Because the dramatic effect of any pre-death sequence pivots entirely on how like a Snoopy-penned short story said sequence is, "it was a dark and stormy night" in an empty parking lot where, I'm sure, were we to keep reading, we would discover that the Red Baron was up to absolutely no good at all. The rain teems down and eerie foreshadowing crashes through the night sky, and in short order a lone car pulls into the lot, passes by the designated "Employee Of The Month" spot on account of being really stupidly effing late for work, and the driver kills (herself? Her entire family? Those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers?) the car's headlights (BO-ring). The figure, who we must ascertain from the back is a female on account of the looks-like-a-pump-feels-like-a-sneaker clackity-clack of her sensible work shoes scampering across the pavement, cracks open an umbrella and makes for the front of 2400 Generic Corporate Plaza.
Through the front door, the woman -- let's call her "Death's Placebo," on account of her being merely the decoy for death this week -- enters the building and tosses her Burberry Umbrella...OF DEATH into a holder near the elevator. She hits the elevator button and fails to stand back a reasonable amount from the doors, rendering it entirely her fault when the doors open and a creepy older gentleman wearing a trench coat and a scowl -- let's call him The Lead Singer Of Midnight Oil -- walks right into her. I'm just glad that seeing him here means he's vacated his former residence of "under my bed for the first seven years of my life." She gasps in horror and offers a quick "My fault," but The Lead Singer Of Midnight Oil fixes her with a sad-eyed how-can-we- dance-when-the- earth-is-turning stare and responds in a growl, "Nothing is anybody's fault." Until you can prove to me in a court of good writing that that line wasn't entirely Alan Ball's fault, I'm going to have to beg to differ. The woman tries to force a smile, even in the face of only statistically-even odds on survival -- there are two people here and only 50% of them are going to make it out of this scene alive, so you can't love those odds if you're the damsel and this is your ever-encroaching distress -- and steps into the elevator. The Lead Singer Of Midnight Oil stares at her for a moment too long, waiting until the doors close to tell her, "You're beautiful." She recoils from the situationally-inappropriate pick-up line, looking tired of it all, as her look of weariness undoubtedly derives more from forgetting to hand in those TPS Reports and having to come back to the office at midnight than, say, running through his head all day.
The elevator door closes and The Lead Singer Of Midnight Oil decides that the time has come to say fair's fair. To pay the rent. To pay his share. Except instead of doing or paying anything fairly, he grabs the snazzy Burberry umbrella out of the holder and ambles through the front door of the building. And, hoo boy, does God hate him for it. As The Lead Singer Of Midnight Oil passes the sole car in the lot, a stray bolt of lightning zaps out of seeming nowhere and hits the top of the umbrella, causing The Lead Singer Of Midnight Oil to topple over instantly on the wet pavement. And like one too many visionary Australian '80s bands left without a lead singer due to errant electricity and sharp metal spokes (sorry, Michael Hutchence, but we've all heard the rumors), we discover that the world of the future will be without one Lawrence Henry Mason, who made it from 1938 to 2003 before more than just his beds were burning.
David "Need You Tonight" Fisher wakes up in the dark to the sound of a ringing telephone. He sits up in bed and, in a gravelly voice that sounds like it was recorded backwards and then played forward like the Twin Peaks midget or the "I'm Only Sleeping" guitar solo, reports, "David Fisher." A panicked female voice asks, "Oh my god, David, is that you?" because if you've dialed David Fisher's number and a man picks up and identifies himself as "David Fisher," it's security crosscheck time. But David can't lapse into his obsequious sympathy routine just yet, since first he must go through the hilarious ritual of unadorning himself of the numerous sleep paraphernalia that must make late-night pillow talk with Keith a hell of a Who's On First routine. "David, I love you." "You think I'm wrong for you?" "I said that I love you." "Who sent my mom poo?" And so on.
Removing a wad of cotton from his ear so imposing it makes the entire estate of Eli Whitney simultaneously observe, "Well, gonna need a bigger gin" before hauling ass off the couch to see if the manual explains how to use a revolving cylinder crank, David puts the phone back up to his ear and asks, "Hello?" This time the voice of unreason identifies itself as Jennifer, who screams, "My father was killed." Upping the inherently hilarious ante of "dead father" even further, Keith "Original Sin" Charles snores elaborately on the other side of the bed, forcing David to hit him really hard as he attempts to listen to Jennifer's woe. She asks David if he can handle the funeral, and he assures her, "Of course we'll take care of it," before sucking in his teeth and, I think, making her wonder if he was crying. At which point he rips from his mouth an enormous plastic worm, explaining, "It's just my mouth guard, so I don't grind my teeth when I sleep." Four out of five dentists agree this might not be the best time to discuss his oral hygiene in such detail. And that fifth dentist? Total fucking boozer. David whacks Keith (ew, not like that) one more time and whisper-hisses, "Jennifer's father died" as Jennifer sobs on the other end of the line, as Keith wakes up with a "what the fuck?" as David continues to negotiate his numerous dowdy old man apparatuses. For sure, the passion has not gone out of this relationship. You guys, are you sure gay marriage hasn't been legalized?
Sitting at the kitchen table while Keith tends to some eggs at the stove, David notes, "I hope she's married. That way I won't have to feel so guilty for wasting almost two years of her life." Pipe down, David. How are you supposed to enjoy your eggs if you're so gorged on all that tasty, delicious backstory? Keith chooses to respond in the global sense because if he can't speak for the totality of the gay experience, he's just a dead-end character with a dead-end job in a dead-end plotline, telling David, "Every woman needs to go through falling in love with a gay man. It's a female rite of passage." And for every grieving female done wrong by her ex-boyfriend's emergent sexuality, there's a boy still trying to wash off the grody sins of prom night. The emotional pain of this works two ways here, okay? By example, Keith notes, "I mean, what about Claire and What's-His-Face?" Ew, let's not remind any of us of What's-His-Face, particularly of What's-His-Face's face, with its recent mustachioed addition, like he should be tying damsels in distress to railroad tracks and insisting to poverty-stricken country lasses that they "must pay the rent." David warns Keith against mentioning anything about that to Claire, and Keith continues his ideologue, sermonizing from the pulpit of Our Drag Queen Of No Mercy Church, "Just like every gay man needs to go through a period where he tries to be straight." David notes that he doesn't think that's a requirement anymore in this day and age, and Keith counters , "What about Claire and What's-His-Face?" Ack! The Stepford Keith-bot is broken and needs to be decommissioned right away. Let's test it by seeing if it spews the same answer to every question posed of it. Ahem: Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks? I'm just talking Claire and What's-His-Face. Shut yo mouth!
Keith finally makes it over to the table with the eggs, sitting down across from David and indicating that changes in blocking must beget changes in conversational flow. Without being asked -- because it wasn't exactly on my list of talking points either -- Keith volunteers, "So, I'm back on Celeste duty today." He continues that it's "some rehearsal for some charity tomorrow," and asks David what he should wear. David suggests an outfit tantamount to showing up at work wearing pride-striped briefs exposed by ass-less chaps, a Village People concert t-shirt, and a perfectly-folded pink triangle-shaped pirate hat. And for any of you who quote that outfit out of context on your Keith fetish fanfic sites, please note that I intend to prosecute you and crappy fashion sense to the fullest extent the law provides. Keith swipes back that his job requires him to project "an image," provoking David to shoot back, "Are you not out on the job?" Keith tries to pretend that no one has asked him, and David reminds him that they broke up the first time because David wasn't out. "To your family," Keith yells, adding, "It's not like I expect you to come out to every person who walks through the funeral home..." David shoots back that he doesn't expect Keith to come out to every client, "whether it's Celeste or Cameron Diaz or Ian fucking McKellen. But the people you work with?" David? If it puts me on a higher moral plane, I'd be happy to come out to Ian fucking McKellen, so long as he promises to tell his boy lover from the Oscars that one year all about it, if he felt like congratulating me also. I'm just saying. That I'm very, very brave and noble. Either way, Keith seeks to defuse the fight with a soft tone and an objectionable use of terminology, reminding David, "Calm down. I'm not the enemy. I'm your lover." And if that word isn't followed up immediately by the words "She told me I was her forever lover, y'know don't you remember," and then after that with "Well she said after lovin' me, she could never love another," followed by Paul McCartney getting carried away, "I don't belieeeeeve it!" on the fade, I have absolutely no use for it at all and wish they'd stop saying it right away. You know who probably used to call each other "lovers" in order to subvert the male-female societal roles expected of them in an ostensibly monogamous relationship? Say it with me if you're running as fast as the running gag: what about Claire and What's-His-Face?
"Thanks, Barb," says "A One World State As Human" Nate Fisher as he carries Maya down the steps of Fisher & Diaz and engages in conversation with Lisa's small, prickly sister. Barb can't believe that Maya has never been to Lego Land, but Nate says she's been too small to go until now, and when she asks a question as controversial as whether Maya enjoys playing with Legos, Nate reminds her, "Too young, small parts, choking?" Because this is totally just a fight about Legos, Barb takes this moment to remember, "She's still that orally fixated? No wonder. She was still breastfeeding." Just as Nate seems poised to tell Barb which part of him she can suck on for her own nutritional fortitude, they reach the Barb-family minivan. The door opens to reveal Mr. Barb in the driver's seat, and I take a moment to quietly thank HBO -- even though I know from the "We Invented Water And Unicorns!" Sunday night promos that no one loves HBO quite so much as HBO loves HBO, so they don't really need my love -- for being a network that would read "boisterous and out-of-touch" in the description of a father driving a minivan and not automatically pick up the phone and insist, "Get me Tom Arnold right away." I know it sounds like simple math, but think of the number of times Hollywood has not thought to avoid Tom Arnold in situations such as that one. And he would say yes. He's not programmed for a "no." In the first row of passenger seats (I don't know if the rows have names. I don't know that much about minivans. I don't think I've ever been in a minivan) are the two boys we saw last at Lisa's funeral, who are playing some kind of non-union, south-of-the-border Game Boy knockoffs (muchacho del juego?) and patently ignoring their elders. I Can't Believe It's Not Tom Arnold -- and again I must really give HBO props for providing this lower-fat alternative -- calls from the front seat, "Hey! She just keeps gettin' bigger every day!" Nate, always the straight man sidekick, Schwarzeneggers his response, "Yeah, kids kinda do that," which inspires I Can't Believe It's Not Tom Arnold to laugh raucously and call out, "Yeah, you got me!" What a simpleton, this minivan-driving father of three who provides for his family and takes them on vacation! Let's mock him until he collapses under the full weight of his misguided suburban satisfaction!
But we shall not mock haunted children. For I believe the haunted children are our haunted future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. INTO HELL. What am I even talking about right now? From the part of the minivan that we used to refer to as the "very way back" when it was our wood-paneled station wagon when I was growing up, haunted niece Michaela (that's how it's spelled, people. Check the closing credits and gently depress the "delete" button on your fact-checking emails) calls out, "Uncle Nate? Could you be sure and give this to David? Tell him that it's from Michaela." The book is a copy of Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, which, thanks to this synergistic episode of Six Feet Under, has now landed on my Amazon wish list, and probably on yours as well. It's a totally self-serving shout-out in a way, because I really think this show credits itself entirely with any quirky pop cultural reference to death in all modern media, ever. At least she didn't give him the first season DVDs of Dead Like Me. Or the second season DVDs of Six Feet Under. And, while we're talking about it, good eye on having Michaela give him the hardcover edition of the book, as the paperback might have been out during filming, but certainly wouldn't have been out in the "2003" that killed Peter Garrett and saw this action unfold. Jesus. "Book continuity" is the best thing I've found to say about this episode so far. Sure hope no one gets high and goes running after a psychic dog.
Nate forks over his daughter and asks Barb if they need anything else, and she responds that they could use, per I Can't Believe It's Not Tom Arnold, "A hundred bucks, maybe a hundred and twenty?" Barb explains that the costs would cover such expenses as "Maya's share of the hotel, parking, restaurants..." And, seriously, I thought the two of them would hold this pose for a second and then break character and be all, "Nah, we're totally just fucking with you," which would be the only appropriate action, I think. But they don't, Barb peering back at Nate with a look that asks, "Do you see a sign on this minivan that reads 'Sedate motherless coma babies ride free'? You don't? Well, you don't see it because there ain't no such sign." Nate pawns Maya off on Barb and goes for his wallet. Seriously, you'd have more luck getting me to pull the original draft of the Magna Carta out of my wallet on demand than $100 in cash. I'm not made of money. I'm also not technically made of great charters of English liberty, but I'm probably somehow even less made of money. While Nate fishes around for cash, Barb asks if Maya likes to swim, and Nate experiences a quick flash of Lisa "Suicide Blonde" Fisher casting off her clothes at the beach on her long walk off a short mortal coil. Back in the money-grubbing, suburb-loving present, Barb asks Nate if he's doing all right and he confirms that he mostly is. Nate kisses Maya on the forehead, and she raises an arm ever so slightly to confirm that she is just as much of a child actor as any other, with just as much of a right to grow up, star in a string of TV movies, ram a motorcycle into a tree, and write a tell-all from the clink about what it was like to grow up around maudlin death imagery, indiscriminately cursing adults, and an actor who repeatedly slammed his dressing room door after screaming his patented "No, seriously. It's 'Krau-zuh. I don't understand why the world finds that so goddamn difficult already."
Claire "New Sensation" Fisher sits in an art class, staring at a photo of an enormous and furry cat and complaining, "I think it looks like something you'd see on a calendar, like, in some bargain bin somewhere, like three months after the new year." If that were actually the case, though, the cat in question would probably be enjoying a tray of lasagna and alerting us to its utter disdain of Mondays. Sitting to her, Anita asks her sarcastically, "Can you be any more harsh?" because writing dialogue for teenagers is as easy as italicizing the sarcasm turnkey word in the sentence and then indicating in the stage directions, "Though she means exactly the opposite." Thank you for this script doctoring lesson, Alan Ball. Could you be any more talented? Claire and Anita engage in some brief sniping, and the teacher, who I don't think we've ever seen before ["We've sure as hell seen her putting some lotion in a basket in order not to get the hose again" -- Wing Chun], steps butchily forward and teaches, "I think the question is not so much, 'Is this piece good'? I would rather we ask, 'Is this piece successful'?" Claire Music Mans her way through her dialogue, announcing, "This is America. Successful equals good" in a broad cultural swipe so perfectly collegiate you have to give the writing credit whether it really was trying to be clever or not. Professor Butch Cassidy clarifies that she meant, "Successful in achieving its intentions," and I wonder if, after this correspondence course we're taking in Outspoken Lesbian Art Criticism at Apex Technical School, we get to keep the tool box. Butch Cassidy tells Anita that her piece should have some meaning to her or she wouldn't have brought it in. Claire sits with her arms folded looking self-satisfied, thus firmly entrenching the emerging subplot of Claire being someone who seeks to stand in critical appraisal of pussy. Oh! Rim shot! Sorry, Claire, but you and your Suvari-love pushed me to it, and I refuse to take responsibility.
Ruth "Never Tear Us Apart" Fisher stands as distrustingly as someone can stand while wearing a twee gardening hat, staring at a cardboard box sitting on the stoop. Inside the house, George "Devil Inside" Sibley unearths a large toy truck, the back of which is filled with human feces. Nate, who has no earthly reason to appear in this scene other than to let loose with one of those patented Laugh In zingers we've come to know the Nate Fisher character so well for, turns from the refrigerator and tells them, "Kinda gives no meaning to the term 'dump truck.'" If I had written that in a recap? Hate mail. Sent postal mail. With the words "You write for www.televisionwithoutSHITTY.com" carved in the side. ["I totally made that joke before Nate did, but I said it sarcastically, knowing it was bad, because it wasn't so long ago that I was a teenager myself." -- Wing Chun]
Michelle Trachtenberg and her alternating five or six dancers are at a large rehearsal space somewhere, where they rehearse and lip-synch along to a song apparently called "A Legend In Your Own Mind." But I think if you check the liner notes you'll learn that the full title really is "A Legend In Your Own Mind (A Scene That Exists As A Challenge To Keith's Sexuality, And Doesn't Actually Exist For Any Other Purpose, So Too Bad We Hired All These Dancers Just To Prove A Point, You Know What I Mean, CFO Of The Network?)." It's like the title of the last Fiona album! Anyway, Security Metaphor #1 stands with Keith and asks, "How many of those guys you think she fucked?" to which Security Metaphor #2 responds, "Them faggots too busy fucking each other to even work her in." Security Metaphor #2 then turns to Keith and asks if he'll be coming on the road with them month, and Keith responds that he does not yet know. Because, you guys, SM2 is really a nice guy once you get to know him if you're not a faggot. So good thing we're not, eh, boys? Now can you move out of the way a little bit? I'm having a bit of trouble seeing the blond dancer.
David welcomes ex-fiancée Jennifer and her new fiancé Greg into the funeral home. They sit in the chairs of sadness where everyone spends a lot of time being sad, Jennifer saying that her mother won't even be coming to the funeral because she's in a nursing home. As David sympathizes, "She's so young," Greg draws the stark contrast that if you want to have sex with a woman, you also care about power tools and Tim Allen stand-up routines and other deviant behavior therein. He outs with, "Honey, I don't mean to rush you, but I need to be back on the site by noon. The latest." Oh, and you also work at a place called "the site."
Back at the When The Pawn... recording session, Keith asks SM2 what going on tour is like, and he responds, "The thing about Celeste. Every concert is packed with teenage girls, horny out of their minds." Keith warns that he should make sure to "check IDs," and SM2 cautions him, "Naw [they also say things like 'Naw'], you just gotta make sure you don't videotape nothing." Ooooh, a casual R. Kelly dig three years in the making. He'll target anyone, that Alan Ball. He doesn't care whom he insults. Who's on his list of society's beat-down candidates? Paul Reubens? Hugh Grant? This script cannot be stopped! SM2 asks Keith if he's married, and Keith goes gender-neutral in his response, "We live together." SM2 warns him against marriage, showing Keith his ring and telling him, "I'm on number three, and I can't seem to fucking learn." They also curse a lot. And their hearing has been dulled by the power tools and it's rendered them unable to listen to the finer nuances of grammar. And, apparently, they're pedophiles. Keith stands silent as SM2 asks if he can ask a "personal question," and then comes forward with, I think, "How many times a week you get your pole wet?" That is what he says, right? Keith tells him that it's about "five or six times a week," and SM2 says that it's only once or twice a week for him, and that's only when "I buy her something." Keith tells him that that's "not good," and SM2 laughs and says, "That's so motherfuckin' not good." They share a laugh because all humor is pointedly funnier in a decidedly faggot-free zone.
Claire, Anita, Russell, and some girl who's there to fill out the couch sit around a common room at LAC Arts, watching, I think, a documentary on cave paintings and saying a lot of really pretentious things. Like this: "If you take humans out of nature, there's only human nature." Compliments of Russell, a comment that inspires Claire to respond tartly , "That sounds really good, but what the fuck does that mean?" Though Claire's comments didn't sound that much more cogent, and Anita just opened her mouth to link the ruin of the environment to the shortcomings of "bushwhackers," which I'm sure is actually a less-than-subtle dig against the current Presidential administration, which is actually fine by me. Just then, Olivier saunters through the room with a leggy woman who is carrying two cups of coffee. Olivier is laughing uproariously in a "please note I am Olivier, for I will become important to the action of this episode shortly" kind of way, and the woman he's with goes so far as to say the words, "Oh, Olivier!" Here's another way we could figure out who he is with a little more ease: have him take off the damn Ali G. skullcap. "I heard you fucked him," Anita says to Claire, and Claire peers right through Russell's soul -- and believe me, there are some murky goings-on trying to see all the way through there -- as she responds, "No, I did not fuck him."
Satisfied with not noticing nuance while Russell stares guiltily at the ground and looks like The Crow, Anita immediately turns the topic to the pussy-whipping she took in class, asking Claire why she was so bitchy about her photos. "Or is that just the new Claire Fisher?" You could totally see the creative staff of this show puzzling over the extraordinary amount that had to be accomplished in this scene, with some producer standing in front of a board with lots of different color dry erase pens being all, "Okay. First they talk about cave paintings. Then we say something mean about Bush. Then they make fun of Russell. Then -- oh crap -- how are we going to get Olivier in there? Okay, then we solidify the talking point of 'The New Claire Fisher,' just in case the kicky new haircut isn't doing all of our work for us. And it had better work, too, because we don't have the marketing money to launch some apology Claire, like, 'Claire Classic,' if the new model tanks. Then we'll introduce the blonde if we have time. Then Claire -- wait, has Olivier been in yet? Crap. I so quit." It's just meandering all over here, people. Russell asks what was wrong with the old Claire Fisher, and she shoots back, "She just waited around for the world to happen to her," before rising from her chair and walking to a nearby computer. There she discovers Jimmy, who is famous for his many storied "things," as we learned last week. She walks up behind him and knocks a hat from his head, saying "Hey, Jimmy" in a way that makes the '80s commercial lover in all of us reflexively yell back, "Gimme a cheese with nothin'!" He turns around all angry ("Nothin'?"), and she apologizes for the awkward moment. She tells him that she would love to hang out with him, and he tells her, "Say when." Russell looks on, all, "I live in a house of silent torture, one that is of my own making entirely" before the camera operator runs his five fingers vertically across his neck in a "cut!"-like motion from the shot of Russell before they call attention to the fact that they didn't get around to introducing the blonde. Too bad. She's a pretty girl.
Rico works on the charred remains of Mr. Jennifer's Dad while entertaining his lady friend Infinity on the phone. He is soon to be interrupted by Ruth and George, and Rico says into the phone, "Vanessa. I have to call you back, sweetie." Sitting on stack of food stamps or whatever and smoking a Kool she stole from her last john, she snarks into the phone, "Vanessa? Oh, no, he di'in't." Okay, we get it. She's a hoochie. We know she's on the pole. We don't need her giving that conversation two snaps and a circle. We know she's not high-class. Back at the house, Ruth asks Rico if Arthur left a forwarding address, but Rico says he did not. George saunters over to Rico and asks what happens to a person after he's struck by lightning. As Rico begins to explain, Ruth interrupts by screaming at Rico that she needs to get in touch with Arthur. George fixes her with a glare and demands, "Ruth. Calm. Down." Ruth does no such thing, storming out of the room with a freaked "Fine! I'll just resign myself to receiving excrement in the mail for the rest of my days on this earth." The good news? You've married a mass murderer whose killings go undetected on account of his untraceable ability to patronize you to death. Your days on this earth are ticking.
Brenda "The Swing" Chenowith enters her bedroom with a furious scowl on her face, screaming, "You little shit. I'm starting to lose patience with your sensitive male bullshit." Aren't we all! Finally, a little comeuppance in the subplot of Justin Ther-neaux and his Brenda-distracting peaux-etry. Except, not. For, you see, this is merely a role-playing exercise, and Joe's arms and legs are bound to the bed, where he lies in just his boxer briefs looking fake-scared. But just as Brenda's getting really into it and hits him with a wooden spoon, they're interrupted be a ringing doorbell that causes the fully clothed Brenda to stand stock-still and observe, "Huh. I wonder who that is." As she leaves the room, Joe tells her to close the door, and she leans in on him and scowls, "What? You don't want somebody to see you all tied up like this? Too bad, because I want the whole world to see what a twisted sister you are." Because when it's time for love, it's time for a Dee Snider reference. Brenda opens the door to find Nate on the stoop, so tortured by the loss of his one and only love that he believes it is socially appropriate to bring a six-pack of Budweiser with him on a pop-in. Y'all, he's not right. Nate notices the telltale feet sticking out from the bedroom, and Brenda tells him, "Hold on. You can meet him." Nate? Leave. Stage direction: Nate does not move.
Sitting on their couch, Keith frets to David that "it's weird at work." He feels like he's "fifteen years old all over again," which at least means that it looks like he'll be invited to have sex with that other security guard as long as there aren't any cameras present. David sympathizes with Keith for being trapped in a culture where he feels he can't come out, but nevertheless tells him he has to come out. Keith says that it's "his decision," and David's point that Keith has turned into a "self-loathing homo" is then conveniently proven when the phone rings and Keith tears the phone out of David's hands with an embarrassed "I'll get that." Keith gets a meeting time and a coffee order for the following morning, but David is more concerned about the fact that he can't answer the phone in his own house, turning to the answering machine and pushing a button, yelling, "You've reached David and Keith, but we can't come to the phone right now because we're too gay." I'm just impressed he knew the right button to change the outgoing message without even consulting the manual. If I tried to make that grand a point in front of my lovah, the machine would be all, "Message alert off, message alert on, message alert off" and I'd be all, "I don't even know what that means" before storming off in a huff anyway.
Brenda and Joe sit on Brenda's couch as Nate drinks a beer and explains something cute Maya did and how it made him think of death. Joe hits his generic-guy marks without a problem, noting that "Parenthood is such a huge fucking responsibility," but what on earth else could he say considering the circumstances? ["This scene was also amusing to me because it totally dramatized the way parents -- even ones who haven't just lost their spouses tragically -- think everything their babies do is as interesting to their single friends as it is to themselves. Note to parents: it ain't." -- Wing Chun] Nate continues his congressional filibuster of the damned, telling them, "I still feel like Lisa is around, pushing me to move on, wants me to. But you can't. Can't rush it." He takes a swig of Bud as the others sit in silence, and Nate realizes in this moment that the reason he spends so much damn time by himself is because nobody can stand to be anywhere near him. Even his daughter. Who is a baby of unlimited needs. She'll just forage on her own, thanks. Nate tells them it's time for him to take his leave, Brenda asks him if he's okay to drive, and Nate tells them he is, adding, "I can't believe I was the only one drinking. You guys made me feel like such a lowlife." He goes, and Joe immediately notes that Nate is "seriously wounded," suggesting that they outfit him with one of those dog collars that prevents him from chewing on his stitches. Brenda apologizes for not being able to turn Nate away, and Joe tells her that it's fine because he really enjoyed being tied up "like a Christmas ham" when Brenda's ex-boyfriend decided on the pop-in. I think he totally means that, actually.
You know those moments in controversial movies? When the first frog falls in Magnolia or the first time you don't have any effing clue what's going on in Donnie Darko? But instead of standing up and storming out of the room and burning your Netflix card, you hang on because you think the artistic achievement of the project is greater in its sum than the one thing you find to be a miscalculated, pretentious overshoot? These are called "You're In Or You're Out Moments," where you really make the commitment to put your faith in the project, rather than giving up and running like hell. You know those moments? Did you watch this episode of Six Feet Under? Well, you sure as hell know those moments now.
Okay. Nate smokes pot near a pyramid in a cemetery. Hold on. I know what you're thinking. But really, it gets better. He then takes off on a jog around said cemetery. And I go running almost every day and I can't say I've never inhaled, but I can say it's never been at the same time, idiot! Pot and Phish concerts? Go for it. Pot and standing in front of a vending machine with a mug filled with quarters giggling over which kind of Combos would best cheese your hunger away? You are probably my spiritual brother. But "you got your pot in my exercise, you got your exercise in my pot" is not a "two great tastes that taste great together" moment I ever hope to experience. But Nate. Well, he's mourning. On his first lap around, he is met by a brown dog of some kind -- no, I do not know of what kind -- who runs beside him for a moment and then stops some distance from the path and barks madly at Nate. The dog whines and stares into Nate's eyes until Nate stares back and feels compelled to stare deeply into the dog's eyes and ask, "Lisa?" Out of the way. The frogs are falling.
Celeste charity event. Keith and his tween-loving, fag-hating friend guard the door to her dressing room as a woman in a smart suit approaches the door. Keith stops her in her tracks until she identifies herself as "chairwoman of this event." Celeste comes out of the room wearing a spangly gold tank top that makes her entire generation look as if it was attacked by a Bedazzler, and her hair is pulled back behind some netting that will probably find a wig on it, unless the charity she's performing for is for really premature female baldness and it's really, really contagious. Celeste tells the woman, "We have a problem." She notes that there was a $3000 fee for her hair and makeup people in her contract, and that she won't go on stage until they're paid. The coordinator reminds her that they're "actually trying to raise money for people with anti-coagulative blood disorders." Celeste reminds her that she's there for free, and the woman tells her, "I think you're a gigantic bitch, and I will no longer allow my daughters to listen to your music." Celeste gives it right back: "I'm sorry. You're either trying to weasel out of what you agreed to or were too stupid to even read it, and I'm the bitch?" And this conversation is utterly real and would happen without question. Except it would be the publicist having that conversation for her, while the star sat in her dressing room and pretended not to hear any of it. The woman storms off and Celeste turns to Keith and asks, "You peed in my john?" He apologizes and tells her that he did, and she tells him, "I'm a little weird about my bathroom" before going back in her dressing room. Security Metaphor #2 accuses Keith of having his head up Celeste's ass, which I don't think he did, and then scoffs when two buff dancers exit the dressing room -- no doubt to go infect the audience with a case of gay -- and give Keith a second look. Because they know. Were one of them only to get really close to Keith, stare deeply into his eyes for a minute or more, and ask, "Lisa?"
A dog runs. In slo-mo. Through Los Angeles. And Nate follows the dog. Because the dog is Lisa. Don't you people see? Why do I need to explain this to you? The dog comes to rest in front of a white house with green trim and a sign reading "Mana Lisa, Mythic Adviser." The psychic dog Lisa led him to a psychic human. Her house looks like a TV psychic's office, and a middle-aged woman with short hair says a TV psychic thing: "I've been waiting for you. I have many messages for you." Nate is momentarily dubious, and he asks, "What's my name?" She tells them that "they" don't tell her his name, only that "you've lost a lot and your heart has been broken." Nate asks after the identity of the "they," and she identifies one of "they" as "an older man who watches over you. Your father? Your grandfather? He was very unhappy in life. The other one is a woman, I think. Can't be sure." Nate sits down and tries not to take her seriously, heading her off by telling her, "No offense, I think this is a huge ball of crap." That he'll further work out his demons by mailing it off to his mother, the poor dear. Anyway, Mana Lisa -- if that's your real name -- heads off his attempts to leave with an impressive Hail Mary, noting urgently, "She's not gone. She's trying to get to you. She just doesn't know how...I see a woman. I see water. She thinks you stopped loving her." Nate yells back that she's dead ["so much for thinking it's a huge ball of crap; Nate, you're so easy" -- Wing Chun], and Bahama Mama is all, "She isn't dead!" Y'all? They tried to throw a psychic dog at us! Can you believe what they wanted us to go ahead and...hey, why are you guys all still watching?
Jennifer and Failed Case Study #175-B in the Hetero Genome Study -- also known as her fiancé, "Buck" or "Striker" or whatever straight men are called in the wild -- argue right around the corner of the open casket of her dead father. That sounds dire, but...scanning for psychic dogs? It's clear! Good. We may proceed.
A cut later, Jennifer is sitting alone crying in The Room Where They Go To Cry, and David walks in to look sympathetic. Good thing he has doe-eyes at the ready, because she's got a tear-inducing monologue: "My older brother dies when I'm ten. My mother develops Alzheimer's really early. The love of my life turns out to be gay. And my dad gets struck by lightning. Why does all of this happen to me?" David tells her that he doesn't know, and tries to take her hand (transference! Did he learn nothing from...himself?), which turns out to be a bad idea. Because it makes her eeeeeeeeevil. She screams that she was so in love with David and that all she did was go out of her way to make his life easier when he came out, and for what? "Because you wanted to suck cock?" She continues on, "I hate that you're gay. I fucking hate it," before bursting into tears. David analyzes it away right there: "You don't hate that I'm gay. You hate that I lied...I lied to myself." With which he exits the room, the words "Emmy clip" blinking at the bottom of the screen in the strangest fashion.
George and Ruth stare at a bureau they've pushed against the wall of a room I don't know the name of, George asking if Ruth likes it. She responds, "How could I not like the first piece of furniture we purchased together as a couple?" A perfect place to fold up all that crisply ironed exposition she's just bought. She sits down on the couch and tells him that she talked to a lawyer about pressing charges against Arthur, and George is finally forced to admit that he knows it isn't Arthur who is responsible. Well, who is? "My son...Kyle." Ruth thought his son was named Ryan. Kyle is another son! It's coming fast and furious now! Ruth wants to know why she wouldn't have known about another son, and Ruth heads off George's claim that this son is not a part of George's life with the quotable "If he's sending us shit in the mail, he's a part of your life." George says that he was "very young" when this happened, and that said son's family didn't think George was suitable and didn't want him around. Was that a binding contract? Is it downloadable online? Can someone shoot the Fishers over a copy? Are they still opening their mail?
Brenda's mother! Brenda's mother! I know, I know. She'll just end up disappointing me with her sniping comments and her one-dimensional narcissism, but what a pretty one dimension she exhibits. We're at a dinner party at Margaret's house, where Brenda and Olivier (remember from before? When they told us to watch out for him? REMEMBER?) meet Joe and Brenda. Joe asks Olivier why he teaches art, and Olivier tells her that he needs the paycheck, which Margaret refutes, laughing, "All you have to do is just keep making paintings and I'll keep buying them." Margaret takes this moment to point out that Olivier was her son's art teacher, all but screaming, "I'm hot for teacher!" Brenda rolls her eyes and adopts the linguistic patois of Claire's generation, demanding, "Drink more, mom." Margaret chides Brenda for refusing to try the Shiraz, and Olivier busts in with a story about a student who tattooed a company logo on his head in return for his education. Joe takes this opportunity to sneak out to the bathroom, at which point Margaret takes this opportunity to scream-whisper, "He's the one! I can feel it!" Beat. "Just don't fuck it up this time like you always do."
Shut up, Nate. And dog-eyed Lisa. And Lisa's jaw. Nate corners Claire back in the house and makes her admit that it's possible Lisa is alive. Claire asks the most intuitive question imaginable, asking, "Are you high?" He tells her that he's not, "not anymore." Her phone rings and she goes for it, spilling condoms out of her purse as she tells him she has a date "with the Matthew Barney of LAC Arts. Even though I'm so not the Björk of LAC Arts." Quick, someone make a swan reference or pop culture will grind to a halt.
Rico sits with Infinity and Nicole watching children's television programming, and a shot later walks through his front door to discover Vanessa alone on the couch watching television. He asks after the whereabouts of his children, and we learn that one of them is sleeping and one of them is spending the night at a friend's house. Rico tells her that he loves her, and then climbs on top of her to prove his love with the most guilt-ridden sex this side of all Catholicism.
And, speaking of sex, the Matthew Barney of LAC Arts all but gets his Cremaster Cycle all over Claire as they smoochy smoochy all over his ratty (er, I mean "vintage") couch. He whispers, "Tell me what you'd like me to do." She tells him to do whatever he wants and that she'll let him know how it works out, adding that she doesn't have a checklist that she goes through. Well, I do, when it comes to the Matthew Barney of LAC Arts, and that checklist includes 1) Shave 2) It 3) Off. He rolls her over and asks, "Do you like to have your nipples played with?" Ew. I didn't even like typing that sentence, much less being explicitly asked it. Claire is no fan of it either, screeching, "Not if we have to talk about it." He rolls off of her, all sulky, and tells her that they should just go to the movie, but she ups his "you blew it, and not in a good way" ante by suggesting that she just go home. I guess that made her a lesbian.
Back at Brenda's mom's house, where excessively squishy modern furniture from the 70s goes to die, Margaret prattles on that Brenda will never learn anything about counseling in eighteen months. Olivier says that shrinks are more fucked up than the rest of us, and Margaret laughs at the irony of Brenda's becoming a shrink. Brenda asks her mother if she thinks she's a good therapist, and she laughs, "I think I'm a very good shrink!" Joe tosses in his one good missive, asking, "Does that mean you're very fucked up?" Unfortunately for dramatic development, Margaret knows thyself all too well, laughing and screaming, "Absofuckinglutely!" Apropos of nothing, Margaret asks if Brenda's heard from Nate, and she responds that she saw him last night. He came over, he showed them pictures of the baby, he recited lovelorn poetry where he rhymed "my pain is very raw" with "reanimated jaw." Margaret thinks she's put the pieces together, telling Brenda, "Now this makes sense. You want a baby!" Brenda takes this as their cue to leave. Margaret shakes Ther-neaux's hand and bids him a farewell of "Nice meeting you, Jim. I hope you're up for the challenge of my daughter." Awwww. She learned his name from reading the recaps. He turns away from her and mumbles, "Joe. It's Joe" as Brenda calls back a final "Bye! See you in a few years!" As they depart, Olivier waves them off and tells Margaret, "Terrible evening," before pulling her backwards onto the couch in a bed to stave off being the most pointless character on this show since...
...oh, look, George! He sleeps soundly and snores predictably, as Ruth wakes up and finally rouses him out of his slumber by telling him that he can't keep things from her anymore. "Okay," he promises. "I was just a grad student. And I accidentally knocked up a young woman from a very wealthy family." He offered to marry her but her family refused, so he "signed something," and they both went on with their lives. Ruth wonders whether he's ever even seen the child, and he tells her that the kid tracked him down a few years ago and that George found him "very unpleasant." He assumed that the kid didn't want to see him anymore, after Kyle dropped the subtle hint of telling George, "I don't want to see you anymore." So George left. And that was it. George makes for the bathroom -- talk of this kid seems to do that to George and the poor woman he's hijacked -- and she yells that she feels like she doesn't know George at all. Huh.
Sssssssh! The subplots are sleeeeeeeeeeping! Brenda sits up in a dream and finds Nate sitting near her bed, wearing one of those dog collar things that keeps them from eating their stitches. Except for the psychic dogs, who know exactly when that collar is coming off and plan accordingly.
Sssssssssssssssssssssh! Nate's phone rings and it's Lisa. He asks her where she is and she tells him that "they won't tell" her. She tells him, "The number three is not important" before asking why he would bury her, what with her not being dead and all. The psychic dogs starts to bark because it knows Nate is about to buy some Milkbones. Y'all, that shit is creepy.
Ruth stands in the kitchen and tells George that she took his address book and called his son and said they'd meet him today, which I guess means he's still living at the same hotel as the one George met him at so many years before. Nate is soon to walk in, and Ruth tells him he looks terrible. Ruth storms out and tells George she'll be waiting for him in the car. Nate sits at the table and George asks if Ruth has always been so "anxious." Nate says that she has, but does admit that it's gotten better since she married George. He asks how she dealt with it, and Nate levels with him: "I moved away when I was seventeen." And George is a bit late for that.
Jennifer's father? Still dead. The sermon rings out and Jennifer cries in her fiancé's arms. In the middle of the funeral, Rico walks away in a fury to answer his cell phone, and asks the caller, "What?" Guess who it is! No, seriously. Guess. Rico continues by telling Infinity that he thinks this whole thing is "weird," adding, "You're not my wife." She turns down the hoochie and apologizes, "I don't ever want to be a problem for you." Someone needs to watch the previews for week's episode.
Ruth Mapquests their way to Burbank (make a left where it's a thousand degrees), and from the passenger seat, Ruth tells George that she has a question and wants him to answer honestly. He tells her that he always has been honest with her, but that he doesn't want to burden her with things that aren't important and would expect the same from her, and by the time he finishes spiraling down the drain of his own circular logic, Ruth can't remember the question. Was it "Why did I marry you?"
Jennifer and Bohunk thank David for all of his help, and Bohunk tells David he knows Jennifer unleashed on David, which was just making it harder for Bohunk to be there for her. Bohunk says that the funeral was "awesome," and then goes out to get the car while we on this side of the screen are all, "Straight people...is there anything they can't do?"
Claire, Anita, and Mena Suvari paint Claire's new room over the coach house. We join them in the middle of Claire calling her encounter with Matthew Barney of LAC Arts (look, if they love the nickname that much, they're gonna get the nickname, okay?) "embarrassing," and she expresses a segue-inviting wish that men just knew what to do without having to be told. Because sometimes single-sex female sexuality can be almost as dangerous, Mena Suvari coos, "Well, that's why girls are better. They know." Anita, the lesbian intermediary, responds, "I love you, but I'm not into eating pussy. I tried it once but it wasn't for me. So I'll just have to keep telling stupid guys, 'Lick my clit while you finger me.'" With which, this recap just became the best lightning rod on the legal side of the internet for the most disappointing Google searches you can imagine. Mena Suvari wonders if Claire might never have had an orgasm, and Mena Suvari tells her that she can tell her how to have an orgasm right now. Claire paints and thinks, paints and thinks, paints and thinks.
At a very real hotel in Burbank called The Safari Inn that Citysearch is too embarrassed to even have a description of on their site, George and Ruth cut on up to a dark room to discover Sam Waterston's son. He seems like a nice boy. Ruth tells Kyle (such a great black sheep name) that she wishes she could say that George had told her a lot about him, but that George hasn't. Kyle argues that it's because George doesn't know anything about him. We know you have really dry poo. And lots of it, to boot. George busts in to say that he had no part in the planning of this event and that he knows he can't change the past, but perhaps they'd be willing to start fresh. This throws the seemingly very, very unbalanced Kyle into full-on twitchy mode, and he busts out, "You can't walk in here and start saying that this is this and that is that like you're God. Because you know what? You're not God. You're not even close." George gets down to the business of it all, pointing accusingly and telling Kyle, "I want all deliveries of excrement to our house to cease," like he's talking to an inept customer service representative while trying to cancel an order with Fresh Direct. George rises in fury and tries to leave, but Ruth asks Kyle if he needs anything: "Clothing, underwear, socks?" Kyle garners no love on this end when he cuts Ruth down, replying, "No. Would you like a cappuccino from my $7500 espresso machine which I bought so I would never have to leave this motel room because I'm so fucking twisted thanks to you-know-who?" Ruth deadpans, "Yes, I'd love a cappuccino," which is best answer ever, and sends Kyle back to Twitchy Street when he responds, "I was just kidding. I don't even know how to work it yet." Ruth suggests that they go to Starbucks. Perhaps they can also Mapquest their way there, and Ruth will be the first product-placed TV shill for stuff people actually use. Maybe on their way there, she'd like to read a recap from Television Without Pity.
Brenda's on top. Can we just skip it?
"That was fun!" Ruth tells George on the way home. George has a stain on his shirt that he's convinced is a result of Kyle spilling something on his shirt. Ruth says that her heart goes out to Kyle , what with his living in a motel and all, but George reminds her that Kyle's family has "major money" and that he doesn't need George. He reminds her that he was the one cut out of Kyle's life, and Ruth all but doesn't hear a syllable of it when she continues, "Maybe we should invite him to dinner." George rolls his eyes and starts plotting his escape. Just leave your jawbone close enough to shore that they stop looking for you after it's found.
Okay, honestly, is this episode almost over? I'm not going out of my way to write a lot, and I can't be stopped. It's not even like I'm driving toward a higher plane, and that the last line of this recap will be, "...and that's what it felt like the day I cured lumbago." Like, honestly. I'm trying to skip stuff. There's nothing to skip. Can't we all just set something on fire and I'll be all, "And this is the part where everything gets set on fire!" and clear out five minutes in one sentence.
But, instead, The Scorpion King. Keith seems to be watching it. David comes home from the funeral and sits to Keith on the couch. They both fetishize The Rock in a way no gay man ever has, ever. Keith says that he's still not out at work, and David tells him -- and this is a quote -- "I don't care about that anymore. It's boring." Hey, you're not allowed to do that!
And, Maya's back. Who the hell is named Barb? Anyway, on the front walk of the house, Nate tells Barb, "I went to a psychic." She tries to appear understanding, but Nate is too quick to get to his money-shot line: "She said that Lisa is still alive." She asks if he needs help, and tells him, "If you do, you should get it, and not from a fucking psychic" before storming off. Oh, don't curse in front of the baby! Actually, I don't care about that anymore. It's boring. Wow. That really does work.
And, finally, we're back at Brenda's. She's lying on the couch and reading an enormous book called Personality Puzzle, and Joe suddenly pipes up and says that he wants to have kids. And he wants to have kids "with [her]." He tells her that since he met her, "everything seems...." She cuts him off with a kiss and then sits back on the couch. She doesn't want to talk about that anymore. It's boring.