful World," though I'm probably wrong, "in the courtyard and Room Forty-Five." Ramon takes the plates away from Butchie and Kai; Dickstein and his fiancée are watching this, though she turns and walks off-camera to say what looks like a goodbye to Cunningham, as John says, "In my-Father's-Word-to-come-in-Cass's-camera, Dr. Smith calls Ocean Properties." We see Dr. Smith standing to the funny-talking website nerd, and then Vietnam Joe standing to the guy who stabbed John -- I guess nobody's sitting in the van now. "In Cass's-camera-to-come, my Father stares Not-Aleman down, and Freddy sees Bill much improved," John says. Palaka dances a merry little jig to the sax-and-harmonica solo. "You will not note my-Father's-Word, nor remember Cass's-camera," John says as the camera cuts to him, "but you will not forget what we did here." There's a boom off in the distance. Butchie and Kai are still sitting on the ground in front of Mr. Rollins -- behind him, from left to right are Mitch, Butchie, Shaun, Tina, and Cissy. Think the Sgt. Pepper's album cover, only with a lot fewer Beatles.
Dr. Smith looks around, puzzled. Butchie and Kai look around, puzzled. Daphne the mean fiancée looks confused. You'd think they had all just been watching an unconventionally scripted HBO drama. "And you're even uglier than Abraham Lincoln," Freddy shouts at Palaka, who counters that he shares the same birthday as Lincoln -- February 12, 1964. You're off by 155 years there, Palaka, but your point is well taken -- you and Lincoln were both born on February 12 and you're both not very pleasant-looking (at least according to Freddy). Any other similarities? Do you support the Homestead Act as well? Cunningham takes this all in and sighs contentedly: "We should make these cookouts a fixture." Maybe with less yakety-yak the time.
People start dispersing. "Want to go look for the Space Commander?" Butchie asks Kai, presumably referring to John; she does. Linc hightails it out of there, too, and Dr. Smith rides off on his bike. Cass leaves as well.
And we're back in the van, where Joe and Bill have nodded off. John is wide awake, however. "Hit the floor, troopers," he says, rousing the other two from their slumbers. "Judas Priest," Bill exclaims, "the fucking sun's gone down." "The sun does not go down, Bill," John replies. " Genius on science, too," Bill mutters. Galileo does not appreciate your sarcasm, sir. "My Father is a genius on science," John insists. "The sun does not go down. Judas Priest is a genius on science. Judas Priest is my Father's son, too." Then He must be very proud of their work on You've Got Another Thing Coming. Bill can't shake the feeling that he's been playing his harmonica. "Bill won't note nor long remember playing his fucking harp, Joe," John says cheerfully. Oh, and also, "my Father's birthday is the same as mine." Chew on that one for a while. Joe's about had enough of this assignment. "Well," he says flatly. "This was time well spent." He starts the van, flips on the headlights, and we go to the credits.
Okay, so that speech at the end -- thoughts? Please limit your responses to three hundred words and refrain from using the following words: "messianic," "camera," "weirdo," "Milchian," and any definite articles. You have half-an-hour. Go!
My thoughts...I'm not much for scouring for hidden meanings midway through a show's run. After the first ten episodes, I'll probably be more comfortable going back and reviewing which line was imbued with deep symbolism and which one was a throwaway and evaluating everything on its own merits then. For now, certainly this was better than the last episode, which sounds like more of a left-handed compliment than I intend it to be. At least the show went somewhere this week and tried to say something. What exactly, I'm not sure of at this point -- but I certainly can't complain that it's not leading to something. Whether that something turns out to be a satisfying or cohesive denouement...well, that's the trick, isn't it? I suppose it's only fitting that your enjoyment of a show that deals with issues of faith would come down to how much faith you have in the show's creator to pull all this off. Given that this same week was when HBO executives were suggesting that those Deadwood movies we were promised probably will never materialize and that the Steve Hawk blog I linked to several pages back has David Milch dismissing logical storytelling as the stuff of squares and hacks -- well, my confidence that this is going to end in a fulfilling way is not tremendously high. You might feel differently, and if you do, I'm happy for you. Honestly.
time on John From Cincinnati: Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell shows up to talk some sense into Dylan McKay; Palaka has some sort of health crisis in Cissy's surf shop; and John tells Cass that Shaun will be gone soon. Yeah, like in four more episodes, Nostradamus.