Another season under the reign of the TWoP empire, another questionably conceived, prospectively low-rated, almost certainly short-lived visit to a godforsaken, nightmarish enclave of the American Dream: Roswell, New Mexico. Twin Peaks, Washington. Boston, Massachusetts. And now -- for those few intrepid souls who think that Will & Grace is "good, but it's no Life with Bonnie, and that winning a million dollars is as easy as not purchasing any magazines as part of the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes -- Push, Nevada.
A title card reading "The Amount" appears on screen in Microsoft Word font MS This-Is-Your-First-Hint Bold. We pan across a dark room to discover a bald man, a thermometer in his mouth, in a bathtub filled with ice. Under other circumstances I might see fit to observe that he is a Jon Polito-looking character, were I not about to see Jon Polito from every imaginable up-the-nose, from-the-inseam, through-the-back-of-the-eye-socket quirky camera angle in the history of David Lynch's discard pile. This man, though, quakes and grunts with the coldness of it all, and we pan dangerously close to his face as a hand inside a yellow dishwashing glove enters the frame and removes the thermometer from his mouth. Off-camera, a voice with a vaguely Jon-Polito-esque rasp informs Blue Lips McGillicuddy, "You're ready. Let's go." Polito's discipline in failing to fish the freezing man out of the bathtub, hug him, rock him gently back and forth, and whisper "it's not your fault…it's not your fault" over and over and over again (but in, like, a totally manly way) shows a reserve I was unsure the creative team behind this show was capable of. So, really. Good for them. So far.
Cut to who we assume is Ugly Naked Icy Guy (oh, wait. You're here with me on ABC. You were clearly watching Monk or some such thing at 8 PM and decided to forgo the reference), walking in silhouette down a dark pipeline. His calves make up the foreground of a shot in which a giant safe appears, and he approaches it, shaking still (is he cold? I hadn't noticed), and I utter a quick thanks to The Department Of Ass-Obscuring Mood Lighting that you can only perceive Ugly Naked Icy Guy's camera-facing backside, rather than explicitly being able to count the pores. He lays a shaking (why? Is it cold in there?) hand on the combination lock and begins to turn it, and I feel a vague pang of repressed memory that this sequence -- of an out-of-place outsider, shuddering with fear and cold -- could just as well be Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot remake of the movie entitled Djb Tries To Get the Hell Out Of The Junior High Locker Room. I only hope Ugly Naked Icy Guy possesses the same ability to crack this safe and find some damn pants inside of it and spare us all. A brief cut to a maroon-coated security person of some kind finds him keeping surveillance over the scene and doing as much justice to his "What the holy…" line as humanly possible, and we cut back to Ice-T cracking the safe (pants? For the love of God, IS IT PANTS?) and making back down the metal piping with a different kind of booty than the one we've already seen so amply and unfortunately displayed.
Two more maroon-coated, beige-slacksed men grab guns and run haplessly after no one (I think this is a valuable lesson that if you want your security needs taken care of right, you're probably better served not having your big, big safe guarded entirely by members of DECA…but I'm just sayin'), while Ice Ice Baby makes it safely outside with two suitcases. He makes his way to a red vintage car, holding the suitcases in front of his naughty bits like some modified Austin Powers joke without the irony, the comedy, or a light bulb whose wattage exceeds, like, my age that might allow me to more than guess what's going on right now. He tries the door handle and finds it locked, and then bangs on the window. The window rolls down, and the decidedly Polito-esque voice from behind the wheel demands, "Not so fast…show it to me." Oh, c'mon, Polito! Why not give Polito 2.0 a little of his dignity, for Chrissakes? Polito 2.0 opens the bag and shows Polito stacks and stacks of cash. Polito celebrates from behind the wheel, yelling, "Yahtzee!" And I guess we can celebrate his decision to at least eschew an even more Sinatra-esque exclamation of the "boo-yah!" or "aces, Sammy!" variety, but I'm going on record to say that the conceit of names-of-board-games-as-dialogue is just a little, well, Parcheesi. Or something. The back seat unlocks and Polito 2.0 hops in, his bare bottom and its chance meeting with the leather seats doubtless forming an adhesive so strong it could seal up the Continental Divide. The car peels off. Thrash metal blares. We hold for a moment on an almost pitch-black (surprise!) night-in-the-desert (SURPRISE!) shot, lit only by a red neon sign reading "Versailles Casino." "Loosest slots and least linear plot development in town" is written almost imperceptibly under the casino's name. Scattergories!
Cut to a nondescript office interior somewhere between Arizona and the long-abandoned set department of Working. In walks a gentleman of as-yet-indeterminate age, wearing a dapper black suit and holding a similarly dapper, similarly black briefcase filled with dashed hopes, forgotten ambitions, and, probably, gum. The man -- his hair evoking the pompadour-ish quality of one who walked into the Tempe Supercuts and insisted, "I'll have the 'Keepin' The Faith' video, if you don't mind" -- bids his secretary good morning and always remembers to keep the faith. His Gal Thursday (with a special inaugural Gal Tuesday quality about her this week, for some reason), Grace, smiles and responds, "Good morning, Mr. Prufrock." Grace is played by Melora Walters! Wearing a smart business suit and pearls and funky glasses that don't look entirely unlike mine! I'm sad that she's relegated to the role of hired help here, but any actress who has ever stared down from a movie screen and sung Aimee Mann to me is eternally okay in my book. He asks her how she's doing as she walks in front of a clock that stands at 7:31 AM, and the only appropriate response one should give in an IRS office at such a time is, "Quiet, Mr. Prufrock…the money is still sleeeeeping." Agent NotCooper asks if there are any messages (did the money call? No, no, that's right. It's still sleeeeeping), and Grace informs him, "Just one. Your ex-wife. On the voicemail." She plays it for him.
A crowd noise sound effects tape borrowed from the "Hey, J.J.!" section of "C'est La Vie" kicks up in the background, and a slurred voice beamed to earth from Planet Whore purrs, "Hi, James. Listen, honey, I didn't get this month's check, so I was hoping you could send a little bit right now. Maybe, two hundred, three hundred dollars." She continues on that she's at the "Twin Palms Motel" in "Winslow, Arizona," before becoming interrupted by another voice in the phone (J.J. himself, perhaps?). His Gal Not Monica, Phoebe, Or Rachel turns off the voicemail, barely registering her disgust that her super-cool boss's ex-wife is starring in the books-on-tape version of the "College Girls Gone Wild" series. Grace tells him, "You know, I sent the check ten days ago UPS. She signed for it herself." NotCooper half-smiles and repeats, "Winslow, Arizona," half-surprised that one of the towns referenced on this show would be so gauche as to actually exist in the real world. Since my career determined for me that I would be a commuter from New York to Los Angeles three dozen times in the past year, I've driven through Winslow many, many times, each time doing my valuable public service duty of lightening their collective store of Red Vines and Diet Coke. time I'll know to stop in and give my regards to J.J. People, it's still 7:31 AM.
Jim Prufrock is hard at work when an anonymous supporter of the television arts dials up 1-800-PLOT-NOT-PLOD, which appears to be the very number that causes Jim's fax machine to ring. He looks over as a two-page fax from the Versailles Casino rolls in, the blank cover sheet in front of a page containing several lines of financial mumbo-jumbo. The top of the fax tells us that the sender is one "Silas Bodnick" of the Versailles Casino, phone number 866/540-5837. A clue! Clearly. Who's on that? Are you dialing yet? Don't make me make you. I can always return to my endless congressional filibuster about the manifold joys of Winslow, Arizona while you guys call that number and report back with findings. I've got all the time in the world. It's only 7:31 AM. Prufrock (middle initial "A," according to the nameplate on his desk, for all you Eliot fans and takers of the English AP out there) picks up the phone and dials 866/540-5837 (as should you all being doing right now, lest I resort to reporting the population and elevation of Winslow and start loudly serenading you with the lyrics to their town song), and a Polito-esque voice (which, in such disembodied form, is starting to resemble the vocal timbre of the love child of Harvey Fierstein and Fred Flintstone…sorry, Jon!) answers.
Prufrock asks if he has reached Silas Bodnick, and we cut to The Lips Of Silas Bodnick, cagily asking who wants to know. Prufrock informs The Lips Of Silas Bodnick that someone specifically sent his office a fax, and when The Lips Of Silas Bodnick tell him to "throw it away," Prufrock forges one too many lines of Affleck-drenched dialogue in responding, "Well, sir, that brings me to what I'm calling in regards to. It seems there is a sizable accounting error…" The Lips of Silas Bodnick tell Prufrock that he is a "yahoo," and tells him not to call again: "End of story." Prufrock keeps his cool but grimaces slightly, hanging up and intoning all growly, like Dirty Harry if Dirty Harry were less a tough cop out for vengeance than, well, an accountant, "No. Not end of story." A quick, zoomy cut zooms us to the outside of the building, where we espy a sign reading "Internal Revenue Service," and just as quickly we're zooming back inside to where Prufrock sits brooding. Oh, great. How are we supposed to revel in our million-dollar payday when the show has already used the cash defending themselves in their Affleck vs. Doug Liman plagiarism case? Prufrock calls into the room: "Grace…how far away is Push, Nevada?" Silas, I've got your number. I need to make you mi-ine. Silas, don't change that number: 866/540-5837.
Opening credits: Thirty seconds of washed-out, overexposed, and reverse-printed photographs, newspaper clippings, and tax forms are accompanied by a rock-out beat. Woo hoo! Techno taxes! I declare my love for it! I am its sole dependent! My passion for the IRS I cannot, uh, write off! Sigh. Oh, pipe down, Mathletes. You try making jokes about math sometime. Also featured in the opening credits are a URL -- www.dmvf.com. Near the end of the credits, this accusatory sentence appears in print across the screen: "You are being audited." Ooooh. That's got the shelf life the X-Files would have if they'd gone for the opening credits promise, "The proof is tax-deductible."
Cacti sit motionless. The sun beats down. Bloodthirsty crows circle forebodingly overhead. Prufrock drives his own Vintagemobile through the starkest of stark Nevada deserts, which clever location scouting dictates is really a park in Orange County with one dead maple tree and a particularly nasty-looking sparrow. You can almost hear Affleck at the first production meeting all, "Well, there's this one kind of isolated spot near Malibu I once spent about twenty-eight days in, which…oh, never mind." NotCooper holds his cell phone in one hand and the steering wheel in the other, informing Grace, "The man I spoke with, his name is Bodnick. What's his title at the casino?" The camera frames Prufrock at a different angle every time it cuts back to his car. That QuirkyLens 2000 is a miracle cure for this somewhat repetitive dialogue! Grace informs him that Bodnick "is not listed at the casino," which inspires in Prufrock the reply, "He's not listed at the casino?" I believe the only way to end this line of children's-birthday-games dialogue is by exclaiming, "Oh, a duck" before moving on to cake and punch. They banter about Prufrock's natural inclination for gambling, Grace claiming, "You're good with numbers. You could at least break even." But, as if seeking to prove a larger allegorical point than merely highlighting the degradation of a boozy night of collecting free whisky sours while your hands turn black on the nickel slots at "New York, New York" (this, um, happened to a friend of mine), Prufrock fortune-cookies, "Everyone loses in the end." Eh? He's just so disoriented from being filmed at so many different angles that the blood is rushing to his head.
Beep beep! Mercury hits retrograde right inside the Vintagemobile, as Prufrock's phone starts to beep with a low-battery alert. He asks Grace if she remembered to charge the phone because, when in doubt, blame your assistant. Perhaps two or three million fewer iterations of the sentence fragment "not listed at the casino" could have ensured many further hours of chatting, text messaging, and Snake. Shut up, Ben Affleck. Montage of Things Breaking, as the heat on the radiator climbs into the danger zone, the radio fails to register any stations, and the car finally succeeds in overheating, smoke pouring out from under the hood. Prufrock mutters a resigned "of course." Well, that's what happens when you drive a car from The Past. I don't see him careening off the road in a product-placed Toyota, do you?
Black liquid pours out from under the car, as Jim (may I call you "Jim"?) leans against the passenger side door, waiting for his certain death. A cut to him reading a map coincides with a truck pulling up to the car. Jim leaps out of his car as the truck comes to a stop, and a grizzled Road Cliché pulls up with a trucker's accent and an almost uncontrollable desire to pull down that "honk honk" cord at every possible opportunity. Jim climbs in as Road Cliché pulls back onto the highway, Road Cliché informing Jim, "This side of Death Valley doesn't get much traffic." As opposed to the teeming other side of Death Valley, with its well-known sandy destinations the Death-ney World theme park and "Make Your Own Ishtar" Fantasy Camp. Jim thanks him for the pick-up, and expresses further gratitude when Road Cliché lets us know, "That desert'll kill a man in four hours." Further self-congratulatory "Look ma, I'm a writer" patter is exchanged which might as well be, "I liked The Sum of All Fears so much more than The Bourne Identity, didn't you, grizzled stranger?" Introductions are made. Jim Prufrock, meet B.R.B. I'm sad that my internet career makes me think that the trucker's name is nothing more than a chat room directive. It does not make me LOL. More blather between them. Prufrock cops to working for the government, and B.R.B. says that the comedic romp Forces of Nature was so good it resulted in him ROTTFL (that's "rolling on the truck floor laughing," for those of you not in the know). Jim looks around the truck to note dozens of Polaroids of a woman in various stages of dress taped around the perimeter of the truck, across the glove compartment, and one smack in the middle of the steering wheel itself. B.R.B. goes TMI with the info, "She's my wife. We make love like wild animals, every other night at 9:15, just like clockwork." Jim resorts to that conversational safehouse that equals either "I'm confused and disoriented by your words" or "I'm so boring that I lack an opinion even on subjects as potent as dirty, dirty trucker sex," tossing back a strained, "Well, that's something." Silence. Jim inquires, "Where'd you meet her?" We're plot developed to a Push locale called Sloman's, which B.R.B. calls "a good meeting place." Luckily, he also knows "a good car-fixing place." Jim is relieved. He was "afraid this would be like something out of a movie. Where my car overheats and I get held up by some crooked mechanic for a thousand-dollar fan belt." Which movie is that, Jim? Meineke: The Musical, starring George Foreman and the Michelin Man? Oh, great. I think I just accidentally pitched Project Greenlight 2. Chris Moore? Get your damn hands offa my screenplay. Stolen Summer ruined a transatlantic flight for me a few months ago, even after a Valium and two glasses of white wine. I will simply not allow myself to get hurt like that again.
Push, Nevada. Population: 10,623. Elevation: 1,023. B.R.B.'s truck pulls into a dusty mechanic's lot called Job's. Then nothing happens again for a while. Jim's right. This would be just like a movie. If B.R.B.'s name were actually Large Marge and there were no basement in the Alamo. Job -- the hickiest hick in Hicksville, wearing an open vest, two crucifix earnings, covered in tattoos -- walks out of his office at Monster Joe's Truck and Tow and shakes hands with Jim upon Large Marge's introduction. Anyone need a lesson on the historical and Biblical significance of Job? Good. It's not like they've introduced us to a character named "Ezekiel." The hints aren't exactly coming in curveball form, just at the moment. Jim looks over near the front of the office to see a man dressed in numerous thermal coats, gloves, and a hat, shaking violently. Jim asks, "Is he all right?" Job responds, "Sure. He's cold, that's all." Job charges Jim "ten bucks for the tow. Once I get it here, I'll see what I can do." Jim asks if one of them can suggest where he might stay tonight. Move it along! Jeez. If by "written by Ben Affleck," you mean "adapted for the screen from a AAA travel guide to the desert southwest Ben Affleck found in the glove compartment of his rented Bentley on a lost weekend in Vegas." As soon as we have the option to "find Six Flags locations along route," I'll be over here, rocking back and forth, shivering like I've been iced and praying for one night of Just Shoot Me.
A red arrow with blinking bulbs shows us the direction of Martha's Boarding House. Jim approaches the front door and walks through, crossing through a beaded curtain to find himself in a very cool little room, actually, decorated with overstuffed chairs in various shades of green, a pink rotary phone, a lone floor lamp, and a TV so old that it plays the national anthem promptly at 10:30 and only tunes in to shows airing on the Dumont Network. A portly woman we all know from somewhere enters through the curtain and hands Jim a bowl of soup. He tells her he was sent by "the mechanic down the street," which we know already, on account of also having been sent by the mechanic down the street, and he sits down on the only non-green chair in the room, settling back and attempting to thwart my hard-fought recapping authority. Jim takes a sip of the soup, and we're afforded yet another weirdola zoomy camera angle, this one pretty much announcing the product-placed tagline, "Campbell's soup is good CLUE." Why else would such a mundane activity be heralded by such fanfare? Or perhaps Communism is just a red herring. The proprietor informs Jim that they're "very selective about our clientele," and this block of dialogue is kind of cool and therefore bears verbatim repeating. Enjoy it with your scene study class or drama therapy workshop today!
Plump Woman We've All Seen Somewhere Before: How old are you?
Jim: Twenty-nine.
Plump Woman We've All Seen Somewhere Before: Married?
Jim: Divorced.
Plump Woman We've All Seen Somewhere Before: Employed?
Jim: Yes, ma'am.
Plump Woman We've All Seen Somewhere Before: By whom?
Jim: Good soup, by the way. [Stage direction: mutual silent appreciation of soup and soup-related liquids throughout history. "Stew" and "gazpacho" wonder after their own inclusion.] Um, I'm employed…
That sells her. Plump Woman We've All Seen Somewhere Before offers to show Jim to his room, offering that it's "twenty-five dollars a night." Jim grabs his bags and follows. Walking down another darkened hallway, Plump Woman We've All Seen Somewhere Before further explains, "Your room is in the East Wing. You can look across this garden into the West Wing. Now, these rooms are specially designed for your enjoyment. The North Wing, however, is completely, totally off-limits." Jim looks toward the North Wing to see a sign reading in curlicue calligraphy, "No Entry! Off limits!" Ah, yes. The well-worn "You can stay here as long as you want, just as long as you don't lay a hand on my daughter" or the "You can sleep in the barn as long as you want, just as long as you don't stick your dick in that hole" staple convention of any good rural travel narrative. I know it well. Well, not that well. Oh, all right. Kind of well.
Daytime in Push, Nevada. Jim approaches the front door of the Versailles Casino to the strains of a baroque-sounding piece of classical music I'm sure is, like, Bach's "Suite and Fugue on $1,045,000 in D Major" or some such other clever, clever thing. Jim stops at a service desk in what appears to be a very traditional-looking casino and engages a man wearing an elaborate dickey (hee! But not that that) and speaking with an exceedingly bad French accent quite intentionally, much to my amusement. "Hello, bonjour. Can I help you sir, monsieur?" Jim flashes some ID and restates his business for every trucker, hooker, and non-French-dickey-clad casino concierge who will give him the time of day. The concierge tells him to speak with "the accounting department, who I'm sure will comply with your every wish." He indicates two men sitting at a nearby bar, using a folded-up piece of paper to play that table football game that you play when you fold up paper when you're a boy, rather than that fortune teller game that you play when you fold up paper when you're a girl. All Jim wants to know is who Silas Bodnick is, and we flash to the selfsame Silas Bodnick, walking purposefully in a black tuxedo jacket and a string tie into the safe deep below the casino. Business is conducted, as one of the folks upstairs at DECA Surveillance LLC sneers at a monitor, "What an ass." The spinning wheel of the closing of the safe is quickly juxtaposed against a spinning roulette wheel upstairs, and a disconsolate Steven Soderbergh smacks his forehead in embarrassment and exclaims, "Now that's the visual flair that wins a man an Oscar," before writing his own proposal for Bodnick's Eleven to be his inclusion into the Project Greenlight canon. Bodnick, meanwhile, walks onto the main floor of the casino and barks, "It's Bodnick…what the hell is your problem?" into a cell phone just as he walks past Jim. Dealer? I'd like to put twenty dollars on "Contrivance," if I may. Thanks. Thanks ever so much.
Jim follows Bodnick down hallways and back alleys into his office, where he barks at his secretary, "Ginger, did you log those faxes like we talked about?" Ginger, who would be played by Wendie Malick were that actress not also busy during this exact timeslot, tells him that she did, but did not send any faxes on Tuesday, so "you must have sent the one that you got so upset about yourself." He locks himself in his office and continues ranting into the cell phone, "No, it's business as usual. And one more thing…" He hangs up on the caller and laughs self-importantly. A card among cut cards, he is. I'll bet he ends a lot of important business meetings with the old buzzer in the hand handshake trick. Let's go see!
Surveillance cameras catch Jim walking into Bodnick's office, and after Ginger's utterly convincing and determined rendition of "no no wait don't go in there," Jim opens the door to Bodnick's interior office and finds the man fixing himself a drink. Bodnick does not offer his hand. Nor does he, to my surprise, suggest that Prufrock pull his finger or compromise it in any other way. They tussle verbally a moment, and Jim finally steps forward and does the formal introduction that should carry more dramatic weight than it does: "My name is Jim Prufrock. I work for the Internal Revenue Service." I'm sorry. That line just doesn't kill like it should. No matter what the subject matter of this particular investigation, there are some barn burners ("My name is Jim Prufrock. I am the comptroller!" or "My name is Jim Prufrock. I am the stacker in the frozen food aisle!") that just fail to burn. Nevertheless, it gets Ginger the secretary to take her leave, and Bodnick's attention is momentarily captivated. "So," he smiles, "this fax that I supposedly sent. If I sent it, I sent it to the IRS?" That's right. "Genius," he grumbles. Affleck's words, not mine. Bodnick sighs that he's not going to talk, and suggests that Jim "begin conducting whatever investigation you think you should conduct and I'll get cracking on my end and figure out what story we're going to go with." But this is a series about math, so that's not good enough for Jim Prufrock, President of the PTA. He closes them both in Bodnick's office and begins speechifying us straight into the commercial: "I know you're crooked, Mr. Bodnick. I knew it the moment I first heard your voice. The money that's evaporated from those accounting statements. I bet you have it and you've cooked the books here to hide it and it's not the first time you've done it, either. But strangely, that's not what concerns me now." That's not what concerns me, either. What concerns me is that this is the first time in the show that we've gotten a straightforward shot of Jim Prufrock from a close enough range to determine that he has really, really, really nice eyes. What concerns Prufrock is, I'm guessing, something else really groovy about math. Yup. What concerns him is that "this kind of money could disappear and no one notices and/or cares." I mean, are they contacts? Do they even make a false shade called "sheer still ponds of verdant perfection"?
If Affleck is cribbing from other TV writers, he shouldn't have stolen from the primary source material of C-SPAN. Finished, Prufrock cedes the rest of his time to the politician from Push, Bodnick mock-trialing, "I'm not threatening you. I'm really not. I'm giving you advice. Now, if you don't take it, I promise you that you're going to look back on this conversation, you're going to understand that I was trying to help you and you're going to wish you had." That was almost fifty words of absolute test pattern. What he needs is some -- what's the expression again? -- oh, yes, "really distracting eyes." Jim tries to tell Bodnick that he doesn't take kindly to threats, but Bodnick launches in full-scale, standing and ranting, "You're an IRS scrub! You wash my floors!" He pauses. He don't want no IRS scrubs. He catches himself, calms down, and continues: "The people who I work for, who I have the stones to…these are the people who own the people who own your father. You're nobody to me. You're nothing! Why don't you be a good little girl and go garnish some teacher's wages who forgot to itemize her Schedule A deductions!" See that? Things were going pretty well…and then, math. And who is his father? And now it's Jim's turn again: "You know how this country works. How it runs. Money. That's how teachers get paid, streets get paved. Do you know why taxes are higher than they should be? Why they are a burden to honest people? Fraud. You. You, sir, are the reason decent people shoulder the albatross of an inequitable tax burden. Wealthy, greedy cheats and thieves. I can plainly see you are one of those." Wait. He's still talking. He wants Bodnick in prison, and he won't stop at using the phrase "my tenacity is infinite" to get there. He hands Bodnick a card and writes his number on it. Bodnick's turn, and I'm getting tennis neck from the constant volley: "You pathetic bastard. You're not even a cop. You can't even cuff me. You want to know where you can find me? In South America, in a pool. Me and your wife. Yeah. Me and your wife and Consuelo the pool boy. Just in case he wants to have a shot at her." Blah blah Blahdnick. He knows Jim's father and his wife? For all we know, Jim might have neither. What's going on? And while we're giving out numbers, is Consuelo the pool boy dating anyone besides Jim's fictitious wife?
Calling from The Great Northern (er, I mean, "Martha's Boarding House" something something), Jim rings a number and a voice answers, "IRS." He bids Grace hello and asks how she's doing. She replies that she's "fine" in the way that totally means, "My boss is out of town, I have ninety IM windows open and I'm one square away from breaking my own lifelong Tetris record including college and if I have to do one thing for you right now it's going to totally break my concentration. Otherwise, fine." He asks if she can connect him to "Ira," and we cut to two silhouetted figures in a room watching twelve monitors. A male voice switches over to the Exposition Network, letting the woman and us know, "He's calling his supervisor." The woman tells him to "record the call. Notify Waller." Bodnick is dialing as well, and we flip over to that call. Something about the fax. The woman observes, "Bodnick bores me. Go back to the Fed." Bores him? See, it's lines like that. Wouldn't you imagine these super-spies who have access to every conversation in town could just as easily listen to both calls than rationalize their way from one essential conversation to another with the transition "Bodnick bores me"?
Meanwhile, Jim tells this "Ira" that "we're gonna need a lot more than me. I think we're gonna need a lot more than the IRS. My investigation began two days ago when I received a fax." A nifty super-fast montage of Jim's last two days fly through in about three seconds, and we have the blank filled in that Jim went to the library and went through the history of the town. But something peculiar happened when he got to the microfiche. Doesn't it always? And that something is, in short, this: in the mid-80s, the town of Push was almost totally bankrupt, until an LLC named Watermark Consolidated buys the Versailles, and within six months, a dozen seven-figure payoffs occur, a new police chief is hired, and -- this is my favorite part -- the per capita income increases from "$12,426 per household in 1983 to $44,444 in 1985." Then, no more data. All files on Watermark LLC are closed by direct order of the attorney general. Ira, at a cock-eyed angle, tells Jim to forget about it and come home. "We'll grab an Arby's or something!" That's ringing endorsement enough. Ira hangs up the phone, and we pan back to see two toughs facing Ira as he sits at his desk. He looks up at them with concern: "So what's gonna happen now? Nothing bad, right?" This portion of Push, Nevada is brought to you by Arby's! Grab an Arby's…or something!
Jim exits the front door of Martha's to find his Vintagemobile, a note on the windshield reading "Mr. Prufrock: Just a loose hose. No charge. Job." We're instructed via the letterhead to see their ad at www.pushtimes.com, and there's something in tiny tiny tiny print at the bottom about North America and Europe, but it's blocked on my TV by ABC's shameful promise of a "Special Two-Hour Event Thursday" for Push, Nevada, even though it's just a rerun of this episode and then a new one in its regular timeslot. It's not like Push is hosting the Olympics. Relax, ABC. And uncancel Sports Night. And then maybe we'll have something to talk about again. Oh yeah, and make that chick from Drew Carey get the hell out from underneath my bed. The nightmares are getting worse and I haven't slept in three years. Okay. That's it.
Doing what any self-respecting agent of the law does when his car is in fine working order (that being "taking a walk,") Jim goes back out on the town for a walk down Anystreet, USA. Alias isn't on today, so the nine people who watch it are instead shown in silhouette through their windows, getting it on. Two silhouettes on the shade. Oh, what a lovely. Couple they made. Jim comments, "It must be the water." Oooh. Affleck was clearly allowed to pen one line, and there it is right there. Did you catch it? A dog growls. It's 9 PM.
Back at One-Eyed Sloman's, Dress-Down Friday Jim Prufrock enters and asks a bartender for Mary. He finds her alone at a table in the back, and sits down across from her. He flirtily offers to "do her taxes," and I think we now know from his professional countenance that what he means by THAT is that he would "take her earnings from the last year and calculate a percentage of it to give to the federal government, considering the nature of her work and statutes of governing law." Youch! Is it hot in here, or is it just taxes? She considers him warily: "You're an accountant?" Does she overenunciate everything as part of her character, or is "bad actress" part of her personality? She tells him she hasn't "reported a cash transaction since 1996," but he rationalizes her way out of it for her by explaining -- in no short order -- that "if you want to underreport, you can do so comfortably up to thirty-five percent. I just told you how to cheat on your taxes." Jesus. Dance with this guy already and shut him the hell up. They get up. They dance. She tells him, "Go home, Jimmy. You seem like a nice guy. I don't think you're cut out for Push." She adds that he shouldn't look for things he can't find and stare at mountains he can't climb and she states and restates that one sentiment in so many ways and for so many hours it's a wonder that a karaoke track of "No One Is To Blame" doesn't bust out behind her as she tells Jim Prufrock that he can feel the cushions but he can't have a seat. "Life's a long walk uphill. Drop the rocks." Sisyphus? She's doing Sisyphus now?
Martha's. Jim is packing his bags. He dials a number and gets Bodnick's voicemail, and we cut to Silas checking his own voicemail (password: 432) and receiving a message from Jim informing him, "For you to be considered a cooperating witness, I will need to hear from you by 7 PM. You will know it is 7 PM because that will be exactly eleven and a half minutes after the sun goes down. Just so there's no confusion." Silas swears "monkey boy" about thirty times and takes a slug from a flask inside his lapel pocket. A large man in larger dark sunglasses and a ponytail enters the room and begins pacing. Silas refers to him, scared, as "Mr. From Watermark," after figuring out a voice he's only heard on the phone. Mr. From Watermark speeches that Bodnick is responsible for "the accounting, the bookkeeping, and the general fiduciary management of this casino. Correct?" Oh, man. I once played a game called "what's the most boring word you can think of," and "fiduciary" was my entry. Not for how it sounds; it's actually kind of fun to say. But for what it means. I really…wait, what does it mean? Mr. From Watermark paces and speeches and speeches and paces, Bodnick being told that his books are "very poorly doctored." Laundering. Apparent to "anyone with a GED and an abacus." But Mr. From Watermark, now sitting on a leopard couch at the far side of the office, claims that the amount of the missing money is of no consequence to him. His concern is the Fed. Mr. From Watermark explains that Watermark has a delicate relationship with the IRS, and asks Bodnick if he feels qualified to maintain that relationship. "No." "Correct." He tells him to rectify the situation by 7 PM, or "that sun will set on your life and career." Cut to Bodnick behind the wheel of his car, drinking liberally and telling a woman on the other end of a phone, "Hey, it's me. It's over. It's time to go." He's asked, "What about the money?" He tells us all, "It's in the safe in my house. I'm out of here today. I just have to clear up one thing." Cut to Mr. From Watermark, listening to this conversation in his car. He shakes his head and hits a button, and a computerized voice lets him know, "Audio intercept off."
Marcellus Wallace's back porch. Silas Bodnick, wearing the latest in DKNV cabana gear, dials a phone that rings in Prufrock's room. Split-screen. I think this is the scene where Jack tells Janet he heard Chrissie talking about the surprise party. Bodnick tells Jim he wants to talk, and asks him to come to the house. He asks how to get there, and Bodnick cryptically responds, "If you're any good, you already know." He loads a gun. Cut to Jim being awfully good, pulling through the front gates of Bodnick's resplendent estate. He's wandering around, finally finding Bodnick sitting in a corner of his living room, tapping his foot completely out of rhythm along to "Rambling Man." No, really. No. Really. Jim wants to get to it already (we know just a little bit how he feels at this late hour), asking, "Do you have something to tell me or do I have a report to file and charges to press?" Bodnick stands and waves him off, promising he'll tell him everything. "I want you to tell me something, first. There are three birds on a wire. One of them decides to flap his wings and fly away. How many birds are there?" Oh, I hate these. Hate them hate them hate them. They're always so patronizing and insulting and there are twelve birds because that's how many trips the raft needs across the river and, in reality, the doctor was actually the kid's mother. Shut up, logic problems. Jim guesses that the correct answer is "two," and he's wrong, because the doctor was actually the kid's mother, people. Pay attention. Bodnick responds the way one does when they give the answer to one of those asinine riddles (that is, by laughing in the face of he who did not know that the doctor was the kid's mother), and corrects him: "There's three. Just because somebody decides to do something doesn't mean that they do it." Shut up, readings from The Tao of Ben. But Bodnick doesn't mind telling him that he's gonna fly, and when Jim threatens to leave with the truism that Bodnick is wasting his time, Bodnick stops him once more: "Notice anything unusual about this place? It's hotter than it looks…this heat could kill a man in four hours." Jim already knew that. "Hotter than it looks, and you still didn't go home." Jim turns: "I'll see you in court, Mr. Bodnick." Or will he? Bodnick brandishes the gun at Prufrock's midsection, but this lasts only as long as it takes for a man in a strange mask to run through a sliding glass door behind Bodnick and stab him in the stomach. Is Polito dead? Bummer. Masked Man wipes the knife, picks the gun up off the floor, pours gasoline all around the room, lights it against a red carpet like the promos promised he would, and speaks the single line, "Get the hell outta Push, Jim Prufrock." The house is very on fire. Jim's car peels out the front gate and back onto the open highway. He's damn near out of fuel, so he stops at a gas station with a TV mounted on the pump playing Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Oh. I didn't know this show was set twelve million years ago. Oh. And we get it.
Jim drives past a sign heralding his exit from Push, just as a this-is-your-life-if-your-life-is-Jim-Prufrock's audio montage begins to play in his brain. It's Bodnick. Then Ira. Then Taudrey. Guy in Mask. All strongly advising him to go go go. He pauses. He turns the car around. He's going to stay stay stay.