By Aaron
So who else remembers those halcyon days of yore, when summer was a season that meant more than just changing the clocks? You'd be sitting in a classroom somewhere, a freshly signed yearbook in one hand and a frosty Tab in the other, just waiting for that one final bell to ring in three long months of sweet, magical freedom. As a warning to some of the younger kids in the crowd, once you pick up that final diploma, summer switches from sweet to sweat and from magic to mosquitoes and mowers, and it suddenly becomes just another ninety days you've got to drag your tired ass out of bed and go to work. Only it's hotter. There's no snow, though. Anyway, what do I get this year? One week, people. One lousy, frigging week. And how did I spend this summer vacation? I moved. Yep, that's right. My one Sunday off, and I spent it in a U-Haul. Woo. Hoo. So now here I sit, wedged between a stack of boxes on one side and my disassembled entertainment center on the other -- with no phone, no internet, and no cable, no less -- recapping this episode on a borrowed tape in a barely connected VCR. Eddie Cochran don't lie, folks. There really ain't no cure for the summertime blues.
All this is by way of saying (a) Sorry the recap is so late, and (b) I may be in a slightly snarkier mood than normal this week. Truth be told, I kinda dig the show. If they let someone besides Ball direct (and no, Kathy Bates doesn't count), it's actually got a lot of potential. So, if I may be permitted to quote Demian out of context, "All these quotes taken out of context make me look like a total bitch. Oh, wait. I am." Amen, brother.
Previously on Six Feet Under: ha! There are no "previously"s. I can't believe you people fell for that. There are, however, the longest. Credits. Ever. In fact, they may still be playing in a few western time zones. And just getting started again in the east. Alan Ball's tombstone listing was sort of amusing, but I'd already gone out and seen Pearl Harbor twice by the time it came up, so I wasn't really in the mood to laugh. Also, what's up with the guy's rose fetish? At this point, I was seriously worried about having to spend the thirteen weeks with this show, because there's nothing I hate more than a writer who keeps recycling the same old tired literary devices from one project to the .
Alan Ball: And you never called security on any of these freaks?
David Chase: Yeah, you try getting those idiots out of the Real Sex studios. It ain't easy. Plus, Arli$$ attracts way more nutjobs than we do.
Alan Ball: Yeah, but quoting TV shows? That's just lame.
David Chase: Well, you know, you start out with nothing, and you're proud that you're a self-made man. But then all the celebs come calling, slap you on the back, and say, "Please me." Meanwhile, I've got clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...
Alan Ball: And here I am, stuck on pay cable with you.
David Chase: Don't worry. It's not as bad as you'd think.
Alan Ball: Yeah, but quoting TV shows? That's just lame.
David Chase: Well, you know, you start out with nothing, and you're proud that you're a self-made man. But then all the celebs come calling, slap you on the back, and say, "Please me." Meanwhile, I've got clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...
Alan Ball: And here I am, stuck on pay cable with you.
David Chase: Don't worry. It's not as bad as you'd think.
I should probably say something about the show at some point, huh? Well, okay, then. The series kicks off with a faux commercial for something "sleek, sophisticated, [and] seductive." No, it's not the steel drum. Surprisingly, it's not even me. Instead it's a hearse, and a Cadillac to boot. With the ad out of the way, we pan down to an identical hearse, cruising the streets of southern California to the tune of "I'll Be Home For Christmas." And I thought the clocks on our server were bad. ["Hey! Not anymore." -- Wing Chun] HBO is apparently stuck in a permanent six-month time warp. Maybe that explains why Samantha thinks she can get by saying her box is thirty-five to forty-four. The hearse is being driven by one Nathaniel Fisher Sr., proud patriarch of our crazy little clan. Nate Sr. is played by Richard Jenkins, and because I love this guy, I can't believe Alan Ball passed up on the chance to reference his turn in Flirting With Disaster by casting him as the gay cop. Although since I just referenced it for him, I guess that's okay. For now, Nathaniel answers his cell phone, helpfully provides the audience with his name, and begins chatting with the wife. It's established that their son is coming home to visit, and that he's apparently a little bit flaky, because he drinks "soy stuff" instead of milk. She busts on Dad for smoking, warning that "[he'll] give [himself] cancer and die a slow, horrible death." Meanwhile, David (Son #2) sits calmly at the kitchen table while Mom goes off on a long rant to the effect that she can't tell his father anything. It goes on so long that I thought she'd hung up the phone, but then we cut back to Dad, promising to quit and saying goodbye. The call completed, he bends down to pick up a fresh cigarette and drives straight into a very nicely executed crash shot of the hearse being broadsided by a bus (believe it or not, pun actually not intended). The Ironic Musical Detachment Fairy cues up the melancholy "if only in my dreams" line from "I'll Be Home For Christmas."
We cut back to the Fisher home, where Mom ominously slices open a finger while chopping vegetables. David pipes up from the table that the "new hearse was a total waste of money." Presumably, the pun on "totaled" was intended. Mom, who is still washing the blood from her finger, feels that Dad must be going through a mid-life crisis of some sort. Foreshadowing and his twin brother Foreshadowing For The Other Character hand Mrs. Fisher a band-aid and start munching on her carrot sticks while she tells David that she'd "much rather [Dad] buy a fancy new hearse than leave [her] for a younger woman. Or heaven forbid, a man." David seems to sense that she's upset, and stands up to ask if he can help with anything. She smiles, and sends him off to work with a kiss.
Over at LAX, Peter "Yummy Rectangle Head" Krause (tm Daniel & the old Other TV Talk thread) is following Rachel Griffiths off an airplane. He works the charm pretty hard, giving her his cell phone number and claiming to have immensely enjoyed "talking to [her] about that Shiatsu thing." When he can't find his dad, Rachel offers to give him a ride. Peter: "I'm sure he'll be here soon enough." Rachel: "Not that kind of ride." Okay, that was like the cheesiest pick-up line ever. I mean, yeah, it's gonna work for her pretty much every time, but still. Also, a big non-cheesy shout-out to my friend Rachael, as it's her borrowed tape that now resides in my barely connected VCR.
Back at the funeral home, guests are arriving for a viewing. David stands watch over the body of an elderly woman dressed all in pink. Now, as some of you may know, I adhere to a strict policy of using only purely objective ranking formulae to assign letter grades to the episodes I recap. This is primarily accomplished by counting the number of seconds from the end of the opening credits to the appearance of the show's signature feature. In this case, our Start-to-Corpse was 251. Ordinarily, that would transfer into a pretty decent "A" grade (lower scores are better), but unfortunately my computer appears to be afflicted with Intel's famed floating point bug, so I'm not sure if it will be able to process the infinitesimally small fractions of time that will likely be required to make StC a reliable indicator of episode quality. An elderly HITG! standing beside David compliments him on the appearance of the body, and then offers, "If there's any justice in the world, she's shoveling shit in Hell." Oh, Alan, Alan, Alan...have you learned nothing from David E. Kelley? Old people swearing are never, ever as funny as you'd expect them to be. Oh -- also fat people are evil. Or maybe it was Uncle Bob who said that. Whatever. Anyway, David's cell phone rings, and Michael C. Hall disentangles himself by delivering the best line reading of "excuse me" ever.
And now we meet the final Fisher. It's young Claire, cruising along in her lime-green hearse. She asks whether Nate Jr. has arrived yet, and then snots that she'd rather be going to a party than participating in "the whole forced Christmas Eve family thing." David reminds her that it's one of the few times a year everyone is together, and she finally consents to make an appearance.
Cut to a janitor's closet at LAX, where Rachel and Peter "Trapezoid Butt" Krause are going at it. Now that's what I call a dating plan.
Dissolve to the Fisher home, where Mom is pulling a pot roast from the oven. You know, whoever is responsible for my job assignments here at MBTV certainly seems to have a sick sense of humor. I've somehow gone from being the Mighty Big Religious Freaks In The Desert Recapper to the Mighty Big Recapper Of Shows Airing Sunday Night On HBO That Repeatedly Equate Sex With Free Meat. Apparently, I won't be stopped until I've narrowed my demographic to infinity. Pontoon is still with me though, right? Mom answers the ringing phone, and upon hearing the news of Dad's death, flings the offending device into the cleverly placed low-angle camera. Then she starts shrieking and sweeps the Metaphoric Meat Of Sex And Death right off the stove and onto the floor.
Downstairs in the viewing room, they can all hear the meat flying about above, and I'm forced to reverse myself and declare David's delivery here the best "excuse me" ever. He runs upstairs to find Mom curled up on the floor. She tells him, "Your father is dead. Your father is dead and my pot roast is ruined." David just stares in disbelief.
We cut right into a close-up of the previously mentioned Trapezoid Butt. Rachel wonders whether Peter knows that he "carries around a lot of tension in his lower back." I wonder how a man with so much hair above his waist can have such silky smooth legs. That just doesn't seem right, somehow. There's more kissing, and then some nipple licking (his -- and with the hair, eww), and eventually they both claim to have never done this sort of thing before. Peter asks her name, but she's reluctant to tell. Before things can get too serious, his cell phone rings, and Alan Ball busts open his Big Bag O' Freaky Locked Focus Shots as David relays the bad news.
Cut to the most disgusting shot of the night, which surprisingly has nothing to do with a dead body. It's actually an old, greasy pizza, adorned with crushed cigarettes and what would appear to be maggots. It's the party Claire wanted to attend, and her boyfriend is offering up a glass pipe from which she may smoke. "Promise me this isn't crack," she says, "because I have to spend tonight having Christmas dinner with my demented family and it's going to be weird enough without being high on crack." He swears it's "just" crystal meth, which I guess makes it okay somehow. "It makes everything burn a little brighter," he continues. "Plus, it makes sex, like, totally primal." Okay, I'll reverse myself yet again and declare that the cheesiest pick-up line ever. Claire somewhat reluctantly takes the pipe and smokes up, and just then her cell phone rings. David is once again the bearer of bad tidings, but Alan simply holds a silent close-up on Claire as her lip begins to quiver. She returns to her friends, telling them her father was killed and that she has to leave. "I've got to go pick up my mom and bring her to the morgue so she can identify his body." The friends all snicker, forcing Claire to explain, "I'm not kidding. This is actually happening. And now I'm high on crack! So I guess this whole hellish experience I'm about to go through is just going to burn a little brighter now, right? Great. Thank you." She swears some more and storms out of the room.
Well, at least it looks like Peter finally got the ride he was really looking for. Rachel is bringing him to the morgue because he's "in no shape to drive," and also because she wants to avoid her family's "annual Christmas Eve massacre." She reads off her list of familial woes, which includes bickering parents, a manic-depressive brother, and an incontinent springer-spaniel. Peter gives the bullet on his family members, neatly tying up all our exposition to date: Mom and David are control freaks and Claire is wild. Got it? Good. He rails against the unfairness that his father -- who never had so much as a speeding ticket -- should die in a car accident. "Are you mad at him, or the fact that we're all going to die?" probes Brenda, causing Peter to wonder whether she's a psychiatrist. She emphatically denies that notion, stating, "No. God no. Both my parents were." Despite the obvious age issue, and for no other reason than the fact that it amuses me greatly, I like to pretend that Richard and Dr. Melfi are her parents. We never actually see them, so it kind of works. Plus, those two even already have the at-least-manic-and- quite-possibly-depressive son. In a perhaps fortunate bid to change the subject, she asks, "So what else do you want to talk about? The weather, or the fact that we both just fucked a perfect stranger, and that we both lied when we said we never did that?"
Viewing room. David stands and greets various guests, all of whom seem to be congratulating him for putting on a good show. I'm just going to be up front and honest here, and admit that in much the same way that my lack of knowledge of New Jersey may have hindered my Sopranos recaps, my lack of a foundation in funeral etiquette may pose a problem here. See, Jewish funerals are always closed-casket, take place within twenty-four hours of death, and are usually over in about fifteen minutes. It's all very quick and (again, pardon the unfortunate pun) bloodless, and most of the mourning takes place afterward back at the home. I've never been to a non-Jewish funeral, so I'm left to wonder whether the scenes on this show are really indicative of how the other half dies. Jessica Mitford, here I come. And also here comes that hoary old standby shorthand for "everyone look and see how tightly wound this character is": the fake-scream take. David lets out a yelp, and then we cut right back to him with the bereaved as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, in the Lean Green Corpse Machine, Claire is driving Mom to the morgue. Mom tries to make small talk, but Claire can't handle it and complains, "You're kind of freaking me out right now." Lauren Ambrose, by the way, does a great job of playing a girl on the worst trip ever. Mom pauses for a minute, and then because it's Alan's world and we're just watching it, she takes this opportunity to ask the questions that you just know her daughter doesn't want to hear right now: "Claire, are you having sex? Are you doing drugs?" "Why are you asking me this right now?" wonders a guilty-looking Claire, and Mom says it's because she can't remember the last time they talked about anything important. "I need to know you're okay," she finishes, but Claire fails miserably in her stammered attempts to say that she is.
Cut back to David, still at a funeral. A girl I don't care about enough to actually look up her name (but whom I do remember from when she was on Working with Fred Savage ["It's Dina Spybey. She was in the U.S. Men Behaving Badly and SubUrbia; Arden Myrin is probably the one you're thinking of, from Working." -- Wing Chun]) comes over and starts bantering with him about all the various funerals she's attended. Here, Alan Ball somehow manages to wring laughs from the phrase "pediatric leukemia." As the this girl babbles and flirts, her voice is over-dubbed with her saying, "Now that your father is dead, you can forget about ever going to law school. It's just you, and dead people, and freaks like me for the rest of your life." David lets out another scream, which this time turns out to be real, and I'll give Alan Ball half his points back for stepping on the fake-scream take I had cracked on a few paragraphs back.
At the morgue, Peter and Rachel have just arrived. Peter goes straight to hug his mother, but when it comes time to introduce his new friend, he doesn't even know her name. "Brenda Chenoweth," she says helpfully, and we get introductions all around. Claire needs to talk to Peter, like, right away, but first he asks whether Mom has already identified the body. She tells him that he needs to do it, because she sees too much death at work, and doesn't want to think of her husband that way. She can barely finish her sentence before Claire grabs Peter and drags him away, leaving Mom alone with Brenda. "So, how did you and my son meet?" she inquires. Brenda wisely replies, "In cooking class" (especially since she could have said "playing racquetball"), and I don't know what kind of accent she was going for there, but whatever it was, she didn't quite make it.
Around the corner, Claire throws Peter up against the wall and confesses that she's high and completely freaking out. Peter, however, isn't feeling all that sympathetic. "Look, I have to go identify our dead father's body," he shouts. "I'm sorry you're having a bad drug experience, but deal with it."
An Asian orderly leads Peter back into the morgue itself, and slides a body out of the freezer for an ID. As Nate Jr. stares at the body, the orderly is replaced by the Late Nate Sr., who has a few parting thoughts to share with his son: "Well, well, the prodigal returns. This is what you've been running away from your whole life, buddy boy. Scared the crap out of you when you were a kid, didn't it? And you thought you'd escaped. Well, guess what? Nobody escapes." In addition to the obvious meta-commentary on both Krause's homecoming and death itself, that's also a fairly apt description of my thoughts right now about taking on another thirteen straight weeks of Sundays With HBO. It's not easy being the hardest-working recapper in showbiz. Or at least the hardest-working recapper not named Nicole, Kim, Djb, Sars, Wing Chun, Pamie, or Jessica. Okay, so I guess when you look at it that way, I really shouldn't be complaining. Hell, even Glark has to work harder than I do. Incidentally, here's where special guest editor Wing Chun makes fun of her husband: ["If you do it in your pyjamas, is it still considered 'work'?" -- Wing Chun] Nate Jr.is finally jolted back to reality by the reappearance of the orderly, and he takes one last long look at his father before making a positive ID.
When Nate returns to the hallway, Mom is concerned about the appearance of the corpse, and how much "reconstruction" might be required. "David's not that skilled at the really hard stuff," she worries, and then goes on to ask, "You don't think we'll have to have a closed casket, do you? I would hate to send that message...That we're not equipped to handle a major restoration, or that we're not proud of our work." Brenda uncomfortably watches all this, and finally Claire jumps in to hustle Mom out to the car. The two lovebirds watch them go, and then chat for a minute about how cowardly they both are. "I don't know if I can handle this," sighs Nate. Brenda reaches out to stoke his stubble as if mesmerized by its alluring thatch. "Well, you're about to find out," she tells him. She adds, "I wish you the best, Nate," and then slowly walks away.
In the Corpse Machine, Claire is driving the family back home. Nate, obviously concerned about her driving skills at the moment, suggests slowing down. I guess he really has been away from his family for a while. Anyone with a little sister of his own knows that's only going to make her do one thing: speed up. Nate yells out, "Pull over!" and this time she listens. As they walk around back to switch sides, he tries to stage a little intervention, but Claire isn't having it. "You're not my father," she snots. "You split as soon as you could. You don't even know me. So don't think you can start telling me what to do." So, just to be sure, everyone's up to speed on all this, right? Remember: Mom and David are control freaks, Claire is wild, and Nate's the flake that got away. If you're confused, don't be afraid to ask questions. I'd hate to think anyone was getting lost.
Back home, David sits on the front stairs, anxiously awaiting the family's arrival. When he hears the door, he quickly stands and assumes his funeral pose: standing straight, jacket buttoned, hands clasped in front of him. As soon as everyone enters, David asks whether they brought Dad's body back with them. Mom apologizes, saying that she completely forgot, and that it was "very stupid of [her]." When she trudges off to her room, Nate starts in on his brother: "Nice going, Dave. Like she doesn't have enough to feel bad about?" "Things have to be done," replies David, whipping out his cell phone. "Every second we wait will only make Dad's restoration more difficult. But you wouldn't know about that, would you, Bag Boy?" Nate is obviously indignant at the occupational insult, and insists that he's the Assistant Manager of blah blah something that basically means bag boy. Claire storms past, cracking on their macho antics, and Nate sets up the joke you just know Ball feels cleverest about: "What were we supposed to do? Throw him in the back of Claire's car?" he inquires, thus allowing David to respond, "Well, it is a hearse!"
Upstairs, Mom brings Claire some dinner, but she's apparently not interested in eating. "We have to eat, Claire," declares Mom. "We didn't die." She leaves the food and stomps out, slamming the door behind her.
Cut to the Asian orderly, once again sliding the body from the freezer. He and David load it onto a gurney.
As Dave gathers his strength for the task ahead, we fade to the second commercial of the evening. This one is for an embalming fluid that promises to deliver "a body that's firm yet flexible," and "the velvety appearance of actual living tissue." It's worth noting that David's commercial is the only one to feature an attractive, scantily clad (albeit presumably dead) man lounging about on a leather recliner.
We go from commercial to flashback, as young Nate Jr. descends the steps into his basement and a haze of bad Blair Witch cinematography. We see quick cuts of a corpse being drained and prepared for burial as Nate slowly sneaks into his father's workroom. When Dad -- who's wearing shorts, black socks, and a heavy apron -- spots his boy, he eagerly welcomes him into the room and delivers a nice little paternal speech explaining his job. Little David makes an appearance as well, and there's more surreal, 7th Heaven On The River Styx-style family fun. Dad leans over the body, offers Nate a pair of neon blue surgical gloves, and says, "You can touch him if you wear one of these. He won't care. Go ahead." Dad's ashtray, by the way, is balanced precariously on the corpse's crossed arms.
Cut to the present, as a grown-up Nate watches their corpse-restoration specialist Federico working on his father's body. Upon seeing Nate, Federico hammers a figurative final nail into the coffin of the whole "wassup!" frenzy before remembering to express his condolences. David enters as well, and thanks Federico for coming in on Christmas Eve to do the work. "It's the least I could for Mr. F.," says the other Mr. F., suturing a wound in his former boss's chest. "I was gonna be up all night anyway, putting together all this useless shit Santa Claus is bringing my kid." David tells him to watch the language (which fans of The Sopranos may have noticed I've largely been doing as well), and asks why Nate is there. Before he can get an answer, David's cell phone rings, and a big, black guy with a gun tells him not to eat too much dinner, because he's making something "totally decadent and fatty for dessert." David quickly hustles out into the hallway (only for want of a nearby closet, one would suppose), and confesses he has to cancel their plans for the evening. When Keith (the big, black guy) learns the reason, he quickly offers to help in any way he can, but David just says he has to go.
Back in the basement, Federico is exuberantly showing off some of his finer restorations. He's even got a little wall of fame set up in one corner, with before and after Polaroids of the deceased. It's a picture of his young son, however, that he deems "his best work." He reveals that the wife is pregnant with #2, and he and Nate take a moment to celebrate. David comes back to interrupt their moment of levity, and indulges his more anal tendencies by reminding Federico to "keep an eye on those chemicals. We don't want him to burn." Sadly, the "anal" pun was intended, though no less unfortunate.
Upstairs, Claire is spreading glue on her fingers and peeling it off. Surprisingly, she doesn't seem to sniff. Nate comes by and tries to strike up a conversation, but Claire's bad mood gets the better of her and she drives him away. He heads to the kitchen, where he comes across a grocery list with his "soy stuff" on it. Claire appears behind him, looking apologetic, and he invites her to go to the store with him.
Once there, Claire chugs iced tea right out of the bottle, and Brenda calls for a quick chat on Nate's cell phone. He admits that he's happy to hear from her, because she has some sort of a "calming effect" on him. They banter about psychobabble, and he proceeds to deliver a quick expert analysis of her, which basically boils down to the fact the she's rebelling against her parents. She then turns the tables on him and asserts that "coasting by on [his] looks and charm isn't working like it used to, but [he] has no idea what else to do because [he's] never had to learn." And if the posts in the forums are any indication, he never will. I don't think I've ever seen so many women going nuts over a guy. Of course, I've also never seen so many guys going nuts over a guy as there are in the Michael C. Hall thread, so I guess it all balances out in the end. I just hope no one tries to start one of those bizarro Survivor games like the one in theDawson'sforum, or things could get ugly. Speaking of ugly, I would have suggested someone pulling a Skupin on young Leery, but we all know how hard grease fires can be to put out, so maybe that's not the best idea. Brenda hangs up on him in anger, and Claire immediately comes over and asks to go home so she can take a shower. "Jesus Christ! Am I not allowed to have even a single moment to myself?" Krause exclaims, which causes Claire to snap and smash a cantaloupe to the ground. Nate once again tries to comfort her, but when a passing sales clerk mentions that she'll have to pay for the fruit, she flips out yet again.
Commercial. It's for a "wound filler" that's "faster setting" and "self-sealing." This time we go from commercial to dream sequence, as Nate lies in bed and imagines getting hit by a bus. Downstairs, Claire is at the breakfast table reminiscing to Mom about a stuffed dog she used to have that ended up on the roof. Dad refused to get it down for her because he felt that if she really wanted it, she never would have thrown it up there in the first place. "You father did so many wonderful things for you, and that's all you can think of right now?" asks Mom. Just as Nate enters and takes a seat at the table, Mom has an outburst of her own, throwing down her dish towel and screaming that "[their] father was a good man!" She runs off crying, which prompts Nate to run off to go running.
In the basement, David is using the previously advertised wound filler to repair the damage to his father's face. The Late Nate Sr. leans over his shoulder to feed on his other son's insecurities as well. "Oh no, you're doing me? You're the worst one we've got." "I need to stay busy right now," replies David, but Dad advises him to "go reorganize some files or come up with a new bookkeeping system. That's what you're good at. You never really had any aptitude for this stuff." David agrees that he really doesn't, which leads him to wonder why he chose to dedicate his life to something he's not very good at. "Other kids my age were going to frat parties," he sighs wistfully, "and I was draining corpses and fashioning severed ears out of wax." Dude, I've been to a few frat parties, and that's pretty much what they're like. "I did it all for you," says David as Federico enters to find him talking to a corpse. "I did it to make you happy, you ungrateful son of a bitch." Federico clears his throat, and an embarrassed David shuts up and gets back to work on the body.
Cut to Krause jogging through a cemetery, and Alan Ball re-uses every last one of the directorial tips and techniques he picked up hanging out on the American Beauty set. As he stops to catch his breath on a street corner, Nate looks up to see an approaching city bus. Calmly stepping out in front of it, he awaits the inevitable impact, and ends up splattered all over the pavement. The driver quickly jumps out of the now stopped bus, and we see Nate lying on the street, with a superfluous seepage of blood coming from the back of his head. Cut from superfluous seepage to needless nudity, as Nate dreams he's gone into the light and found his father playing strip poker with a handful of excessively ugly extras. A quick cut back to the corner establishes that this was all yet another dream.
David Chase: Look at you getting all freaky with the commercials and the dream sequences and stuff. How delightfully meta of you.
Alan Ball: I know. I'm clever. I can't help it.
David Chase: Clearly.
Alan Ball: Quit it. I mean, it's not like I've got a singing fish up there.
David Chase: Yeah, we don't like to talk about that one.
Now it's finally time for the funeral. We pan up a rose-covered casket to see Nate Sr. laid out. All things considered, he looks pretty good. David stands in his usual place by the coffin, while Nate Jr. and Claire sit on a couch, chatting about how weird the whole funeral experience has been. He also asks if she's still high, and she threatens to "jump out of her skin." "It's been three days," she whines, "and I'm still trapped in zombie world." "This is all happening to you," he gripes in a very Casey McCall tone of voice. He then goes on to do a little venting of his own: "I live in a shitty apartment that was supposed to be temporary. I work at a job that was also supposed to be temporary until I figured out what I really wanted to do with my life, which apparently is nothing. I have lots of sex, but I haven't had a relationship last more than a couple of months. I don't even have the self-discipline to floss daily. I've had four root canals. Four. I'm thirty-five. I've had four root canals." Well, all-righty then. On the one hand, this does make me feel better about just having moved to a very non-temporary place, but on the other, I'm twenty-seven and I've already had two root canals, so the numbers don't look good. Claire tries to cheer him up, but they're interrupted by a woman who tells them she's sure their father "is in a much better place." "You are so right about that," snarks Krause, before asking, "Who the hell was that?"
Up in her bedroom, Mom (her name is Ruth, by the way) is putting on her jewelry. It's now her turn for a quick visit from beyond, and The Late Nate appears in the mirror, solemnly telling her that he "knows everything."
Back downstairs, the "better place" lady is chatting with Federico, who proudly informs her that he was the one who sewed her Aunt Shirley's ear back on. On the other side of the room, David is surprised to see that Keith has arrived. Keith is a cop, by the way. He just stopped by to pay his respects to David's father, but Dave points out that he's never even met the man. "Exactly," replies Keith, "And you've met my parents how many times? Christ, we just spent the weekend at their house." David doesn't really think that this is the best time or place for that particular conversation, which angers Keith even more. "What is this?" he wonders. "We can fuck each other, but I can't be a shoulder to cry on? Am I just sex to you?" Given that what I know about the day-to-day realities of gay life barely manages to reach Will & Grace levels of superficiality, I'm probably not qualified to make this judgment, but I gotta believe David has good reason to be upset here. Whatever your feelings on closet cases, a father's funeral is not an appropriate place for an involuntary outing. Things get even worse for Dave when Mom arrives on the scene. Upon seeing a police officer, she asks if anything is wrong, and he's is forced to introduce Keith as a friend he plays racquetball with. "You're friends with a cop?" Mom asks incredulously, and then requests to see her husband's body.
After just a brief glance into the coffin, Ruth is overwhelmed with tears, and David quickly hustles her into a small curtained-off room. Over on the couch, Claire wonders who the cop is, and Nate grumbles that removing the crying people shows too much concern for the rest of the guests. He relates a long anecdote about the time he was in Sicily and saw a family of Italian women wailing over the casket of a loved one. The point he's trying to make is that letting out all your emotions is healthier, but I think it was really just an excuse to shoot a flashback without the stubble. Claire couldn't care either way; all she's noticed is that the cop is hot.
Nate joins David and Mom in the crying room, just in time to hear his mother tearfully confess that she's a whore. She was unfaithful to Dad for years, and now that he's in heaven he knows all about it. Both her kids are mortified, but Mom goes on to TMI all the gory details of the relationship, including the fact that she met the man at church, and that he was a hairdresser. She goes on to complain that she always loved the outdoors and wanted to take the boys camping, but Dad would never leave the business. "Well, I can tell you," she continues, "I went camping with this man from church several times." David can't bear the impropriety of it all, so he frantically tries shut her up. Nate, however, wants to let her continue, suggesting that they "fuck propriety," because Mom is grief-stricken. Clearly, the acorns haven't fallen far from the familial tree, because Mom control-freaks an admonition about swearing in the funeral home just like David did earlier.
In the viewing room, Claire comes over to chat up Keith by batting her eyelashes and asking whether he knew the deceased. When he learns that Nate Sr. was Claire's father, he immediately identifies her and introduces himself as a friend of her brother's. "Nate?" she asks, but when she learns it's actually David, it's suddenly time for Acorns II: Now With Extra Dawson Leery/Chipmunk Jokes as she repeats her mother's line of "David is friends with a cop?" Keith lamely serves up the racquetball story, and Claire continues to be amazed. "David plays racquetball?" David himself then appears, and jerks Keith away, delivering an effective but still not up to his standards version of "excuse us." He pulls Keith into a corner and finally unburdens himself: "You want me to cry on your shoulder? Fine. My mother just confessed she was having an affair. Yeah. With some hairdresser who likes to hike. And now fucking Nate is in there playing Mr. Sensitive in there while her dead husband lies in the room. It's disgusting." Keith gives him a nice "buck up, little camper" speech, although considering Mom's recent confession, that too was something of an unfortunate pun. David then explains his character once more to any remaining segments of the audience who may have suffered anvil-related brain damage while watching some of the network season finales. "I'll be the strong one, the stable one, the dependable one, because that's what I do. Everyone else around me will fall apart because that's what they do." David grouses that Mom met the guy at church, and Keith touches a finger to his chin and gently reminds him that they met at church as well. There's some touching and hair rubbing, and then David playfully shoves Keith away. Across the room, Claire sees all this and smiles as she realizes the obvious implications. Incidentally, who wants to make a side bet that Keith somehow ends up eventually busting Claire for drugs?
Mom has finally stopped crying, and Nate has joined her on the sofa. Resting against his shoulder, she continues trying to rationalize her infidelity. Just like you knew she would, she cranks up the uncomfortability meter by reminding Nate that she's "still a woman." Nate reluctantly tries to mollify her by offering all the usual explanations for this sort of thing, and telling her that "everybody forgives everyone for everything." As they hug one another, his cell phone rings, but he can't reach around to answer it without breaking the embrace. Cut to a frustrated Brenda, at home in a mostly stainless steel kitchen in which the word "Eat" is engraved in large capital letters above the refrigerator. After a few more rings, she hangs up, and starts munching on some olives. The manic-depressive brother appears and for the record, yes, he is the guy who played Elton in Clueless. His acting hasn't gotten any better since then either, as he just sort of shuffles around and sobs when he can't find the olives. To be honest, this whole little scene was just a little too weird for me. I have no idea what that was supposed to be about.
David Chase: Hey, you know what would make this show better?
Alan Ball: I am so not even going to ask.
David Chase: Why not? You know I'm just looking out for your best interests. After all, I do have some experience here. For example, do you realize you haven't even had any female nudity yet? I mean, have you learned nothing from Dream On?
Alan Ball: Yeah, okay, whatever you say there, Mr. Never-Even-Won-An-Emmy. I'll be sure to consider your advice time I'm home CLEANING MY OSCARS!
David Chase: Dude, you don't have to act tough just because it's your first day. This ain't Oz, you know.
Time for the final commercial. Up until now, I've kind of liked them, but this one went too far over the top for my tastes. It's a parody of the Gap dancers, and they're selling the salt shaker-style dirt dispenser that will be playing a prominent role in the plot in just a few moments. The ad does, however, afford Alan Ball the opportunity to finally bust out the inevitable "putting the fun into funerals" joke that's hung Damocles-like over the entire episode so far. And while we're on the subject, I'll skip waiting for the Late Nate Sr.'s appearance, and just throw out a whispered "they see dead people" right now. I think we'll all sleep better at night with that out of the way. Well, I won't, because it's 4 AM right now, but you get the idea.
Fade up on the cemetery, with a graveside service being performed by the worst. Priest. Ever. For some reason, I'm reminded of the freak-show funeral from the X-Files episode "Humbug," but upon closer inspection, it appears that this particular priest does, in fact, still have both his arms. ["This is so off-topic, but that no-arms priest from 'Humbug' is Alvin Law. He's from Yorkton, Saskatchewan, very near my home town of Regina, and once ran (unsuccessfully) for a seat in the provincial government." -- Wing Chun] As the casket is lowered hydraulically into the grave, we pan over to see The Late Nate himself, decked out in a Hawaiian shirt and sipping a frosty beverage. He's perched on the roof of a limo, watching from afar. When the priest uses the salt shaker to sprinkle dirt on the casket, Nate snarks that "it looks like he's salting popcorn." Each of the family members takes a turn with the shaker, but when it gets to Nate, he refuses to do it. Instead, he grabs a handful of dirt from a nearby pile and contemplates it for a moment. Perhaps realizing that this is not really the best time for Nate to be taking up gardening, David comes over get things back on track. Nate jumps up and delivers a stirring defense of the cathartic benefits of expressing true grief in the face of rigid traditionalism. Rounding up to his big finish, he slams his handful of dirt into the grave and exclaims, "I intend to honor the old bastard by letting the whole world see just how fucked up and shitty I feel that he's dead. Goddammit!" "Amen," adds The Crappy Priest With All His Limbs Intact, but Ruth has other ideas. She heads to the dirt pile herself, and starts throwing clump after clump. When David tries to go to her, Nate stops him, insisting that he let her get it all out. She throws in even a few double handfuls before collapsing limply at the edge of the grave, barely even able to sob. Eventually, Nate helps her to her feet, and as he awkwardly supports her weight, The CPWAHLI goes on with the service.
Cut to Brenda, arriving in her powder-blue pickup. She walks past an applauding Late Nate, who's quite clearly enjoying his own funeral. Only Claire can, apparently, hear the sound of one Dad clapping, because she looks over and sees him atop his car.
Later, when the service is over, Nate escorts his mother away from the grave. David brings Federico over so that he can drive her back home, and I guess her dirt-throwing interlude really helped, because she now seems calm enough to be almost comatose. She grasps Federico's hands, babbling that they're delicate "like a statue, or an illustration in an antique book. Or one of those little ceramic hands they use to display gloves." After eliciting the evening's eighty-third deadpan response to a wacky, yet overly informative non sequitur, she at last allows herself to be led away, leaving the brothers together. David, worried that Nate is trying to become "the alpha dog," immediately starts marking his territory. "You want to get your hands dirty?" he asks. "You sanctimonious prick. Talk to me when you've had to stuff formaldehyde-soaked cotton up your father's ass so he doesn't leak." Okay, now that was just uncalled for. I need a minute to purge the mental image, and also to fight off the temptation to make the obvious Late Little Lord Shitpants joke. Nate is himself suitably skeeved by this bit of TMI, and David adds that he's confident Nate "would have just tossed [Dad] out with the garbage." Once the shouting subsides, David delivers his point/counterpoint response in favor of the traditions his brother has been trashing. Apparently, they make people feel more comfortable, and blah blah blah, but mostly it just serves to save them from embarrassment. Nate still doesn't think that people should hide their emotions, and strikes a nerve by adding that "it's nothing to be ashamed of." David swings back to a full-on, poor-me/self-righteous mode, and chews Nate out for abandoning his responsibility to the family. Peter Krause finally gets to deliver the big line from all the promos, yelling, "Don't blame me if you're not living the life you wanted. That's nobody's fault but your own." "Just do me a favor, okay?" asks David. "You got out. Stay out."
As David stalks away, he's approached by an impressively coiffed blond guy who tries to convince him to sell the funeral home to some big conglomerate. Now, I know they're just trying to set up their story arcs here, but we all know there's no way anyone would ever pull a stunt like that right at the funeral. I could see a call the day, but no one is sleazy enough to do business when they're still at the cemetery.
Meanwhile Claire is sharing a cigarette and a smile with her dad. Incidentally, I get the feeling this show is going to be very difficult to put into paragraph form because the scenes are all thirty seconds long, and they keep cutting back and forth on one another. You'll just have to bear with me if things get a bit choppy. Anyway, Late Nate is thankful that he didn't have time to think about his death or even see it coming. He and Claire agree that death means no more bullshit, no more boredom, and no more waiting to die. It's interesting that out of all the family members, Claire is the only one who had a pleasant visit from the dearly departed. Everyone else had his or her worst fears played upon, but the youngest Fisher really seems to have found some peace from seeing her father this way.
In another part of The Immense Cemetery That Swallowed Southern California, Brenda finally finds Nate. They walk, and she once again justifies her visit with a joke about ditching her own relatives. For the fifty-millionth and (I hope) final time, Nate lists everyone's character quirks: "My father's dead, my mom's a whore, my brother wants to kill me, and my sister's smoking crack...Four days ago, I was a relatively happy guy. Now, it's like I don't even know who that guy was." If after that you're still confused on who's who, well, maybe you should just go back to watching UPN. You're gonna love Roswell. Brenda gives Nate her number, and suggests that they go on a real date and actually have dinner before she puts out. What is it about Peter Krause that has all the women wanting to make him wait? It can't be the stubble, can it? They flirt; Peter Krause slips back into Casey McCall mode and does a horrible job of it. Note to the lovelorn male readers of this site: calling yourself a serial rapist, even in jest, is never the way to woo the ladies. ["You are so right about that." -- Wing Chun]
Or the gentlemen, for that matter, as David has turned up, disheveled and shivering, on Keith's doorstep. Coming inside, he can't even speak, and just runs into Keith's arms. David just needs to feel something, so they kiss, and while the whole thing does have a bit of a gratuitous "It's not TV, it's HBO" feel about it, I'll still skip the requisite "but Kerr Smith is still a tool" joke out of respect for the vacationing Sars.
As David and Keith hold one another, we fade to white; instead of a commercial, we get a home-movie flashback of the Fisher family at play. Dad waters the lawn while the kids portentously crash their toy cars. Then they take to running through the water, and there's much laughing and romping as Dad sprays them with the hose. These idyllic family flashbacks stand in stark contrast to the somewhat mean-spirited Late Nate as we now know him, so I'm curious to see what happened in the intervening years. We won't see that this week, though, because Nate Jr. once again wakes up, bringing the flashback to an end.
Downstairs, Mom is already making breakfast. She immediately runs to hug Nate as soon as he enters the kitchen, saying, "Thank God you're here." He tells her that he's heading out for a run, and she asks whether he has to go back to Seattle right away. He says no, and that he'll have to make a few calls; he ends up agreeing to stay for "just a few days." Or, you know, for two years.
Cut to the Jogger-Cam. This time, instead of stepping in front of a bus, Nate simply spies his father sitting across the street at the bus stop, on a bench cleverly painted with an accident-insurance ad. Whatever your feelings on the faux commercials may be, at least the only product placements in this one were parodies. Dad hops onto a bus, and presses his fingers against the glass as the music swells. The bus, which has been cleverly painted with an ad that reads "A good night's sleep," pulls away from the curb. Nate is left to stand transfixed, staring at all the passing pedestrians, and then we finally fade to black as Peter Krause and his so-called shapely calves look lost and lonely on the sidewalk.
Alan Ball: Well, thanks for stopping by. And I might just take your advice on that whole female-nudity thing.
David Chase: Hey, do you think I could maybe come back and hang for a while? I've got, like, a whole year to kill.
Alan Ball: Absolutely. We need all the viewers we can get. Oh, wait. That's right. They already bought the second season. Screw the viewers, I'm taking a summer vacation.
David Chase: So is that a yes?
Alan Ball: Why not? Come on in.