Episode Report Card Mollie: B- | 92 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Let Them Eat Cake
By Mollie | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.09.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Addison can't believe it's raining in L.A. -- this isn't why she left Seattle! Nobody feels sorry for her, because they're busy feeling sorry for themselves: Violet spent the night listening to ex-boyfriend voice-mail; Pete started his day talking to his dead wife's grave; Naomi's having trouble letting Sam take on parenting duties (they have a daughter, by the way).
At least Violet's professional life is on track -- she just convinced longtime patient Doug to divorce his wife, Karen. But Doug's back later that morning with Karen, whose response to the news was a spontaneous, copious nosebleed. Cleaned up, she tells Violet to butt out, and underlines her point with a new spray of blood. Sam discovers Karen has a serious vascular disorder, and Vi no longer feels so great about telling Doug to leave her.
A sweet couple confess to Addison that they haven't been able to consummate their three-week-old marriage. Mrs. Newlywed tells Addy she's a virgin -- she waited all this time for "magic," and now her brand-new, magical marriage is in danger because she can't manage sex. Naomi, between mouthfuls of a magically delicious cake she got from Dell, convinces reluctant Addison to let Pete try his hand at loosening up Mrs. Newlywed (in the most professional sense, of course).
Cooper's puzzled by a little girl with blue skin. An infusion of some sort has her looking healthy in short order, but soon the mother is back with all four of her daughters, all of them blue. Cooper grills Mom about environmental toxins, but the house checks out and the girls won't talk. So Cooper presents himself as a playmate (creepy, I know, but it's meant to be cute) and discovers they've been tripping on magical fertilizer fumes in a backyard shed.
Sam sends Karen to St. Ambrose for tests, and learns from angry Charlotte that Karen was diagnosed with her disease there many months ago. Sam and Violet can't tell Doug this without Karen's consent, so instead they just hint broadly that she's hiding something. She caves and tells Doug she thought he was weak, but now she needs his strength and wants him to stay with her. Doug decides that's what he wants, too, much to Violet's dismay. He's just proud he made his own decision -- even if he decided to stay with the wife who makes him miserable.
Based on the crumbs of information Pete drops on this anniversary of his wife's death, it sounds like they too had an unhappy marriage, but it's hard to tell whether it was ordinary unhappy or miserably unhappy. At least Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed have the magic: They bound into the clinic to thank docs Pete and Addison and show off their post-sex glow. Everybody else will have to settle for cake. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Addison's in bed, sleeping, and wearing a lot of makeup under the circumstances. Won't she, like, get an eye infection or lose her eyelashes if she sleeps in all that mascara? The sound of thunder and heavy rainfall wakes her up. She listens, then falls back onto her pillow and sighs, "It's raining." Then, bolting upright: "It's raining!" She runs barefoot down the steps and out onto her beachfront deck, closing the door behind her with a precision she will quickly regret. Some electronic doodads lie there on a table, getting soaked; Addy gathers them up, along with a pair of shoes and a soggy garment she left draped over a chair. Then she performs a high-stepping, raindrop-dodging dance back to the door, which is locked, of course. So she does what anyone would do in the same situation: she presses her face to the glass and wails pathetically, "It's raaainiiing!" If only there were someone inside to hear her. In a situation like this, it's nice to have a significant other, or failing that, a very intelligent pet, but poor, wet Addison has neither.
Violet's in her office with her head down on her desk. Is she playing Heads Up, Seven Up? Nope, she's listening to voicemail messages. Wait -- make that one voicemail message, on endless repeat. "Hey babe, it's me," says a man's voice. No prizes for guessing who that man is! "I'm gonna be late. You should pick up some Chinese and we'll eat in bed, okay? Love you." Cooper opens the door and catches Violet in the act. "You listening to Allan's message again?" Violet claims she has other messages, from patients, but Cooper's not falling for that, since she doesn't typically eat takeout in bed with her patients. "I'm sorry I told you about it," she says bitterly. "I thought you'd understand." Okay, I'm no psychiatrist, but I'm pretty sure that if you can admit out loud that you have a habit of listening to a completely banal voicemail message from an ex over and over, and you can still not realize as soon as you say it that you've hit bottom, then you're in pretty rough shape. Cooper just tells her, "Guys don't keep messages from an ex. That's a woman thing." Violet scores a point: "What do you know about women that you didn't get off the internet?" Coop wisely decides not to defend himself. Instead, he tells her, "Erase the message. Be a man."
Now we're at reception, and I'm still wondering what time of day this is. First I thought Violet slept in her office, or just got to work really early, but then Cooper walked in. Is this one of those gloomy days where it's dark as twilight all day long, or is it perpetually dim in Violet's office? Anyway, now we see Naomi, hugging her daughter (making her first appearance since the pi-not, although, if you're keeping score at home, you may recall that her presence was implied by Naomi's pathetic "Mommy needs a minute to herself!" in episode 1). Naomi's hug is bordering on a chokehold, and daughter Maya, who seems to be about thirteen, points this out with a strangled, "Uh, Mom?" Sam's standing near the elevator, waiting for them to break it up. "I can take her to school," Naomi offers, feigning nonchalance. Maya looks to her dad for help. "Back up, woman," he commands in his authoritative yet gentle baritone.