Alan Ball: Listen, I want to apologize. I think we got off on the wrong foot.
Aaron: I'll say.
Alan Ball: I mean, everyone thought we were dead in the water, but it looks like the show's got some life in it after all, huh?
Aaron: Yeah. You're killing me with the puns over here.
Alan Ball: I know. I can't help it. I just keep coughin' 'em up. By the way, get it? "Coffin"?
Aaron: Oh, I get it. Get it out now, that is.
Alan Ball: And that's another thing. Why you always gotta be so mean?
Aaron: Hey, I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
Alan Ball: Ooh, good one. Is that from the Bible?
Aaron: Ja. Es ist von Deuteronomy.
Alan Ball: En fait, pas vraiment, mais je ne dirai pas.
Aaron: Hey, while we're chatting, do you think you could maybe put in a good word for me with Lauren? If she won't do the interview, you could at least get her to drop the restraining order.
Alan Ball: I doubt it. Those "Marry me, Lauren" billboards really creeped her out.
Aaron: Yeah, I know. But Gustave has interviewed the entire cast of Popular like seventeen million times. I'm getting a little inferiority complex over here.
Alan Ball: Gee, I wonder why.
Aaron: Hey!
Alan Ball: Don't look at me, buddy. I begged them to let Gustave recap this show. But nooooooo. You had to be all, "Look at me! It's my show! It's Sunday nights on HBO! I like to rhyme and repeat myself and make up phony conversations with people! Isn't that clever? Aren't I funny?"
Aaron: Don't make me send Kenny the Corpse over there.
Alan Ball: Shh. The show is about to start.
Reaching deep into his big bag of Visual Metaphors For Death, my new best friend Alan Ball fades up on curtains billowing against an open window. Of course, the de rigueur ironic twist is that it’s actually sunrise, rather than sunset. Pan over to what's really a quite quaint bedroom, where an elderly black man raises himself from the bed, griping about how cold it is. He closes the window, gripes some more, puts on a robe (StR = 43), gripes some more, and then tries to wake his slumbering wife. Gee, does sleep = death? I forget. I'll just mention up front that Gripey Guy is played by Bill Cobbs. I'd use one his movies as the de rigueur ironic nickname, but the guy has been in every movie ever made, so there were too many to choose from. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Although, if you actually bothered to read the threads I linked to above, you might be interested to know that his first film ever was The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. The theatrical version, even. Anyway, the wife is our latest La Femme Morte de la Semaine, and The Ironically White Title Card of Death ironically laments the passing of one Mildred "Hattie" Effinger Jones. I've decided that the SFU writing staff is almost, but not quite, as good as you guys at coming up with the names. But more on that later.
Meanwhile, over at Brenda's place, Nate's gnarly-haired rectangle head looms before us, reading his book about Brenda in the foreground, while Brenda herself prances around the kitchen behind him. She's babbling on about some annoying client with a lot of dogs, and it's a stream-of-consciousness rant that somehow ends with the line, "It's like being in a live sex-show for Asian businessmen and frat boys." You know, given her evident inability to self-censor, as well as her oft-demonstrated inclination to spark up the dutchies, perhaps I should be calling her Brenda the Blunt. Seeing that Nate is too engrossed in his book to be paying attention, she does what people on TV always do when they see someone isn’t paying attention, and starts spouting all sorts of wild tales. She adds to the sex-show story with a reference to ping-pong balls that I can't even bear to consider re-typing here, and then muses about how funny it would be if she "got some hedge clippers and cut off [his] dick." At this, Nate finally manages to muster up a "What?" and Brenda disgustedly tells him not to read "that shit" in front of her. "I'm at the part with the doll," he says, and suddenly we're watching grainy home-video footage of the young, but still blunt, über-genius being interviewed by an off-camera doctor. Young Brenda claims her doll is angry because the doctor raped her (the doll, not Brenda), and provides a dictionary-perfect definition of rape when asked if she knows what it means. Back in the present, Brenda remains blasé, but Nate thinks it's neato. "It's so cool," he enthuses. "You're obviously doing it to scare him into leaving you alone." Gee, does Brenda ever do that sort of thing? I forget. Anyway, she gives him some spoilers on what happens in the chapter, and then they pack up and head out to face the day. Incidentally, I have a doll too. His name is Timmy.
Formaldehyde Fortress. A nifty little twisting shot shows us Mommie Drearest, staring blankly at an empty pot while David walks into the kitchen behind her. After discovering that the director I mocked so mercilessly last week was Kathy Bates, I'm now forced to give credit where credit is due. I'll also say oops, sorry, Kathy. I loved you in The Late Shift. More importantly, I feared you in Misery, so, you know, please put down the sledgehammer. Anyway, David notices his mother's distraction, and plants a concerned kiss on her cheek as he heads downstairs to work.
Across town, Nate stops off at an auto-repair shop to pick up his car. He chats with the owner about The Late Nate, and is bewildered to learn that his dad talked about him a lot. Then he's shocked to hear Dad described as a "funny guy." When he pulls out his credit card, the owner tells him he doesn't have to pay, because The Late Nate buried the owner's brother in exchange for free oil changes. As the scene ends, Peter Krause runs through a mental list of synonyms for shocked and bewildered that he can attempt to emote before settling on what appears to be "flabbergasted." Back at the Fortress, Claire cruises through the kitchen on the way to school, shouting, "Have a nice day," to a still dazed Mommie Drearest as she passes. Only when the door slams shut does Ruth realize she's alone and snap out of her saucepan somnolence.
Das Sargzimmer im Fisherhaus. David is making arrangements with Bill Cobbs. Gripey Guy, as always, is griping. First he doesn't want to spring for a double plot in the cemetery, and then he demands that Hattie not be autopsied, embalmed, or otherwise altered before the viewing. David gently tries to explain the necessity of preparing the body. "After death, the body immediately begins to decompose. Much quicker than you might think. The skin begins to separate, there's quite an unpleasant odor…that's just the way it is, Mr. [Cobbs]." Bill finally relents and agrees to the embalming, but refuses to pay for it. Then he gripes some more. David rolls his eyes and offers to waive the fee. We then cut downstairs, and pan from Hattie's body on the table over to Nate, who is going through Dad's old ledgers in the back room. Looking up the garage owner's entry, he finds it marked with a red asterisk to the word "paid." He flips through the book until he finds another funeral with the asterisk, and we fade to white as he jots down the address.
Fade back up on St. Bartholomew's Church of Repressed Sexuality, as David is escorting his mother out of the building after services. They're almost immediately accosted by Tracy the Funeral Stalker, or as I've now taken to calling her, Our Lady of Perpetual Perkiness. She asks David if she'll ever get to meet his fiancée, and the presence of his mother forces David to admit that he's called the wedding off. He grabs OLoPP's arm and pulls her away from Mom, explaining that "it's really a sore subject for all of us." Before Ruth can be too puzzled by all this, Ed Begley Jr. arrives, and everyone's thoughts turn from puzzlement to puking. Well, not really, but as always, it's alliterative, so I'll let it slide. Last week's homework assignment has yielded a veritable bumper crop of stellar Begley nicknames, so I think we'll open the bidding with the also always alliterative Hiram the Hairdressing Ho (tm [again, as almost always] sorkinhead). He greets Ruth, and explains that he's been staying away from church because he thought they needed some space. He asks her out again, and when she says no, he wonders if she "hasn't punished [herself] enough." David rejoins them at this point, and after casually shaking Hiram the Hairdressing Ho's hand, he notes his mother's disturbed demeanor. Putting two and two together, he quickly infers just who Hiram might be. "Nice to finally meet you, son," says St. Elsewhore (tm Karabella), but David isn't having it. "Don't call me that," he growls, forcing Ruth to admonish him. David leaves to fetch the car, and Mom follows a moment later, after (believe it or not) telling Eddie that he looks good.
Suddenly, it's morning again at The Formaldehyde Fortress, and the ringing of the doorbell brings a still-sleepy Claire down the stairs. She opens the door to find Gripey Guy, who demands admission so that he can see his wife. "Look, sir, I'm sorry," she says, "but I don't deal with the dead people, so you'll just have to come back when my brothers are home." Heh. She tries to close the door on him, but he blocks it with his foot, shouting, "Bitch, I don't need your permission to see my wife." Hey! Back off, Billy! Nobody talks to Lauren that way. Changing tactics, he turns around to scream to the neighborhood that "there's a white girl trying to cripple an old black man." Claire finally relents and lets him in. Cut to the official Ticking Clock Shot That Signifies The Passing Of Time, and then Brenda enters through the front door and starts shouting, "Is anybody home?" Claire's voice calls to her from off-screen, and Brenda walks into the funeral room to find Claire and Gripey Guy sitting on a couch. He's asleep and drooling on her shoulder, and has one her hands locked in, well, a death-grip. Claire explains how they got there, and how he passed out and now she "can't get his fucking hand to let go." "Maybe he died," opines Brenda. "Very funny," replies Claire. "But he's still breathing. And farting." Heh. I love Lauren. [The three sentences have been deleted at the request of Lauren Ambrose's legal team.] Brenda gives Claire, well, a hand, and together they pry her loose from Mr. Cobbs. Brenda mentions that she's looking for Nate because she needs his help moving an antique chest, but when he's nowhere to be found, Claire promptly suggests using her own newfound freedom to help out. Brenda doesn't seem too excited by that idea, leaving Claire to wonder if she's "no good, because the whole cabinet moving thing is just foreplay for you to fuck my brother." Instead of being impressed that young Claire could be her equal in inappropriate sexual bluntness, Brenda slams her with, "No, I'm just not in to babysitting high-school girls. No offense."
Gripey Guy takes this opportunity to wake up and gripe about them trying to steal his watch, and Claire jumps up off the sofa in a huff. "Look, we've got to go move a chest," she snarks, drawing a sharp glance from Brenda. "Someone should be back soon to let you see your wife." Bill Cobbs, in a gravelly voice infused with the sage Wisdom of the Minorities found so frequently in this, our Alan Ball world, simply replies, "Little girl, you ain't fooling nobody." Nobody but me, that is. Claire goes off to change, and Brenda asks Bill if he'll be okay there alone. "Everybody is alone. You're born alone, you die alone, goddammit," he replies, and Brenda, at last impressed that she's found someone more metaphysical than she, joins him on the couch.
Cut to Nate, arriving at a nursery. For plants, not for kids. He spies the owner, and identifies himself as "Nate Fisher, Nathaniel's son." Now we cut to the owner's office, where she cries at the thought of "never seeing [The Late Nate] again. He was such a kook…I don't think anybody ever made me laugh like that." Nobody but me, that is. "He had such a sense of humor," she continues. "So I hear," is all Nate can reply. When she mentions that Dad was really proud of him, Nate is forced to admit that he's "Nate, not David." Potted Plant Lady knows this, and tells us all again how proud Dad was that Nate got away. He asks if she maybe had any kind of arrangement with his dad, and mentions that her entry in the ledgers at Fisher & Sons was marked with the asterisk. "Don't take this the wrong way," she replies, "but can I see some identification? A driver's license will do." I'm actually really glad she asked that, because I've been TiVoing the nine daily showings of Sports Night on Comedy Central lately, and Peter Krause is appearing especially Casey-ish in this scene. He hands over his license, and after checking it out, PPL hands over about an ounce of Humboldt County's finest. "My father never smoked pot," insists Nate. "Not in front of you, he didn't," answers Potted Plant Lady. By the way, do you get it now? Anyway, they've clearly exhausted Peter Krause's repertoire of "shocked" expressions, so they just cut to a close-up of the pot before ending the scene.
On a busy street corner, David is helping Father Jack unload a van full of lunches for the homeless. Father Jack asks after Ruth, and David replies, "She's fine, as far as I can tell. You know her, she likes to suffer in silence." Father Jack answers, "That seems to be a family trait." Oh, if only that were true. Suddenly, Tracy appears, and this time her introductory rant starts with a recipe for "energy bars," ends with a medical diagnosis of her pet corgi's hip, and features a sociological mediation on the poly-racial nature of Brazilian culture somewhere in the middle. David zones out as he listens to her, and doesn't snap out of it until the homeless guy he's handing a meal to says, "Fuck you, church freaks!" Tracy is still babbling, only now it's about how she hates cooking for just herself. "That's the worst part about being divorced. Well, that and the no regular sex." Suddenly, a giant sonic boom erupts as Irony streaks overhead in a B-52, carpet-bombing the neighborhood. Hey, look! The St. Elsewhore is riding one of the bombs down. Dr. Strangelove lands right beside David just as Tracy gets to "no regular sex," and asks if he can speak to David alone. David agrees, and Dr. Strangelove (also tm Karabella) begs him to talk to Ruth on his behalf. David gets angry, and wins my love by basically telling the Begster to go to hell.
Another location, another chance for Nate to be surprised by Dad's wacky pre-death doings. This time it's an Indian restaurant, where The Late Nate was renting the back room. The restaurant owner runs through the familiar spiel. His wife died, blah blah blah, The Late Nate took the room in trade, blee blee blee, no, he doesn't know what the guy did there. The room itself is pretty bare, with a worn couch, a folding table and chairs, and newspapers and magazines stacked in every corner. The owner leaves, and Nate looks around, finding an incomplete solitaire game and an extensive 60s-era record collection. He also finds an empty glass that's been smeared with lipstick, and also painted with a big sign that says, "I will be important in a future episode. Remember me." As the music swells and he stares around the room, we watch The Late Nate fade in and out of various poses. He's seen playing cards at the table, waving his lighter all "Freebird!"-style on the couch, dancing, hanging out with bikers, receiving just the latest example of this show's deeply held obsession with televised oral sex, and, in the single funniest shot of the entire season, gleefully firing a sniper rifle out the back window. Ha! Our final, pre-fade-to-white shot is of Dad, tenderly watching his son from the corner.
Over at the Formaldehyde Fortress, Ruth, if I may be permitted some Pittsburghese, is neatening up the front porch. She's interrupted by the arrival of Nikolai The Flower Guy, whom she thanks profusely for sticking with them in spite of Kroehner's pressure. Hey, remember that plotline? Yeah. That was, like, back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth or something. Nikolai uses his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her brow, and then compliments her thusly: "Such delicate skin. You have Russian color." His expression seems to suggest that he's attempting to mentally change her nickname from Mommie Drearest to Mommie Leerest, and Ruth gets all flustered and tells him to put the flowers inside.
Brenda's. She and Claire struggle to get the chest in place, and then Claire notices her copy of Charlotte: Light and Dark on the table. This, despite the fact that Nate can clearly be seen carrying it OUT of the house the last time he was there. Oops. Anyway, they chat about the book, with much eye-rolling and evasiveness from Brenda, and then Claire admits that her favorite part is when the little girl "stops speaking for a month and just barks at them." Cut to flashback footage of Young Brenda barking up a storm, and then, in the second-funniest shot of the entire season, shaking the doll back and forth in her mouth. Finally she spits it back out onto the table, and calmly growls once more. Claire tells Brenda she'd love to go to one of her school-mandated therapy sessions and just bark. I sometimes feel the same way about these recaps, especially for the really bad scenes. Irony scrawls a quick note on the script and passes it to Lauren, who asks, "So do you totally identify with this book too?" Enter Billy "Creepy Jesus" Chenoweth (tm fuzzbox), who quickly reveals what Brenda has been trying to cover up, answering, "Of course she does. It's about her...she's Charlotte." Claire starts freaking out, but Brenda gets pissed and stalks off to the kitchen for a beer. Claire can't believe what she's hearing. "God! It's like meeting Gandhi, or Jesus!" she exclaims, but technically, it was meeting Billy that was like meeting Jesus. Creepy Jesus, but Jesus nonetheless. "Have you been to the website?" asks Billy, "There's a fan club." Shout-out? Brenda replies, "Yeah. Those lonely little girls desperate for something to emulate because apparently they're not original enough to come up with something on their own." Well that's definitely not a shout-out. I may be a lonely little girl, but I'm nothing if not original. Well, except for that whole part where I make my living by writing about other people's work, that is. Brenda heads to the back for a minute, leaving Billy and Claire alone. He ascertains her identity, and then swoops in to flirt. "Do you surf?" he asks, giving Claire a sip of his beer. "Do I look like I surf?" she replies. Now Brenda returns, and upon seeing Billy putting on the moves, she offers to take Claire home. Billy quickly agrees to do it himself, and Claire makes it clear that she'd rather go with him. "I just have to shower first," he says, handing her the beer. As he leaves, he strips off his wet suit, and we watch Claire's eyes follow his butt off-screen. Brenda, on the other hand, just rolls hers.
Back at the eponymous room, Nate takes a long drag from a joint while The Late Nate pontificates about his life. Nate angrily interrogates his father. "What the hell is this place?…What the hell did you do here? Who are you?" "So many questions," replies Dad. "Why couldn't you ask them when I was STILL ALIVE?" After a nice music cue, Dad continues, "It's okay. I couldn't have answered most of them anyway. Unlike now. Now I'm a fucking prophet." And, as prophets often do, he claims to know the meaning of life. There's still more talk of how proud Dad was that Nate left town, including a mention of one of my favorite books of all time, Catch-22. If you read only one book this summer, make it the Fametracker one. But if you read two, try Catch-22. It's a major major major major good read. Nate asks Dad for the meaning of life, and The Late Nate leans in to whisper it in his ear. We don't hear what's said, which is fine, since any sensible person already knows that the meaning of life is forty-two. I mean, duh. Anyway, hearing the secret jerks Nate out of his dream, and we see him waking up alone in the room.
Fortress. Ruth is reorganizing the kitchen cabinets when she suddenly comes across a bottle of baby food. She presses it to her lips and bursts into tears.
Street corner. David and Tracy are packing up the tables from the lunch. "Oh, David," she says, "you make such a handsome deacon. All those old stiffs. Finally a dose of Viagra to the place. Oh, I don't mean that literally. Not like you'd need it." David tries brushing her off, but she asks about the fiancée. Having gotten busted before, he modifies the story to say that she broke his heart, and he's not interested in another relationship so soon. "Well, what if Cindy Crawford were to walk up to you and say, 'Just use me for sex'?" asks Tracy, and David claims (truthfully, I suppose) that he would say no. Tracy looks like she's about to cry. "Is it so wrong to want a little human contact? You're lonely too, I can tell." David harshes all over her moment by telling her off much more rudely than necessary. "Why don't you do us both a favor and go to a bar. Pick somebody up." Irony and Foreshadowing get into a vicious knife-fight in the background.
Cut to Billy's car, where he and Claire are macking a bit in the front seat. "I want to see you again," he says to her. "I want to be your own…personal…Creepy Jesus." Okay, not really on that last part. Claire agrees to see him again, but warns him, "I am not some skank for you to fuck…you do not want to mess with me." They kiss again, and my disgust at seeing another man (and such a creepy one at that) kissing my beloved Lauren forces me to recap the remainder of this scene thusly: Bark. Bark, bark bark bark. Bark bark bark, bark "bow-wow" bark, bark bark bark bark.
Now we see David in The White Van Of Overly Intrusive Dream Sequence. A throbbing techno beat plays as he watches two men walk in front of him, kissing and fondling one another for his benefit. The guy on the right looks suspiciously like Timothy Dalton, who must really be hurting for post-Bond work these days. Fade to white.
Fade back in on Gripey Guy, griping to Federico in the kid's contractually required scene-of-the-week. Mr. Cobbs claims that the corpse of his wife is in fact not his wife, but when Federico insists that it is, Bill quickly switches to wisdom mode. "We all die," says Federico. "Doesn't that piss you off?" asks Bill, and which Rico replies, as I would, "Not yet."
In The Room, Nate and Brenda come and go, talking of The Late Nate, you know. They're speculating on what Dad might have done in the room, and Nate is completely unsatisfied with Brenda Zen-style instructions to just not care. "Come on, don't you pick up on something? I thought things left marks in people and places and time," he asks. "What, you think I'm a witch?" wonders Brenda. Change one of the letters, and I could agree to that. Nate sags down into the chair and wonders about the mystery that was The Late Nate. "When I die," he sighs, "I don't want to be somebody who nobody knows who I was." "So don't be," she tells him. You know, it's precisely that attitude that's responsible for all the people in this world who are willing to debase themselves through appearances on Jerry Springer or Chains of Love or whatever, so maybe that's not the best advice.
Back at the Fortress, Ruth gets her turn with Gripey Guy. Before he can gripe too much, Nikolai The Flower Guy arrives with the flowers for Hattie's funeral. After placing them beside the coffin, he just stares at Ruth until she agrees to see him out. Once they get into the lobby, Mom quickly tears into him. "I don’t know what you think you're doing, but I'm going to have to ask my sons to order flowers from someone else if this behavior continues…there are grieving people here. I can't have skulking around with that look in your eye…that sex look. That big, black sex look." Again, see if you can guess which part I made up. Nikolai, who was kinda leering at her back there, plays innocent, and receives a patented Ruth Fisher backhand across the face for his troubles. He rubs his jaw and smiles as he walks away, leaving Ruth to notice that Gripey Guy has witnessed the entire scene. Now would also be a good time to point out that Ruth is wearing a bright red shirt. You know, a "Russian color." Mr. Cobbs points out that she wouldn't be wearing that shirt if she didn't want to be noticed, but Mom insists that it's "just what was clean." "Lady, I can see it from here," says Mr. Cobbs, "and I'm blind and deaf. You need to get yourself laid." And truer words have never been spoken, my friend.
Cut to Claire's school, where Lauren emerges from class in a long, luxurious slow-motion shot while Billy snaps her picture. Rewind and restart. Rewind and restart. [The following seventeen pages were deleted at the request of Lauren Ambrose's legal team. This includes the crude pornographic drawings found in the margins.] When she notices Billy and his giant, uh, zoom lens, she blushes, and the scene switches to the Fortress, where they walk in and make themselves at home. "You ever done it with anyone here?" asks Billy, before climbing on top of her and working the old Austin Powers-style horny-fashion-photographer shtick. Incidentally, that's my justification for stealing the "if you only see one movie this summer" tagline from that film's trailer. Anyway, Billy puts the camera on a timer and snaps a lovely photo of himself and Claire kissing while he mauls one of her breasts. Jumping up from the sofa again, he retrieves the camera and takes even more pictures while oh-so-casually pumping Claire for information about Nate and Brenda. Claire claims that Nate really loves Brenda, and when he hears this news, Billy immediately changes the subject, and leaves soon afterwards.
Downstairs, Federico sneaks in for a few more seconds of screen time before leaving David alone in the Body Shop. "Don't work too hard," he says as he leaves, and we cut immediately to David entering a gay nightclub called "Ramrod." I have to admit, that's a better name for a gay nightclub than Babylon, but I still prefer Pittsburgh's Pegasus, which is the apparent inspiration for the aforementioned Babylon.
Formaldehyde Fortress. The Fisher family finishes batting for the cycle when Nate has his obligatory scene with the Gripey Guy, who gripes, "Fifty-six years I've slept in the same bed with that woman. Fifty-six years listening to her talk about the same shit day in and day out." Nate offers to drive him home, but Gripey Guy isn't having it. "Shut the fuck up, boy, and let an old man speak." Aww, I remember when my Grandpa used to say the same exact thing to me. Those were some good times. Nate sits on the sofa, and Bill relates a series of humorous anecdotes about his life with Hattie. Nate tries his "I've got a gift" brand of sympathy, but Bill instructs him to "sell that shit to somebody who's buying it, because [he] ain't." "You don't know nothing about love," he continues. "Some pretty little thing catches your eye, and the thing you know it's been fifty-six years and you done shit all over yourself in a movie theater and she's the only one who'll help you clean it up." The Gripey Guy repeats, "You don't know nothing," and I won't argue with that. "I won't argue with that," says Nate, and yeah, I won't argue with that, either.
Well, well, well. It seems that our sanctimonious young Catholic kid has picked himself up a little friend over there at Ramrod. David finds himself in his date's apartment, and there's some awkward small talk about Bar Boy's ex. David lies and says he's a lawyer from Boston, and Bar Boy is ecstatic to meet someone from the real world, which he defines as "not Los Angeles." Seeing David's stiffness (ew, not like that), Bar Boy takes the initiative and seats him on the couch. He moves in for a kiss, and then it's suddenly Oral Sex II: The All-Guy Revue. Cut to David, looking shaken, in his van, and then we fade to white.
Fade back up on Ruth apologizing to Nikolai for the slap. He tries to tell her it's okay, but she starts going on about the saucepan and the baby food she was staring at earlier, and how it made her remember all the happy times. "I am surrounded by all these relics of a life that no longer exists," she pontificates, and then Nikolai The Horny Guy shuts her up with a kiss. You know how when something is really ugly or awkward, people will describe it as being "worse than watching old people fuck"? Well, now I know what they mean. I haven't seen a kiss that bad since Shari Back in the eighth grade. Of course, knowing my luck, and all of the "hey, I know you" e-mails that keep pouring in, Shari is probably reading this right now. If you are, call me. I've gotten much better since then. Anyway, Ruth turns to discover an elderly couple standing nearby, watching. They’ve arrived for Hattie's funeral, and of course Ruth is mortified as she leads them inside.
At the school, Claire calls Creepy Jesus on the cell phone. She's pleasantly surprised when he actually answers instead of his machine, but then things start going downhill when she has to remind him who she is. Billy, having gotten the scoop on Nate and Brenda that he was looking for, decides to drop her like a hot potato. "Come on, Claire, you're what, sixteen? What do you think I am, a pedophile?" You know, I get the same reaction when I tell people I read Andrew Vachss books. Well, except from Strega, that is. Claire almost cries, and I amuse myself for a minute or two trying to figure out which body part would be most appropriately ironic for Claire to leave in his locker.
The Room. Nate leads David in, and quickly shows him around. "I just thought you should see it," he says. "I've seen it," replies Dave. "Dad traded a funeral for a room. No wonder we never had any money." Nate is still searching for answers, but David doesn't see the point. "People are allowed to have private lives. So what if Dad had a secret room? I don't care if he brought women back here to fuck. I don't care if he brought men back here to fuck." Nate continues pressing, and they have the same argument they had back at Dad's grave in the opener. You can just re-read that recap if you need to know more. David recommends packing the place up before to owner starts charging rent, and Nate complies. He does, however, stop to linger over The Glass Which Will One Day Be Important, as well as a few photo albums of Dad with the wife and kids. In one, he finds a set of racy pictures of Mom, and The Late Nate appears to say, "You have no idea how beautiful she was, buddy boy." Nate mentions that he also has no idea who his father was, and much as Nate did with Brenda's parents last week, The Late Nate professes to be not that interesting at all. "I think probably you were," Nate corrects him. "I think you were this great guy who was funny, and interesting, and…high." Thanks. It's sweet of you to say that about me, Nate. Nate rambles on about how he committed himself to undertaking because he thought that's what Dad wanted, only to discover now that Dad liked him better in Seattle. Late Nate mocks his son, standing in a corner and whining, "I never knew my daddy!" Our final shot is Late Nate's voice over an empty chair, saying, "Life's too fucking short." Somehow, I think that's all the closure The Live Nate is ever going to get.
School again. Claire emerges from class, but this time there's no slow motion. Damn. Brenda is there waiting for her, and for some completely unexplained reason, she's wearing what appears to be a yarmulke. Then I discover that it's just a babushka, but that doesn't really make it any better. She tries to console Claire, saying, "My brother is a very complicated man, and very high-maintenance. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love him dearly, but I pity the woman he ends up with." In addition to being the same thing that Claire would say about Nate, it's also the same thing my sister probably says about me. There's a reason we don't date each other's friends. "Is every man alive a total asshole?" inquires Claire. "At some point or another," answers Brenda, but before I can sue for gender defamation, she adds, "But then again, so are we." As they walk away, Claire gets giddy. "I still can't get over the fact that you are Charlotte Light and Dark." Brenda speaks for us all when she says, "Well, you have to, because it's very irritating."
And, once again, back to The Formaldehyde Fortress. Nate finds Mom in the kitchen, and relates that the Gripey Guy is still downstairs. He sits beside her, and she explains that the silver she's polishing has been in the family for generations, but she's never used it. Nate hands over the sexy pictures, and Mom laughs and smiles when she sees them. Nate lies that he found them in the office, and Ruth tells the story of where they came from. Apparently, Dad was going to Vietnam, much to the dismay of Grandpa Nate, who "was not a happy man." Anyway, he and Ruth snuck out to a motel for one last night of romance, and that's where the pictures were taken. Who wants to lay odds on Claire's kids finding that picture of Billy squeezing her breast one day? Again I note that Frances Conroy is a pretty good actress when she's got the material. She finishes the scene by noting that "it's frightening how much we change," and then inviting Nate to stay for dinner.
In the funeral room, Nate comes down to take Gripey Guy home, and in a plot-twist so non-twisty it's gone past straight and all the way to Dr. Laura's house, he finds Mr. Cobbs dead, one hand locked firmly in his wife's, well, death grip. Aww, sniff.
David is once again packing up tables and chairs on the street corner so nice they filmed it twice. A cop car cruises by, and David's eyes lock onto the black officer in the front seat until he realizes that it's not Keith. He looks pensive, and the music swells, and we slide gently into the final montage. Brenda and Claire get stoned and bond at Brenda's, and then Ruth arrives at a mystery house and bangs frantically on the front door. Ed "Electro-Glide" Begley (tm fuzzbox again) opens the door, and plants another old-people kiss on Ruth. As she steps inside to begin life anew, we fade to white one final time.
Aaron: And now, live from the Home Office in --
Alan Ball: Shut-The-Hell-Upville.
Aaron: Yo! I'm working here. What's the big idea?
Alan Ball: Come on. You're kidding, right? I mean, Top Twelve lists? Talk about de rigueur irony.
Aaron: Yeah, well, they got more votes than you.
Alan Ball: Oh, please. Everyone knows Pontoon rigged that poll. It shouldn't even count.
Aaron: Hey! Back off, bitch! Nobody talks about my forum posters like that. Nobody but me, that is.
Alan Ball: Whatever. Incidentally, you know why they call you Aaron?
Aaron: Because my parents spent too much time reading the Bible?
Alan Ball: Nope. It's 'cause you got air in your head. You know, where your brain should be.
Aaron: Wow.
Alan Ball: I'll say.
Aaron: That may very well be the lamest name joke ever.
Alan Ball: Oh, I think "Mommie Leerest" already snagged that crown.
Aaron: Moron.
Alan Ball: Loser.
Aaron: Hack.
Alan Ball: Well then, why don't you go watch an infomercial and buy yourself a Slowbee, Mr. Slow Guy.
Aaron: Yeah, well, why don't you go watch The Usual Suspects and see what a real Kevin Spacey movie is like, Mr. American Doodie.
Alan Ball: Okay, that's it, bag-boy! You're fired!
Sars: Hey! Back off, bitch! Nobody talks to my recappers like that. Nobody but me, that is.
Aaron: Aww. Thanks, Sars.
Sars: Oh, you shut up too. In fact, you're both fired. I'm calling Gustave.