The Opening

We open this week by literally coming out of the closet, as we watch a hyper-organized Sally Field look-alike packing up the last of her earthly belongings. I mention the closet part of the shot only because it foreshadows the fact that this episode also contains semi-startling revelations about the sexuality of not one, but two prominent supporting characters. And also because it's the most interesting part of the scene, in which our DGDJ runs down a supremely anal pre-suicide checklist that features items such as "leave clearly labeled notes for various loved ones," "organize vet records for cat," "apply lipstick," and "listen repeatedly to that ubiquitous 'There She Goes Again' song." That last one is probably supposed to be some sort of bitter allusion to the fact that she's tried this sort of thing before. Unfortunately, a tragic accident of brain chemistry means that song will forever be associated in my head with Mike Meyers doing spoken-word poetry in So I Married An Axe Murderer, which causes me to wonder if it might not actually be a clever, albeit somewhat obtuse, reference to the immensity of Baby Maya's noggin. That kid's head is like Sputnik! Anyway, the compulsive lady heads out to the garage and kills herself. And since she's barely mentioned again in the rest of the episode, that's really all you need to know. Farewell, Melinda Mary Bloch. I only wish you'd pre-written the recap for me as well.

And if you thought the closet thing was clever foreshadowing imagery, then you'll really love this bit, which features Claire and Russell attempting to hang one of Olivier's paintings in preparation for an art show. He gleefully orders them to raise it a bit higher, so that people will "feel like the crow is going to peck their eyes out." A wide shot of the painting in full reveals that the squawking and spread-eagled ("spread-crowed"?) bird in question is superimposed over the genitals of a crudely-drawn naked guy wearing big black boots. I don't know who actually made that thing, but whoever it was did an excellent job of nailing Olivier's character. It's totally the sort of thing he would paint. In any case, remember that image later. From there we go to Claire hanging her own piece, which is a back-lit black-and-white photograph of an eclectic and [insert your own psychologically self-diagnostic adjective here] couple sunning themselves on lawn chairs in a graveyard. It's called "Life on Earth," and she's selling it for $75. Recent art purchases of my own (if you can call a really cool Ferris Bueller one-sheet art, and I do) would seem to indicate that a price that low wouldn't even cover the cost of the frame, much less the complicated back-lighting system and the privilege of owning a Claire Fisher original (although the subjective value I'm placing on that last one is probably psychologically self-diagnostic for myself). Russell agrees with me that $75 is too low, but he is quite jealous of the excellent and highly-visible location Claire has managed to snag. He escorts her back to a walled-off little "annex" to show off his own somewhat phallic (and therefore also psychologically self-diagnostic) contribution, which is basically a giant metal spiral that he's selling for $500 with the excessively accurate title of "Single Helix." Oh, please. Are we really supposed to believe that Russell can weld? I mean, one stray spark and you'd have a grease fire to rival The Hindenburg. Olivier smarms his way back into the scene so that Claire can ask him if she should charge more for her own piece. He's predictably pompous about it all, castigating their fixation on placement and price tags and ambiguo-accenting that "no one in this country was born with a soul. It has to be beaten into you." A nicely-executed pan then reveals that Olivier has priced his own work at $20,000. Hey, did you know this week's episode was directed by a former soap opera star?

In the dingy backroom of a West Hollywood video store, David and Keith are selecting their entertainment for the evening. David: "Have you seen this one?" Keith: "I don't like that guy. He's too veiny." David: "Sarge was veiny." Aaron: "Hee! And ew." The news certainly doesn't seem to have affected morale amongst his vast army of fans, however. David thinks the three-way should be a topic of conversation at their visit with Dr. Gross, but Keith is more concerned with "the dishes thing," and also seems to still be a bit bitter about The Jeanne Tripplehorn Incident. I've really got to add "Tripplehorn" to my spell-check dictionary, by the way. They're suddenly joined at the checkout counter by Father Jack, who's renting Sister Act and pointedly dropping the "Father" when he asks David to "please call me Jack." Just as pointedly, David introduces Keith as his "uh, boyfriend," and pleasantries are exchanged all around. Cue the clerk, who loudly announces that Fatherer, Jack is late returning Back to the Crack: Butt Munch Two. Whoops. Not much of a surprise, I suppose, but I'd have pegged the former Father as more of a Gaytrix sort of guy. Oh, well. At least it wasn't Sex Men.

Ah, the break-up scene. That dreaded trap of the quality show recap. They're long, they're wordy, they're riddled with subtext, and in addition to the above mentioned Tripplehorn-deficiency, the Microsoft grammar check function stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that "DieLisaDie!youwhiny@%#$@&bitch!!!!" is a perfectly valid sentence. I suppose they're still better than all those pedeconferences, though. And besides, these two don't really break up. We begin with an extreme close-up of Nate (BS = 1), who says that he's sorry, but he simply "can-NOT have this conversation one more time." The fragile couple is at home preparing for bed, and Lisa's gripe this week is that Nate recently made the grievous error of introducing Maya to an old high school chum before remembering to also mention the wife that gave birth to her. "It's like I'm an afterthought," she complains. "And people notice. That guy was embarrassed for me." Yeah, but it probably wasn't because Nate introduced the baby first. "I can't do any better than this," he counters. "And you know, some women might be very happy with a faithful, committed, totally devoted father and husband." Lisa immediately points out the importance of the order in which he placed those two words, and while it's not like she doesn't have a point here, I'm still not sure incessantly harping on that point is really the best way to handle the situation. After a long awkward silence, Nate timidly offers the observation that "maybe this just isn't right." Lisa automatically assumes this means that Nate doesn't love her enough to want to stay, but that's an allegation he vigorously denies. "It's enough for me," he insists. "It's not enough for you. I'm fine. I'm totally fucking fine with what we have. You're the one who's not happy, but you have to make everything about me and that's what I can't live with anymore." Oh, come on. If there's one thing you'd think Nate would be used to by now, it's that EVERYTHING is ALWAYS about him. Well, him and the word "fuck," of course. "So what are you saying?" shrieks Lisa. "You want to leave? Oh no, I would have to leave because I moved my whole fucking life to this shithole city!" "Not for me you didn't!" Nate shouts, and you know, I'm almost convinced he's actually stupid enough to still believe that. "So you want to split up?" asks the ever more frantic Lisa. "Maybe," answers Nate. "Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe, I don't know." Wow. That's a really definitive answer.

After an oddly creepy brain-shot of Ruth sitting alone at the kitchen table (BS = 2), she gathers her courage enough to sneak upstairs and knock on Arthur's bedroom door. "Just a minute," he calls before taking a short time to open the door. Your psychological self-diagnosis of Arthur no doubt greatly informs whatever it was you imagined he was doing in there before she knocked. Was he furiously composing a MIDI sonata inspired by the purity of the love he feels for his newfound maternal surrogate, or was he compulsively polishing his embalming tools and hiding the crispy-fired remnants of his actual mother somewhere underneath the bed? Apparently it was the former, because once he finally invites her inside, Ruth quickly compliments him on the beauty of the last song he played. "I'm so pleased that you like it," he purrs. "I thought I would call it'Semi-Precious.'" "For your Aunt Pearl?" Ruth wonders. "In part," he answers, ever so slyly. Or at least it was sly for a home-schooled guy who lives in a funeral home and frequently dictates letters on tape to communicate with his Mormon brethren. "I don't know how you can get such a beautiful sound from a computer," exclaims Ruth, which I'm choosing to take as a shout-out to my idea for a line of Books-On-Tape recap collections read by the stars of each show (just imagine Kiefer's velvety voice giving life to Gustave's musings on office furniture), but in reality is just an excuse to set Arthur up with an opportunity to tell an amusing (if somewhat forced) anecdote about his own upbringing: "As a child, I played the violin," he explains. "But when I went to college I had a very cruel roommate who threw the violin from our dormitory window. It was hand-carved by my Uncle Gunter, before he died of polio." Was Uncle Gunter married to Aunt Pearl? And does this mean that Arthur is related to Rose from The Golden Girls? Because I don't really have a hard time believing that. Anyway, this traumatic incident caused Arthur to give up on college and decide to attend mortuary school, which is where he discovered a strange fondness for the various atonal beeps produced by the TRS-80s in the school computer lab. His bizarre back-story thus established, Ruth decides to ask the boy to join her at Claire's art show, an invitation he's willing to accept only if she feels it would be "appropriate." "Well, of course!" she replies. "You're a member of our little family here. You're one of us, Arthur. One of us. One of us"

Diaz Residence. Or as I like to call it, The Lyceum. Rico wanders into the living room to find Vanessa zoned out on the couch, and no dinner waiting for him in the oven. "I couldn't decide [what to make]," she explains, without even the strength to tear her eyes away from the "Fanny Lifter" infomercial she's so absorbed in. Rico suggests meatloaf, but they're all out of meat. Then he suggests rice and beans, but the kids already had rice for lunch. "I couldn't remember what we had last night," continues Vanessa, in that same drug-induced monotone. "We had burgers last night," Rico reminds her, with a classic facial expression. What's sad about this is that I just know there's a great "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" Meatloaf joke in there somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. I mean, we all know Nate has already found "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," right? Rico demands to know if Vanessa has been taking her antidepressants, and she finally manages to display some emotion as she angrily retorts that it can take up to a month for the pills to work. "It takes a month for anything to happen at all?" wonders Rico. "Well, I gained five pounds already, so something is happening!" answers Vanessa, on the verge of tears. Rico takes pity on his obviously ill wife, and then Alan Ball demonstrates that he's still the only one with the ultimate power to shut Rico up by fading to white to end the scene.

We fade back up on The Formaldehyde Fortress, where Nate and Rico are meeting with the DGDJ's ex-boyfriend. Seeing as how we've already noted that everything is always about Nate, you probably won't be surprised to learn that this guy was himself trapped in a relationship with an emotionally unstable woman that he didn't really love. "I never thought she was really going to do it," he confesses. "But maybe in some way I did, because I stayed for years after I wanted to leave." Nate tries to convince him that he did the right thing, but Rico starts getting a little jealous of his partner and tries to make things all about himself for a few minutes. "Was she depressed?" he asks, before following that one up with a request for a detailed breakdown of all the medications she was on. The hapless and somewhat dorky guy offers up a thin ray of hope by mentioning a combination of drugs that seemed to be successful, but then he lapses into some psychobabble about tribes and stolen souls and how pissed off he was that Christy got voted out last week. And with the exception of a few brief seconds towards the end of the episode, that's it for our DGDJ's storyline. StC is 3,047 and counting. Hey, remember when Nate and David actually used to work in a funeral home? Yeah. Those were some good times.

Out in the Tofutti Tenement, meanwhile, Lisa holds her daughter and cries to herself. Now see? This is what I'm talking about. For God's sake -- Maya's own mother even cries more than she does. I wonder if they've got that kid on Prozac or something.

Couples therapy. David kicks things off by announcing, "I hear that when I re-wash the dishes after you've washed them, it makes you feel like I don't think you're good enough." Boy, it sure is a good thing these two are working out the really important issues in their relationship, isn't it? After they get that one settled, Dr. Gross asks if anything else has come up since their last session. Keith says no, but David rolls his eyes and blurts, "Well we did have three-way sex with a stranger." He's also bit of a drama queen about the whole thing, so I'm thinking Terry and Patrick might be starting to rub off on him a little bit. But not in a Sears men's room sort of way, of course. "How did it feel to you?" asks Dr. Gross. "Fine," answers David. "It was a lot more enjoyable than the paintball." Heh. Arye suggests that they might want to consider establishing ground rules for encounters like this if they plan on doing it again, but he does want make sure first that they're both comfortable with that idea. "It was very liberating," Keith acknowledges. "To be spontaneous and kind of wild together, instead of always being so careful about everything." "It was fun to be wild," David admits. "I still think Sarge was a little veiny, though." Arye repeats his "ground rules" suggestion, and our boys both tentatively agree.

Zhora's place. Brenda and her mother are getting ready to leave for the art show. Brenda prepares herself by moping on the divan, whereas Zhora is busy applying make-up and rolling a handful of joints (POT = ∞). Ever the enabler, Ma Chenowith happily offers her daughter a few fatties for the road. This forces Brenda to remind her mother that she's quit smoking pot, which in turn forces Zhora to take up the Alan Ball mantle of Staunch Defender Of All Things Weed. "I'm just curious, honey," she inquires, "what makes you think that was such a problem for you?" She further accuses Brenda of getting caught up in some "twelve-step Christian dogma," but Brenda insists that "taking on other people's dogma" has never been a problem for her. There's probably a compulsive barking joke in there somewhere, but I can't seem to find that one either. "You do tend to overdramatize yourself," says Zhora, apropos of nothing. "And I'm sorry, sweetie, but I've known you for a really long time." Brenda is all, "Thanks for your support, MOM," and Zhora eventually seems to notice that she's gone too far. They're just about to reach a level of moderate rapprochement when Billy enters to remind them that his car is double-parked outside. "I just have to do one final coat," says Ma, before heading into the bathroom to re-compose herself. Billy takes a seat beside his sister, and quickly notices that she's upset about something. "I'm sick of being so fucking conscious all the time," she sighs. "It's like I'm this incredibly boring, watered-down version of myself." "I know what you mean," he answers. So do I, Brenda. So do I. As they all make their way out the door, Zhora can't resist one last crack. "You know that shirt might actually work if you got rid of the bra," she tells her daughter. "Oh, yeah?" replies Brenda. "That skirt might actually work if you got rid of that ass." Hmm. I wonder if the Waltons ever had conversations like that.

The Boredello. Nate and Lisa bicker about babysitters and other banalities as Lisa angrily tries on every single sweater in her closet. "You know, you don't have to come if you don't want to," offers Nate, who seems to be incorrectly assessing his wife's passive-aggressive behavior. "I'm not going for you," she tells him. "I'm going for Claire. I have a relationship with her, you know." Yeah. If by "have a relationship" you actually mean "she thinks of me as the crazy ant-whisperer her brother accidentally knocked up," that is. "Ahh, fuck it. I'll just be cold," mutters Lisa, as she discards the last of the sweaters. And why is that she's somehow reminding me of Marge Simpson in this scene? I think it's her voice. Although that would explain why Maya never cries. It's a clever (albeit somewhat obtuse) shout-out to silent Maggie Simpson! Of course, if that were true, Nate would still have his Bart hair from Season One, so I guess I'm probably just reading too much into it. Oh, well.