Much like the Fishers Jr., vacations in the Aaron family have always been the sort of events that could easily scar an impressionable young child for life. Ma Aaron, you see, doesn't fly unless she's been so heavily medicated that we have to physically carry her through security, and dear old Dad has long been afflicted with one of those relatively common middle-aged nerd fetishes that requires him to stop and read each and every roadside historical plaque within fifty miles of either side of our route. If George Washington slept there, then you can pretty much bet that I have a picture of me punching my little sister there as well. So you can probably image what those epic, multi-day road trips from Boston to Disneyworld must have been like, what with the wood-paneled station wagon overstuffed with suitcases and the constant high-pitched squeals of everything from "I have to pee again" to "Mommy, she's on my side!" emanating from a back seat that was more heavily partitioned than most areas of the Gaza Strip. But none of those massive, Lewis & Clark-like expeditions could ever possibly compare to the only traumatic time we ever tried to go camping -- a sordid, squalid weekend which prominently featured thunderstorms, leaky tents, food poisoning, poison ivy (although, unlike the Fishers, no one felt compelled to play Poison's "Talk Dirty To Me"), and a horribly frightening late-night auditory encounter with what we thought was a giant man-eating bear but later turned out to be merely a raccoon with swollen adenoids. The Aarons learned that weekend that we are most definitely an indoor family, and have ever since worn our pasty-white skin and legendary Claritin addictions with the sort of hard-won pride that comes only to those who have been tested in a Coleman crucible and found to be severely lacking. There's a reason I don't work for Mountains Without Pity, you know.
Alan Ball: [cough] Wuss! [cough]
Aaron: Wow. You know, you should really see a doctor about that. You could have Lyme Disease.
Alan Ball: Oh, please. What's not to like? The fresh air, the clear night sky, the chance to get in touch with nature…
Aaron: The snakes, the bugs, the inevitable suppurating rashes that come from getting in touch with nature…
Alan Ball: So I take it this means you're not likely to go camping again?
Aaron: Does a raccoon with swollen adenoids shit in the woods?
Fade up on our new all-time unbeatable record for SttM (1), as we open with a shot of a billboard for Dr. Phil…er, Dave's Making Love Work TV show. We're outside the studio entrance, with the expected crowd of white-bread housewives waiting anxiously to get in to the afternoon taping. A particularly boisterous grouping of three friends giddily reads off the questions they plan to ask, which range from "How can I stop feeling so competitive with my chain-smoking bitch of a mother-in-law" to a mediation on the soul-sucking ennui of life in bourgeois suburbia. Hey, is it just me, or is that Lisa Kudrow waiting in line behind them? I mean, this episode was written by Jill Soloway, so I'm fairly certain it's not Courteney Cox, but nevertheless, the resemblance is remarkable. It's also interesting to note, by the way, that this DGDJ is not really seen again during the episode proper, but still manages to set up any number of the week's themes in her short-lived (get it?) appearance, including noses, over-idealized images of one's spouse, and of course the great tissue vs. handkerchiefs debate. It's remarkably rare to see writing that tight and that irrelevant all at the same time. Good job, Jill! Anyway, the lady with the chain-smoking mother-in-law develops a nosebleed just as the crowd is ordered to make their way inside, and within seconds the blood flow has reached near-Niagara proportions of arterial deluge. By the time the requisite bitchy stage-manager character can even realize what's going on, our intrepid, exsanguinated heroine is lying facedown on the concrete amongst a pile of bloody Kleenex. Farewell, Karen Postell Pepper. Your death might have been meaningless on the show, but the Google search I did on "Dr. Phil catchphrases" to find suitable snarking material for this paragraph did lead me straight to Shack's own website, so I guess the karma gods have smiled on you after all.
Like the Olympic output of a female East German shot-putter hopped up on Dianabol and superfluous Y chromosomes, the world records just keep on coming this week (StC = 193). You know, this really wasn't my all-time favorite episode (and without a dinner party, how could it be?), but nevertheless, I'm bowing to the existential purity of mathematics and awarding it the A+ the formulas tell me it so richly deserves. We fade back up in the Body Shoppe, where Rico is applying the restorative finishing touches to a grotesquely over-sized corpse while Nate wheels in the body of the late and largely unlamented DGDJ. There's some brief discussion of the fact that rhinoplasty can kill, which is capped off by the relatively Nate-centric observation that "we're all just walking time bombs." Thanks, Brain-Boy. Rico wonders if his XXXL casket (and side order of pot stickers) has come in from Appleby Caskets yet, and also begs Nate to stick around and help him load up Biggie Smalls when it finally does. Nate, however, has other plans, which include a camping trip with Lisa, Maya, and their new couple-friends that we met in the season opener. Nate's quiet disappointment that Lisa will be coming along on his sojourn into the woods is evident even here, so he quickly changes the subject to invite Rico to take a vacation of his own. "Yeah, well, every weekend since Vanessa's mom died," replies Rico, "we're at her house cleaning out all her stuff." Hmm. Now do you think the fact that we're learning of Mama Vanessa's demise in this excessively expository fashion is simply more fuel for the Julio death pool, or is it just an expeditious method for advancing the plot without wasting an entire episode on the likely "Shut Up, Vanessa"-inducing escapades of the distaff side of the Diaz family? I recap, you decide.
Out in Schrödinger's Flat, Lisa is packing up Maya's suitcase in anticipation of baby's first camping trip. "Should we bring your baby dead-head onesie?" she wonders, holding up a tiny little tie-dyed outfit. "Or is that too obvious?" It's only obvious if it's her baby BIG-head onesie, my friend. And you know what? I think I've finally realized what it is that freaks me out about Maya. She's just too damn quiet all the time. With the exception of the infamous Keith flushes the toilet incident, I'm not sure we've ever even seen her cry, for God's sake. Now I'll admit that what I know about normal infant behavior could probably fit on an unfertilized ovum with room for a half-dozen sperm to spare, but it kind of worries me that the kid never seems to show any emotion whatsoever. I guess she really is a Fisher after all, although you'd probably expect her to have farted a few times by now if that were truly the case. Nate comes in at this point, carrying a handful of guide books and expounding on the scenic delights which await them high atop "Suicide Rock," which got its name when "a Native American princess threw herself off the rock rather than be separated from her lover." Just for the record, I totally called what happens later with Brenda the instant he said that. As they so often do, Nate and Lisa end up bickering about minutiae, with Lisa concerned about the prospect of sleeping with a baby on the cold, hard ground, and Nate pointing out that the Native Americans were doing precisely that for centuries before the advent of such modern amenities as "Cliff Bars," "spatulas," and the "tent cabin." Frostiness ensues.
In the kitchen, meanwhile, Arthur is honking a giant wad of snot into his handkerchief. "Such a lovely custom," muses Ruth from a nearby corner, leading one to wonder how she might have responded if he were to hawk up some phlegm into one of her cloth napkins as well. Then again, she's so clearly infatuated with the boy at this point that I'm frankly surprised she didn't want to hang his nasal drippings up on the refrigerator to Claire's latest masterpiece. She's actually speaking, of course, about the custom of using handkerchiefs, and she's deeply saddened by the fact that kids today just don't seem to enjoy the prospect of wrapping dried mucus in white linen and carrying it around in their breast pockets the way folks used too. Arthur, however, is more saddened by the fact that he missed a weekend showing of Silent Running at the local art-house theater, and he then proceeds to give a run-down of the film's plot for Ruth's benefit. And actually, that was really for my benefit as well, because I often tend to get Silent Running confused with Logan's Run and Soylent Green, and for a moment there I was busy pondering the subtextual relevance of a reference to unwitting cannibals who voluntarily commit suicide at the age of thirty. Which, oddly enough, actually would be sort of relevant to the scene at hand, but that's a different story (and one that would likely involve sex and free meat), so let's not even go there, okay? Anyway, Arthur describes the film's robots Huey, Dewey, and Louie (who sort of resemble small televisions) as "quite lovable indeed," as well as "benign and obedient, much like television itself." Hee! Although if my television really were benign and obedient, it would be writing this recap for me. Excuse me for a moment while I email that suggestion to the TiVo corporation. "Perhaps that's the writer's comment about how technology can be controlled and used effectively for humankind," he adds. Remember that line when Arthur fails to make effective use of even basic third-grade technologies like simple machines later on in the episode. Ruth offers to fetch him some more coffee, but Arthur demurs, citing the fact that he just filled his cup only moments before. Awkwardness ensues.
Upstairs, Claire is…is…well, she's…um…Oh god, I can't even say it, people. She's coloring her hair! Blue, no less! I mean, why not just spray-paint a mustache and some horns onto the Mona Lisa while you're at it? That is just so very very wrong. It's sacrilege, in fact. It's blasphemy! It's…it's…well, actually, it's turning me on a little. And yes, I know. I need help. I should also mention that it's Russell who's doing the actual work, as he paints on the dye and stifles the urge to shout with glee over the fact that he's actually getting to touch her hair. David suddenly barges in, much to Claire's dismay, and announces that the brush they're using to apply the dye is normally used on people who have already, um…died. Yeah. Sorry. His ears totally perk up, however, when Claire introduces Russell, and if I'm not mistaken, David actually flirts with the kid a little bit. Heh. Remember that one later, too. There's some discussion of whether or not Claire's hair is afraid of dead people (don't ask), and then David spots a sculpture Russell made of a guy with his head on backwards. David thinks it's terrific, but Russell loudly insists that it sucks. "First of all, you're crazy," replies Claire. "It's totally perfect. Secondly, all Olivier says all day long is 'Look at Russell's work, people. Russell's work is pulsating. It's making me hard.'" Ewwwwwww. God, what a creep. Er…wait a second. I've never said that about Claire, right? At least not out loud, I hope. Once David departs with his brush in hand, Russell uses the phrase "Oh, ass," in reference to the fact that he's forgotten what time they're supposed to rinse out Claire's hair. Hmm. Put that one in your spoiler thread and smoke it, why don't you.
Over the river and through the woods to the tent cabin we go. And I'm thinking Nate and Lisa must have spent all that rent money they're saving on a new car, because they're not in the Dirty Car and I just can't believe that Lisa would ever stoop to do something as environmentally unfriendly as having a car of her own. Regardless, they lug all their various suitcases into the tent cabin (which is actually kind of nice), and Lisa immediately starts doing what she does best: worrying about where Maya is going to sleep. Nate, on the other hand, is worried about the fact that she only brought a single six-pack of beer. "Isn't that the whole point?" he asks. "To sit around the campfire and get a buzz? Didn't you tell me to bring my weed?" (POT ∞ = 1) Oy. Nate Fisher, ladies and gentlemen: Parent of the Year. "To tell you the truth," answers Lisa, "all I really care about is that you don't smoke cigarettes. I already pretend like I don't you know you smoke at home." What? Huh? Mom? How did you get on Six Feet Under? I know you didn't fly out there. This incipient argument is interrupted by the arrival of Todd, Dana, and their not-quite-as-cute-as-Taylor little girl Spencer, who cheerfully greets Nate and then never speaks again for the rest of the episode. Hugs are exchanged all around, and Todd invites Nate to help him unload the car because he brought "a ton of beer." "Yeah, absolutely," replies Nate, while fixing his wife with a knowing smile. Once separated, the two girls chat about bed selection, and the two guys discuss plans for hiking up to Suicide Rock. Todd is of the opinion that the womenfolk won't let the men go off on their own for that long, but Nate seems to think it won't be any problem. "How long have you two been married?" wonders Todd.
Back at The Fortress, Ruth knocks on Arthur's door and tells him that she rented Silent Running. Only she uses a lot more words than that, because she rambles on about some new mall she visited for about half an hour before finally getting to the point. What's up with this season's mall fetish? Arthur is delighted, of course, and they're soon settled in on the sofa munching popcorn and watching Bruce Dern teach a pair robot-shaped cardboard boxes how to plant banzai trees. To my great relief, Charlton Heston and Michael York are nowhere to be seen.
Our happy campers have settled down for the night as well, with the adults gathered around a roaring fire to discuss something called "Unitarian Universalism," which is apparently some sort of religion that doesn't actually contain any religion. "No big God things," explains Todd. "No crosses or dripping blood or shit, just people getting together." And, um, how is that any different from a TWoP-con, I wonder? Fewer banner ads, I suppose. ["And less dripping blood." -- Sars] Dana adds that Jesus is rarely mentioned at these gatherings, but whenever it does come up, "they always remind us that Jesus was black." "Right," grumps Lisa. "As opposed to the Brad Pitt Jesus America tries to sell us." What? No Jeremy Sisto joke? Come on, guys, where's your sense of meta-whimsy this week? You let Bettina direct, why not throw Billy a bone? Nate knows exactly who his own God is, however, and he quickly hops up to fetch his pot out of the tent cabin. He fires up a little one-hitter, but when he passes it along, the other three each decide not to have any. "Great," laughs Nate, as he takes another hit. "Now I'm the only one who's stoned." Oh, I'm sure Alan is right there with you, my friend.
We return to The Fortress just as the movie is ending. Joan Baez croons a subtextually relevant ballad over the closing credits, and both Arthur and Ruth sit there in silence, not wanting the moment to end. Finally, Arthur reaches out to hit "stop" on the remote control, and (hee!) a highly explicit porno flick just happens to be playing on the channel they left the TV on. There's no way I can ever do justice to their expressions here, so I'm not even going to try. Just know that it was really fucking funny. Fade to white.
The morning, Lisa is tending the dying fire as Dana stumbles out of the cabin wrapped in a blanket. "Wouldn't it be cool to live totally off the land," gushes Lisa, as she places a large, pre-built metal grill over the fire. "Not that cool," replies Dana. "I'm getting my 'I need Starbucks' headache." Heh. Nate and Todd, meanwhile, are out gathering wood while Nate rants about all the crazy women he's dated. "Needy attention-suckers, artists-slash-writers-slash-psychos, always this whole drama thing where if I say something she might take it the wrong way. It's like I'm walking through this minefield of her childhood. Like there should be a sign, you know, 'Caution: Unexploded Daddy Issues.'" I'm not sure whether I should be happy that Nate and I have the same taste in women, or worried that this might mean I'll end up married to someone like Lisa. "This is probably the first adult relationship of my life," he adds, in reference to his wife. "I don't know," sighs Todd. "Ours is more like we can't keep our hands off each other. She just loves to bang."
"Sometimes I feel like when we're having sex he secretly hates me," grumbles Lisa, as the Ironic Segue Fairy leads a nature hike back to the campsite. "I know it's stupid, but I really feel like that sometimes." Oh, it's not stupid, Lisa. In fact, we all hate you, and we're not even having excessively polite chipmunk sex with you. Dana plays the dutiful friend and denies that such a thing could even be possible, and this leads Lisa to confess that the real problem is that she hasn't been able to have an orgasm since Maya was born. "Could childbirth have reorganized me in some way?" she wonders. And when you consider the size of Maya the Leviathan's head, that's really not all that dumb of a question. Nate would have to be hung like a Clydesdale to compete with that. Um, yeah. I'll just take a quick break here while you all go and rinse your eyes out with battery acid after that one. "Please don't tell me you're faking it," demands an incredulous Dana. "Of course not," replies Lisa, before reversing herself. "Okay, maybe I do exaggerate here and there. Sometimes I also like to fantasize that there are hundreds of fat, naked Armenian men watching us do it. That usually helps a little." That joke, by the way, makes a lot more sense if you clicked on the "Courteney Cox" link back on the first page.
Back to the boys. And even though they're not stoned, they're still using long, rambling sentences to describe the amorphous emotions associated with the relationships in their lives. "It's like your heart is outside your body and you can see it for the first time," says Nate. "And knowing that all of it, ALL of it, has always been about her," continues Todd. "I feel the exact same way about Maya," Nate announces. "No, I was talking about Dana," replies Todd. Heh. Whoops!
As their two young children cavort mere inches away, Dana is pontificating to Lisa about the state of her marriage. "I don't know," she says. "Our thing is just…it's incredibly hot still. He's got the dirtiest mouth. Oh, I love it!" Ew. "Yeah," answers Lisa. "I'm kind of fond of Nate's Dirty Car myself." Double-ew. Lisa begs for an example of this supposed dirty talk, but Dana tries to say that it'll sound stupid out of context. "Okay, like, 'Ooh baby, I wanna come on your tits!'" she whispers. Yeah. I'm just going to assume the context she was referring to there was a Peter North film. Suddenly Maya starts to cry, and it's not even because she's pissed off that I found her so preternaturally calm earlier in the recap. It's really because there's a snake slithering towards her across the campsite, which causes the mommies to freak out and scoop up their kids. The menfolk return just at this moment, and Nate quickly grabs a small log and starts smashing the snake into a fine reptilian paste. There's also a strange little dream sequence here where Nate sees the snake as a viper of some sort, but Lisa calls out a warning just as it hisses at him, so maybe it wasn't a dream at all. In any case, that snake is very, very dead, and the overt phallic symbolism is very, very obvious. Everyone else gives Nate the stink-eye for thrashing a harmless gopher snake, but he's too high on his bloodlust and the opportunity to swear to notice. "Fuck!" he shouts. "Goddamn it! Don't any of you fuckers want to go for a fucking hike? Come on!" (Fk = 3) Whoa. If he starts talking about snails and straight-edged razors, I am soooo out of here.
Here's how Olivier sums up the work of his students: "Mediocre. Redundant. Terrible. Blah, blah, blah." Here's how I sum up Olivier: "Smarmy. Redundant. Terrible. Blah, blah, blah." Finally he comes to Russell's backwards head statue, which he describes as "elephant art." "My head is on backwards!" he trumpets. "I feel like my head is on backwards!" He also throws in a lot of snooty, pretentious art-babble along with it, but you get the point. Claire's sculpture, however (which looks like a partially-cracked dinosaur egg), is deemed "termite art." "Termites work secretly at night," explains Olivier, "but they can tear down a house as fast as an elephant can. But they don't stomp, they infest." Oy. I can think of a few things I'd like to infest Olivier with, but unfortunately Sars has decreed that we're not allowed to make any more SARS jokes, so I'd better just keep my mouth shut.
The Body Shoppe. Rico is giving Arthur lessons on the proper way to apply make-up to a corpse, which requires a light touch so as not to "go all Joan Crawford on him." Ruth pokes her head in to ask if it's okay for her to return Silent Running, and then does that thing where it's obvious she doesn't want to leave even though she doesn't really have anything else to say. Finally she takes off, and Rico reminds Arthur that even though he's living in The Fortress, he still doesn't have to "do things with the Munsters up there." I swear to God that the first three times I watched this, I thought he said "monsters" and not "Munsters." It's only when I finally flipped on the closed-captioning for transcription purposes that I finally caught the difference. That's not really funny or anything, but it does give you a nice example of why bad diction is a recapper's worst nightmare. Enunciate, Rico. Or, you know, shut up. Whichever works for you. Rico then segues into "Advanced Casketing Techniques 101" as he lays out their plan to fit Biggie Smalls into his coffin tonight, so that they don't have to worry about any problems before the funeral tomorrow. Arthur just stands there, looking studious.
Russell, meanwhile, just looks scary. The extreme close-up is a greasy-haired boy's worst nightmare. He's also got that serial-killer vibe going again, as he lies on Claire's bed and sulks about the tongue-lashing he got from Olivier. "Everyone makes crap sometimes," he whines, "but what's with the big need to humiliate me? I mean, I don't do well with this kind of thing. I don't need somebody telling me that I suck." Oh. Well, in that case, you might want to stay out of the forums. And also certain segments of the last few recaps. Sorry about that. He bitches about the other students for a while, and then shouts, "How can you grow as an artist if you don't have the freedom to fail now and then? It puts the lotion the basket, dammit!" Claire and her blue hair try to console him, and then suddenly she's stroking his face and leaning in for a kiss. Woo hoo! If I can't have her, at least my dorky doppelganger can. They fall back onto the bed, and…scene.
Tent cabin. Nate and Lisa are sitting there reading in silence, when Lisa finally breaks down and gives Nate permission to go hiking on his own. Nate immediately grabs his backpack and bolts for the door, although to his credit he does come back to double-check. "I just want to make sure you're not saying 'go ahead and hike' when what you really mean is 'stay here and help me with the baby or I'll secretly hate you.'" Lisa assures him that everything is fine, and we quickly cut to Nate wandering along a rocky trail and stopping to take a few hits off his pipe along the way (POT ∞ = 2). Oh, yeah. Nothing makes a long, arduous trek up the side of a mountain more enjoyable than filling your lungs with smoke first and coughing a lot the rest of the way.
When he finally reaches Suicide Rock, he sits back to revel in the view, which really is stunning. The landscape is very Lord of the Rings-ish, which is why I'm not surprised to see Brenda appearing over the horizon. I guess the Aussie in Rachel Griffiths finally got tired of those pesky New Zealanders bogarting all the fame and fortune that by all rights should belong solely to her, Mel Gibson, and Yahoo Serious. I probably also should have mentioned in advance that we did see Nate falling asleep on the rock, so there's a pretty good chance that what we're watching now is a dream sequence. Brenda climbs up on the rock to join him, and evinces surprise that they would both end up at the ass-end of nowhere at exactly the same time. "I don't believe this," she tells him. "It's like fate, huh?" Yeah. Fate-al attraction, maybe. Nate would seem to agree with me, because he obviously doesn't believe her story about staying at a nearby bed-and-breakfast with some friends. "Are you stalking me now?" he screams. "You're fucking stalking me! You followed me and my family up here. What the fuck do you want from me, you crazy fucking bitch (Fk = 6)?" Brenda responds with predictable disdain for this notion, and she even highlights that sentiment by barking a few times. Heh. Nate demands to be told the truth, complete with an extraneous "fuck" (Fk = 7), and Brenda finally gives in and admits that she followed him up there to talk. "I miss you so much," she tells him, before begging for a just a single kiss. She shoves her tongue down his throat, and then pulls back to whisper, "Remember that feeling, flowing into each other like water?" Yep. It's all about the flow, people. "I can't live without that!" she shouts. "I won't!" "Well, you're going to have to," replies Nate, as he forcibly shoves her away. And then just like that, Brenda heaves herself off Suicide Rock, and plummets straight into…a shot of Nate waking up. Well, that ought to teach him never to nap while stoned. Incidentally, I should really give props to Kathy for the camera work here, which makes excellent use of a variety of lenses. I should also give props to either the location scouts or the set painters, because even though I can't quite tell whether or not the scenery behind them is real or a backdrop, I have noticed the clever shout-out out to the tree from the opening credits. Very cute.
But not as cute as Claire, who's curled up in bed with Russell. "I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this to you," he confesses, "but I've been writing these essays on the internet every week about how much I love you. It's kind of lame, I know." Actually, it's way more than lame, because what he really admits is that he was a virgin. "Oh my God!" exclaims Claire. "I did that to you?" Heh. They laugh and joke about his relative sexual inexperience, and I curse the glass wall on my TV set that prevents me from climbing in there to tell the kid that it's only going to go downhill from here. I mean, once you've tasted perfection, you can no longer accept any substitutes. "I feel really safe with you," he tells her, which on the one hand is kind of sweet, but on the other is so incredibly wussy that I don't really have a hard time believing that he's never had sex before.
It's also a cue for the Ironic Segue Fairy, by the way, who starts jumping around and thumping on the walls just like my upstairs neighbors tend to do after their umpteenth keg stand of the evening. The various inhabitants of the Formaldehyde Fortress react to this noise with shock, and Arthur bolts downstairs to find Biggie Smalls spilled out of his casket and lying facedown on the slumber room floor. Ruth joins him down there, but not for long, as Arthur races back upstairs to pound on Claire's door. She opens it in a robe, and Arthur (upon spotting Russell) hilariously deadpans, "I'm sorry, I can see you're entertaining," before begging her to come downstairs and help. She reluctantly agrees, but admonishes Russell to stay in the room while she goes to check things out.
Once everyone is gathered in the slumber room, Arthur somewhat imperiously demands that Claire get her "friend" to help out as well. "You have a friend in the house?" inquires Ruth with surprising nonchalance. "The boy with the tattoo?" "Another one," replies Claire, and you can totally see Ruth biting her tongue as she tries to be accepting. Heh. Russell has made his own way downstairs by now, and he brushes off Claire's repeated attempts to warn him away. Ruth, however, is delighted to see that her daughter is sleeping with someone she already knows (and who presumably doesn't have any outstanding felony warrants or giant birds emblazoned on his chest), and greets Russell rather warmly considering the circumstances. Arthur instructs everyone that their first priority is rolling Biggie over onto his back, because "his facial cartilage is collapsing as we speak." It takes a massive effort from all four of them to accomplish this, but they do finally manage to roll him face-up onto a backboard. "Well, he doesn't look so bad," says Ruth, as she stares at a nose that's been bent at least 45 degrees off-center. Arthur, who's seriously been working a take-charge attitude here, arranges them at the four corners of the backboard, so that they can lift the body onto a gurney. He does not, however, remember to collapse the gurney first, which means that they'll have to lift Biggie way higher than they would have otherwise. That's actually something of a moot point anyway, because they barely even manage to get the board off the ground before it tips over and spills the corpse back onto the floor. "Okay, I'm starting to get a little freaked out now," announces Russell. "Just a little." Ruth apologizes to her daughter, saying, "I'm sorry I raised you around so much death, and I'm sorry that your friend had to see this." "Yep," answers a distracted Claire, who's obviously deeply focused on her worries about what sort of mental connections Russell might be forming between the loss of his virginity and the way he was just forced to manhandle a super-sized dead body. Wow. That's, like, Freud's dream patient.
Cut to later, with Biggie already back on the gurney and Arthur speaking to Rico on the telephone. No explanation is given for how they finally moved the body, and quite frankly, I'm not sure I really wanted one. I'll just assume it involved pulleys, levers, and a team of specially trained oxen, and leave it at that. Arthur apologizes profusely and repeatedly for letting this happen on his watch, but even though we can't hear him, Rico seems to take the news pretty well. Once he hangs up, Ruth offers to make some hot cocoa and bring it down to the Body Shoppe for him. "Chocolate makes me queasy," reports Arthur, and I will be eternally grateful for the fact that Ruth doesn't reply by admitting that chickpeas make her gassy. Boy, Arthur really does fit right in here, doesn't he? Fade to white.
We fade back up on morning at the campsite, with Dana and Todd giving Nate and Lisa some last-minute instructions on caring for their daughter before heading off alone on a "private nature hike." And just in case the meaning wasn't clear in transcription, by "private nature hike" they actually mean "sweaty, naked nature sex that will likely leave them both with poison ivy in some seriously unpleasant locations." "I hate couples like that," bitches Lisa, "always letting you know how great their sex life is." Nate is barely listening, but he does agree, and even suggests that Todd and Dana might be protesting just a bit too much. "Like sex is everything!" continues Lisa. "She's always talking about it like it's the glue. But what happens when someone gets throat cancer or diarrhea and you have to see the real person? Then you have to be able to…whatever. Help them into their electric cart or make them their vitamin drink and still love them even though no one feels sexy." And yeah, she's got a point, but still. Only someone who can't have an orgasm would ever say that. "Todd and I have the greatest sex in the world," she adds, mimicking Dana. "I just love it when he comes on my tits." Well that certainly got Nate's attention. "She said that?" he asks, with a perfect mixture of disbelief and jealousy. Lisa just nods in response, with a perfect mixture of disgust and hope that Nate will never ask her if he can do the same thing.
Over at LAC Arts, Olivier is getting a massage from a strange woman in his classroom. Ahh, yes. Season Three of Six Feet Under. It's all about malls and massages this year. And also ejaculating in strange places. Claire and Russell wander in late together, and Olivier seems to instantly sense that the student has surpassed his teacher in the race for Claire's affections. Or maybe it was the fact that Russell's hair is now blue as well that tipped him off. He gets into a shouting match with the two of them, but it is Olivier after all, and therefore I wasn't really paying attention. I did hear the part where he calls himself an idiot, though, and I think there was also some more stuff in there about elephants and termites or whatever. There were also four "fucks," two "shits," and an "asshole." You know, in case you were keeping track.
Back at The Fortress, Ruth is doing laundry. She's not washing the linens, so it must not be Sunday night. That point is further proven when Claire comes home from class and Ruth announces that she washed her daughter's sheets for her. Ew. Am I the only one who thinks that's kind of creepy? I mean, it's obvious that Mom knows exactly what was going on between those sheets the night. Anyway, Ruth comes across one of Arthur's handkerchiefs in the dryer, and this motivates Claire to launch into a long rant about just how disgusting hankies really are. "First of all, the word is gross. 'Hanky.' Second of all, hankies themselves are gross. A snot-covered rag that sits in your pocket all day? And who knows where the snot is? It could be anywhere. And then you put it back in your pocket and save it for later? I mean, not all progress is bad, mom. There's Kleenex! Hello!" Ruth, however, lurves her hanky-hoarding, mouse-hating houseguest, so she brushes off Claire's well-founded criticism and heads upstairs to lovingly place the handkerchief in Arthur's unmentionables drawer. It's probably not much of a surprise to anyone that the boy wears tighty-whities, but I am a little disturbed by the obsessive-compulsive perfection on display in his neatly sorted rows of perfectly balled tube socks. On the other hand, I did get a bit of a giggle out of picturing him and Tobias Beecher lovingly exchanging gifts at the Em City Sadie Hawkins dance. Now that's a crossover match made in heaven. Before closing the drawer for good, however, Ruth pulls the hanky back out of its resting place and sniffs it a few times. I have no idea what that means. I also have no idea what she whispers while she's doing it, because it's not audible and the closed-captioning has nothing. Yeah. That was a little weird.
Down in the slumber room, Claire is giggling on the phone with Russell when David comes in to start cleaning up after the Smalls funeral. It's one of those atrociously cute conversations that only new couples can have, and the only thing that saves me from puking is the fact that they don't get into an argument over who's going hang up first. They do, however, throw a nice bone to continuity when Claire corrects herself to say that Russell is "hot" rather than "cute." Eventually she hangs up the phone, and David is shocked to learn that she's been dating a boy whom he'd assumed was gay. "What makes you think he's gay?" demands Claire. "Oh, we can smell it on each other," replies David, before reminding his sister that she used to refer to him as her "gay friend Russell." Hee! Claire tells him that she was merely "confused" about that, and tries valiantly to convince both David and herself that Russell is a 100-percent red-blooded, vagina-loving heterosexual. This prompts David to enter "helpful big brother" mode, as he sits down and gently tries to explain that he used to date girls too, before finally coming to terms with his sexuality. "You don't get it," insists Claire. "He's never been gay. I was just assuming. He's never even had sex with anyone before me." David doesn't believe a word of it, but he's smart enough to know when to butt out, and that's precisely what he does.
Later that night, however, he does asks Keith, "At what age did you completely stop sleeping with women?" as they climb into bed for the night. David reports that there was a period of about ten years when he wasn't sure of himself, and that he actually had several serious relationships with women during time, including the former fiancée we met in the first season. Keith, on the other hand, happily admits that he "loved fucking women," which is a revelation that no doubt left a significant portion of the show's female viewers with their panties in a bunch. "I did this whole emotional deal with girls," says David. "Like, 'Honey, I could really think about spending the rest of my life with you. I don't know, maybe buy some land in Northern California? Build a house and design it ourselves? What about Willem for a boy and Coco for a girl? Or Willem and Max if we have twin boys?'" Oh, come on! "Willem and Max," but still no Creepy Jesus shout-out? What did Jeremy Sisto do to piss off Jill Soloway? "Are you sure they didn't know you were gay?" asks Keith. Hee! David says that they never figured it out, which I find hard to believe, and then he casually clicks on the remote and we're treated to the sounds of still more gay porn. Heh. I then clicked over to Google to find a good joke to end this paragraph with, but trust me when I tell you that you don't even want to know the kind of stuff that came up when I typed in "Jesus and gay porn." Some things are just better left unsaid.
Out at the tent cabin, Todd and Dana offer to watch Maya while Nate and Lisa take a "private nature hike" of their own. It takes some convincing, but at last they agree. The instant they're out of earshot, Dana gleefully spills Lisa's secret about her inability to achieve orgasm. Hmm. It looks like I forgot to also mention "gossip" back there when I was talking about malls, massages, and inappropriate orgasm locations. Nate and Lisa head off into the woods, but Lisa doesn't want to have sex because "something could crawl on [her]." As much as I hate to agree with Lisa about anything, I think we've already clearly established my views on the "great" outdoors in this recap, so I can't really say that I blame her. "We're not really Todd and Dana, are we?" asks Nate, which was totally the wrong thing to say to a psychotic spouse with some serious self-esteem issues. Lisa gets argumentative right away, of course, and interprets Nate's simple question to mean that he's only staying with her because of Maya. "Jesus, I can't fucking say anything!" shouts Nate, and with that, the fight is on full-force. "You have this totally narrow path I can walk on," he continues, "where I'm on your fucking leash. No smoking! Two beers a night! No smoking pot without prior written approval!" "Smoke your fucking lungs out!" screams Lisa, and I don't mind if I do. Flick…ahh. "I don't give a shit about smoking!" insists Nate. "I give a shit about being myself. About saying what I need to say, or even what I accidentally say and not having you fucking freak out on me, okay?" This seems to finally get through to Lisa, because she apologizes and looks fairly remorseful. She asks for a kiss, which only confuses a still angry Nate. "I want to get better at this," she tells him. "Help me, okay?" They kiss, and it slowly becomes more passionate as Nate orders her to take off her jeans and lie down on a nearby rock. "That rock is hard and cold," says Lisa. "It's like an anvil or something." Nate puts his jacket down for her, and then leans over her to whisper, "Close your eyes. I'm going to fuck you on this rock, but first I'm gonna make you scream so that everyone back at camp can hear you." There's some more dirty talk along those lines, but all you really need to know is that we finally get our first oral sex shot of the season, and the scene's final "fuck" count was Fk 8. Now that's the SFU we know and love.
We wrap things up this week in the car on the way home, as Lisa basks in the afterglow and even actually smiles a bit as she reminisces about all the times she and Nate had great sex. Unfortunately, every single one of them seems to have happened right after Nate got dissed by some other girl that he was trying to hook up with. Oy. Either Lisa doesn't realize the obvious implications of this behavior, or she's somehow convinced herself that it's a sign they were meant to be together, because it doesn't apparently doesn't bother her all that much. Nate, however, is anxious to change the subject as quickly as possible. "That's all behind us," he declares, and Lisa happily agrees. "It's nice now, that it's just us. I love you, Nate. God, I've loved you for such a long time." "I love you too, honey," he replies, not very convincingly. Man, this marriage is disturbing. But not, however, as disturbing as the fact that the car that isn't the Dirty Car is now blue, even though it was green just a few minutes ago. Hmm. Hey, maybe they finally found Paulie's car out there! That would be cool. Fade to white.
Alan Ball: I can't believe we put on a great episode like that and you finish things off by bitching about the color of a car! [cough] Asshole! [cough]
Aaron: Wow. You know, you should really see a doctor about that. You might have SARS.
Sars: Hey! What did I fucking tell you people?
Aaron: No more SARS jokes?
Sars: And what did you just do?
Aaron: Um…make a SARS joke?
Sars: That's right, bitch. And now you're fired!
Aaron: But…but…
Sars: Get out. Now. Or so help me God, I WILL breathe all over you.