Props to special guest recapper Pamie, who wrote two whole paragraphs of this recap, all by herself! See if you can guess which ones!
A very, very, very late-middle-aged couple we'll all go to bed tonight glad we don't know walks down a hospital hallway. The woman -- let's call her Comedy Killer Deaths Such As Cancer Don't Yield Kitschy Nicknames -- stops in her tracks in the middle of the hallway and informs the man we guess to be her husband -- let's call him Mr. Comedy Killer Deaths Such As Cancer Don't Yield Kitschy Nicknames -- "I'm scared."
A quick shot later and we discover why, as she lies on an examination table while two hands navigate around a giant protrusion sticking out of the woman's abdomen. The hands belong to a doctor who tells her, "I'm almost done," and, from the looks of what she's contending with, so is she. The doctor, to whom the wandering hands belong, pulls Comedy Killer Deaths Like Cancer Don't Yield Kitschy Nicknames's shirt back down as the woman admits, "I thought they would go away, but then they never did. They just kept growing and growing." Say, did you hear the one about cancer? No. Me neither. So, moving on.
The doctor flips open Comedy Killer Deaths Such As Cancer Don't Yield Kitschy Nicknames's chart and notes, "I see you've had symptoms." She responds that her symptoms have been "mainly indigestion," but he counters with a note in her file that there has also been "vomiting, blood in your stool," and doubtlessly other harbingers of the very bad that render her days numbered and my lunch unfinished. The doctor asks why she didn't call him earlier, and she tells him that she knows they've been putting it off, but that "we were supposed to go to Florida to visit our son. We haven't seen him in over a year. We were gonna call you as soon as we got back, but the pain got too bad." Rather than fly off the handle and preach away as my doctors often have ("Don't you know the importance of flossing daily?" "Those drugs are supposed to be used for medical purposes only!" "I don't care what your financial situation is...you simply cannot apply to donate your eggs!" ["Well, you could apply." -- Wing Chun]), this kindly doctor is more subdued in his response, advising, "We'll just start doing some tests and hope for the best." Comedy Killer Deaths Such As Cancer Don't Yield Kitschy Nicknames volleys back by asking what "the worst" scenario might be, and the doctor point-blanks, "That these are two tumors which may have metastasized and spread." She asks him what the chances are that that's the case, and, looking up and still being able to see the Six Feet Under opening credits in her rearview mirror, probably has a pretty good idea. The doctor evades the question because he knows they both know the answer, responding, "Let's just do the tests and hope for the best." The screen fades to white as we discover that "the best" was not yet to come for Joan Morrison, who made it from 1939-2004 before submitting to any kind of a test. But, in the good news column, at least the scene didn't end with a deranged psych patient barreling into the room and clubbing the doctor to death with a brick.
Claire "I Had To Crash That Pussy Wagon" Fisher sits at a table somewhere, staring at a photograph of Edie and smiling a loving smile like she was just asked to partake in the couples' skate at the United Skates of Lesbonia. David "Manic Panic" is soon to enter the kitchen of his house bedecked in a bathrobe and accessorizing with the weight of the world on his shoulders. As he wishes a good morning to Claire, she slides the photo underneath a nearby magazine, though it's only a matter of time before David uses the photo of Edie to conceal a mislaid copy of Rough Trade that should never have been in the kitchen to begin with. David makes for his state-of-the-art coffee/cappuccino/espresso/hot chocolate/houses-for-orphans maker, as Claire quickly leaps up to apologize, "It's not very good. I think Mom's machine is a little more low-tech." David pours and replies, "Sometimes I miss the days when coffee was just coffee." You mean, before you were attacked and everything changed?
Claire makes her way back to the table and tells David she might be too much of a lesbian to make it back for dinner (I'm paraphrasing), and he takes this as his entry point to throw her out of the main chamber of yet another Fisher home: "Y'know what? I don't want you to stay here anymore. It's too much." Claire responds, "No, it isn't," but David lists his anti-symptoms as such: "I was bad before but now I'm starting to sleep a little. I haven't had a panic attack in two days. I've even cut down on all the Ativan. So you are officially evicted as of today." She sheepishly asks if he's sure, as David takes a sip of Claire's Death Brew and proclaims it "gross." A shaking hand places it in the sink without losing a drop because it's apparently so odious that it's like oil used for deep-frying that can't be poured down the sink because it clogs the pipes and corrodes the metal and summons the devil. Claire takes one more stab with a quiet "I don't know. Maybe I should stay." But David -- remember David? He's damaged -- turns quickly around and snipes, "I don't need my baby sister babysitting me anymore, okay?" Yeesh. If you're yelling about the coffee, you're drinking too much coffee.
Contrite because this is the first time a college student on television has ever asked, "No, really, how was your day?" and meant it, David comes over to the table, sits across from Claire, and changes the topic wholesale: "Hey, did you hear those two cats having sex in the alley last night?" Claire skips back to the sixteen happy seconds of Ruth's marriage, telling David, "They were worse than Mom and George." Ha ha, you guys. They probably were Nate and Brenda. Because we're meant to search for meaning in the metaphor of sex being pain somehow, David muses, "I don't know why they do it. It sounds so painful." Well, animal life in the alley is actually conducive to romance, especially when the girl cat feels obligated after the boy cat bought them that plate of spaghetti and they met in the middle of the final strand and fell very much in love.
Most whorish. Bomb shelter. Ever. Infinity stands on a stepstool peering onto a high shelf of her kitchen cabinetry, moving around the cans of Poverty Brand Beans that litter the shelves. From about eighteen feet below, Rico "Cuckold On For One More Day" Diaz must look like an ant to her. Particularly considering the fact that he's lifting a Catholic guilt that's at least ten times his body weight. He asks her, "Did you hear what I said?" and Sideways Eight ransacks the shelves for something -- could it be an actual article of clothing, for once? -- and spits, "Yeah. You can't see me anymore. It's over. Goodbye." She looks in his direction and focuses all four of her peering eyes on him, insisting, "Goodbye, Rico." And back into the top shelves she goes, muttering to herself with a decidedly just-make-it- to-the-kitchen- don't-let-him- see-you-cry conviction, "I am so stupid." No, you're just...yeah, you are kinda dumb. But why? "I hid that pack of cigarettes from myself so good [sic] I can't find them." Rico instinctively knows their location, counseling, "Look on top of the refrigerator." Thank you for your insight, The Great Smoke-dini! How else would he have found them besides via the magic power of psychic assistance? How can he be expected know the goings-on of the top of a refrigerator if he's barely even tall enough to see over his girlfriend's hair?
Rico tries to bring it down a bit, assuring Sideways Eight that he's sorry, but that "this isn't right in some way. To my wife. To my kids." Sideways Eight lights a cigarette and gets all up in his business, reminding him, "This is not about fucking. You made that plain and clear. It's about just being friends." With which Rico unleashes with greatest, lamest good guy line ever: "I think I need more guy friends." Well, if he intends to interact socially with his new male companions in the same way he did with this girl, I hope he's ready for some lingering hugs after the dudes complain about their lupus-ridden, welfare-assed lots in life. But, in the good news column, I bet you ten bucks the blowjob is better.
Sideways Eight backs away and takes this moment to start scratching at herself frantically and announcing, "Of course you tell me today when my lupus is acting up." Snerk. Way to shoehorn that bit of continuity in there. And way for "lupus" to be a disease with an intensity and side effects roughly equal to "mosquito bite." Rico reminds her that he gave her quite a sum of money and never heard anything about her visit to the doctor, but she cuts him off and just yells, "I got the damn lupus!" Other side effects may include: pronouncements of the super-obvious, fiscal irresponsibility, and a severe and chronic aversion to clothing your damn shoulders, ever.
Sideways Eight waits a dramatic minute before leaning against counter and taking it down a notch: "You never even liked me." You're right, but it's only because we're ooked out by disease and lupus sounds really contagious. "This was about you needing to feel like a big man" -- not likely -- "and now that you got what you need, you're done?" Rico stands stock still looking down for a moment, personifying "big man" the way she personifies "Queen of England," and she breaks the silence by telling him, "Okay. Just leave the gift that you promised Nicole and get out." But Rico has forgotten the gift, a confession that causes Sideways Eight to bellow, "You didn't even bring the dumb Jack the Pig book you've been going on and on about?" Over her protestations, he promises to bring it by the following day. "Forget it," Sideways Eight whispers, setting sail on her round-the-world guilt trip. "She needs to learn. People promise you things. But then leave when they get tired of you." That'll do, Jack the Pig. That'll do.
Ruth "Cuts Like A Wife" Sibley dusts and dusts and dusts and performs other wifely duties that don't cross the line. Like talking to her husband, for example. She stares at a particularly galling collection of mounted rockzzzzzzzzz sitting on a bureau, and when she looks back up, she sees on the top of said bureau six jars with the head of a woman in each of them, because for those of us sitting around waiting for that Six Feet Under/Futurama crossover episode we knew would one day come...thank you. Had only one of his wives been the disembodied head of Richard Nixon. Meh. I'm sure it will come out that it was because he loves secrets.
Each of the glass jars is labeled Wife One, Wife Two and so on, up to Wife Six. Off-camera, we hear one of them say, "She's George's new wife. The one that came after you." Wife One -- who looks not entirely unlike Ruth except her head is in a jar and her body is made up of a wooden shelf chock full of archaeological boredom -- chirps, "Jesus, lady, what are you doing?" Wife Five chimes in then, adding, "You're snooping! You're too snoopy. I was too snoopy, and he got rid of me but quick!" Wife Four asks the leading "You want to know why George doesn't like anybody to ask about his past?" Ruth desperately responds, "Yes, tell me," which cracks the brides up for a considerable amount of time, because they know that he divorced his first wife, killed his second wife by cutting her head off! "Third wife, gonna shoot her. Fourth wife, put her into a bag. Fifth wife, into outer space. Sixth wife, on a Rotissimat. Seventh wife, made out of jam. Eighth wife..." I mean, if the historians are to be believed. Their laughter intensifies when Ruth tries to scream over them, "What doesn't he want me to know? Why can't I know anything?" The wife heads bray on in laughter while Ruth holds the duster over her face, and when she looks again they're gone. She storms out of the room in horror, comforted perhaps in the knowledge that when you marry just a head, you know that when she gets vengeful it'll be more difficult for her to scoop up poo. Because of the no arms.
Nate "Awful Wedded Husband" Fisher dons his suit and makes his way downstairs to find Rico speaking with Mr. Comedy Killer Deaths Such As Cancer Don't Yield Kitschy Nicknames, and another man who appears to be the son from Florida. Rico speaks to them about a casket as Nate looks on, and when they ask for a moment to decide, Rico retires to the corner and chides Nate for being forty minutes late. Nate, who feels like he's doing his brother, the world, and the dead a favor by deigning to quit his job as The Dog Whisperer in order to return to the fold, barks, "Maya's still not used to day care yet. I had to stay with her for a while." Rico vents on that there was "no one here to meet the Morrisons," and Nate's all, "Well, where were you?" According to this recap, getting a blowjob from a guy.
Mr. Comedy Killer Deaths Such As Cancer Don't Yield Kitschy Nicknames and his son get into a heated argument about which casket they're going to choose. "I tried to bring it up with her," the father says. "It always seemed like a bad time." The son shrugs angrily and tells him to "pick the casket" so that they can move onto the business of "who's gonna speak at this thing." Mr. Comedy Killer Deaths Such As Cancer Don't Yield Kitschy Nicknames just stares and stares as his son insists, "Dad, I need to know what you want, here." Mr. Comedy Killer Deaths Such As Cancer Don't Yield Kitschy Nicknames waits a minute and whispers, "I want her back. I want things back the way they used to be." The son takes a pretty unsympathetic line on all this, telling his father, "If you guys hadn't been so scared about facing the truth, maybe we wouldn't have to fucking decide what casket she was gonna be buried in." At which point I wish I had maybe the ability to add in a hilarious fart sound effect of some kind to end this paragraph, because it would be a cheap shortcut past the fact that cancer just ain't funny. ["Also, I think that even if she had beaten the cancer...you know, she still would have needed a casket eventually." -- Wing Chun]
"So apparently, the father never said a word to anybody as the tumors just kept getting bigger and bigger," Rico explains to Nate as they descend to the basement. While Nate can't believe it ["even though didn't Nate kind of spend Season 2 doing exactly that?" -- Wing Chun], Rico allegorically agrees that "having to admit fucked-up shit about yourself fucking sucks." Rico drifts off-camera and and we hear him yell a spell later, "Oh, come on." They step fully into the room, where we find every available surface covered in liquids of many different colors, which is explained by Rico's incredulous "David's been cleaning again." Nate tells him that David needs to do all of this to stay relaxed and that he's on intakes, so Rico leans in and whispers, "If you decided you wanted to come back to the business, then be back." Oh, Rico. Don't be silly. Nate was always like that. Rico: "The two of you are just acting like you can just come and go and do whatever the hell you want." As if on cue, David walks in wearing a blue apron and rubber gloves, looking like The Anal-Retentive Mortician and making me think I should wait until something in my neighborhood goes horribly wrong so I can hire a housekeeper with an acute sense of post-traumatic stress disorder. They may weep at passing vans, but where's my ring around the collar? Gone. That's where.
David wears a look of grave concern (along with the aforementioned blue apron and rubber gloves) and asking, "Why are we buying the fake Windex when the real kind of the only kind that works?" Oh, word, David. I know the poor and the aged are used to reeling off chemical compounds which support their claim that the generic products are exactly the same as the name brands, but I'm sorry, but I am not filling my cart with "Cloke-a Cola" and "Formula 408" before leaving the store and buying my mom a genuine "Kate Spdae" bag from a street vendor on my way home. It's called Windex for a reason. And that reason is that it, um, dexes the windows, I guess.
Rico grits his teeth and asks David if he wouldn't mind picking up the deceased Mrs. Morrison. Don't do it, David! We can't have a repeat of that, and your torturer is still at large. David apologizes that he's "cleaning," and takes his leave before Rico can figure out what the word "large" even means. Awwwww. It's the opposite of you, dear. Having no respect for the concept of "earshot," Nate barely waits for David to be out of the room before he continues his attack on Rico, adding, "David can't take the van...the van is where it happened." Rico tells Nate that he should go, then, but Nate excuses himself after fourteen whole minutes of work with the argument that he needs to go "this get-together once a month where we get together with the other parents" at Maya's daycare." He's lying. But so is Rico about everything, so it's no big problem when Nate adds that, as long as he's out, Rico should pick up the real Windex and not this other Smurfy's Oil Soap he's been suffering with for so long. Rico heads toward the door in disgust. On his way out, he grabs his book for Nicole, the Dr.-Seuss-for-the-urban translation of a book that plays well with strippers and families of strippers, Hop on Baby Daddy.
Claire walks into the coach house and sits down at a table, where she sits and stares at her Edie photo once more. She hears a stirring in the bathroom and calls out "Anita?" Who? Oh, yeah. Wheel #3 in a series. But instead, the door cracks open and out pours Mena "Mena Suvari" Suvari, her forehead fighting yet harder for supremacy over her forehead-concealing bangs. Claire quickly flips over the picture she's been idolizing, but Mena Suvari is a lesbian! I know. That means nothing. But it's also her entire character, so in case you were curious, they said it once before but it bears repeating. Mena Suvari asks Claire what she's hiding, and Claire admits that it's a photo she took of Mena Suvari. Mena Suvari stands up and asks why she can't see it, and Claire gushes, "It's too good. I can't believe this actually came out of me. It's so good I don't even want anybody to see it. I'm not even gonna show it at my crit tomorrow, because...I don't know. It's just for me." And, apparently, it's also for Claire's impolite lesbian friend, who takes it out of Claire's hands and observes, "It's so beautiful." Claire stands up to her to look at the photo. It's basically Mena Suvari inside the Black Lodge, looking like she's trying to crawl out of the photo and right on into Claire's pants. She insists that Claire has to show it at her crit, but Claire just shrugs and looks all perplexed. But the good thing about hot photographers taking hot photos of hot subjects is that everybody gets credit. Mena Suvari thinks it's time to talk about her for a moment, getting all marvelly at herself, "Look at my expression. It's nice to know that finally my hours of watching America's Top Model have paid off." Wow. Couple-a things. First of all, that's the biggest shout-out in history. Second of all, even anti-establishment performance art fake-TV-lesbians love Top Model. Fall in line, world. If you have HBO, you have UPN. Trust me. Claire tells her, "I definitely owe you one for this," and Mena Suvari suggestively responds, "I'll think about how I can collect on that." That will be way too subtle until I actually see people in bed.
Oh, look! People in bed! Brenda "The No-Tell Ho-Tell" Chenowith and Nate lie in bed at the seedy Pacific Sands Motel, which the two of them have chosen for its kicky décor, its proximity to numerous parks and beaches, and a continental breakfast where Justin Ther-neaux can finally eat his heart out. They're lying in a post-coital tableau that finds Nate asking Brenda is she's "available Tuesday," and he laughs and laughs when she responds, "Nate, I told you, this is the last time." He reminds her that she's said that for some weeks now, and chides, "Okay. We'll never talk again. Until you call me tomorrow." She asks somewhat rhetorically why she's doing this, shortly thereafter landing a totally legitimate target: "It's all Joe's fault." Guh? "If only he enjoyed nice, normal perfectly average sex." Nate gets all offended, shooting back, "Wasn't I a little above average back there?" I can only hope that the "back there" refers to a chronology rather than a part of Brenda. But Nate calls her on it, telling her that this has nothing to do with Joe and everything to do with her, noting, "You and Joe move in together, you get scared by the intimacy, you freak out, you have sex outside of the relationship. You can't fool me. I used to be Joe." Oh, God. Between Joe's personality and Nate's hair shirt, Brenda's really found the perfect man. But this bout of deconstructionist pillow talk is quickly abandoned in lieu of Nate's fishing around on the floor for something and explaining to Brenda that he's looking for the condom, adding for clarity's sake, "I dropped it on the floor." Excuse me, concierge? Do you have any rooms available that are not that room. No? What about complimentary slippers in a hermetically sealed bag? Because I don't want little Nates growing out of my feet for the nine months, is why. Not that it's any of your business. Nate holds the condom up and stares into it, musing, "Sperms. Seems so tiny to be able to do so much." As the philosopher Python noted, "If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate." But these aren't wasted, because Nate's writing poems about them, so they do serve the greater good after all. Maybe Nate should watch a few episodes of Top Model himself sometime. More than anybody who's ever been on either show, it certainly wouldn't kill Peter Krrrrrrrrau-zuh! to be introduced to the theoretical concept of waxing.
Another recapper friend of mine who I won't mention by name to avoid incriminating her (or, y'know, him) just told me she finds it easier to recap shows when they're really good rather than when they're really bad, because at least when there's nothing wrong with it, you can just power through and stick with events as they happened without a painful amount of commentary. When in doubt, this totally incognito person advised, just end a paragraph with "Lorelai is pretty" and you're halfway there.
George "You're No Good You're No Good You're No Good Baby You're No Good I'm Gonna Say It Again" Sibley sits across the kitchen table from Ruth. He tells her, "I'm going to be gone all day tomorrow." Ruth takes a sharp breath on her way to asking a question, I'm sure, and then quietly decides against it with a demure, wifely "Okay." He volunteers that he's going fossil hunting, and he asks her to come with him "if you wouldn't find it too boring." I find knowing this activity exists too boring, and Ruth concurs with me, responding, "I have to return some books at the library." Heh. Good one. She adds that he doesn't need to invite her, momentarily pretending that she's not, well, her, when she advises, "You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want." She's not threatened by other women. It's hard to climb into caves when you're a head in a jar. But then she busts out, almost yelling, "But I want to go fossil hunting, so I will go fossil hunting, darn it." Lorelai is pretty.
Michelle Trachtenberg sits at her dressing room dressing table in a bit of a snit, rummaging through tons of pre-Bedazzled costume trinkets, braying, "It's my favorite earring." Javier walks in just then and tells her they've got a whole detail of people looking for it, but Michelle just whines, "It was given to me by the only person who ever really, really loved me." Yes. But Aaron Carter is with someone else now. "And now it's lost." Like Britney's virginity. In 1990. "Oh, my God. When will someone ever love me again?" Awwww. Don't worry, Michelle. Maybe you can meet somebody new in acting class. "Everyone else has someone." I have Lorelai. She's so pretty. "Here is the entire universe. And here is me." Keith tells Celeste that she's just really tired and could do with some sleep, but she turns on him and is actually pretty funny when she levels him with "Please don't minimize my severe depression." She stands up and waltzes across the room in her pink robe, announcing, "There only one thing that'll make me feel better." She takes her leave of the room and Javier tells Keith, "Well, we're fucked." And not in a good way. Not yet, anyhow. "Halfway through the tour she always gets really depressed," Javier soothsays. "Then we go to whatever stupid gay club we can find that's still open so she can get worshipped by the fags." Keith is all alarmed and asks, "We're going to a gay club?" and Javier responds, "When did my character get its own name? I must be getting really important."
Meanwhile, back in L.A., David lies in bed.
Back at the bar, "Don't Leave Me This Way" is the best song ever. Javier makes the observation, "Midwestern queers really creep me out," which is a nuanced stroke of genius that Keith agrees with, as they watch Celeste shake her groove thing on the dance floor with a number of shirtless youths who all secretly hope that the suicide death pact between Kurt and Ram wasn't just a hoax after all. Soon Keith's phone isn't the only thing vibrating, though it certainly is one of them. He takes his leave to answer the phone, and hears David asking him if he's still working. David apologizes and says he couldn't sleep, but he stops himself shortly and tells Keith, "It sounds like you're at a bar." When David hears the chorus of the song begin and a chorus of male voices sings the "Awwwwwwwww, baby!" line, David amends his observation: "That's a gay bar." But, I mean, how could you NOT sing that part at the top of your lungs? It's the BEST! And you've been waiting for it for the WHOLE SONG. Keith tells David that he has to go, and David will probably blame a panic attack later when he bites Keith's head off, "Sorry to bother you. If anybody gets mad at you, just tell them your wife's on her woman's time. They'll feel bad for you that your wife's such a bitch when she's on the rag. G'night!" David throws the phone and looks mad. Wait. I think they're going to play another song. I requested "I Feel For You." Stay at the bar. STAY AT THE BAR.
Whew. Javier asks Keith, "Your old lady's pissed off?" Keith doesn't respond, so Javier tries again, "You could've just told her you was [sic] at some fag bar." Homophobes have such terrible grammar. Keith's had it: "Javier, I'm gay. I have a boyfriend. I sleep with men. Okay? I have a lot of sex and it's really, really gay." Javier barely misses a beat, responding, "That's cool, man." And this has been One To Grow On.
Back in L.A., David doesn't sleep, and it's really, really gay. Now seriously, I think you'd better go back to the bar. And, also, I think you'd better knock knock knock on wood.
Oh, fossils. George stampedes twelve steps ahead of Ruth up a mountain trail, complaining about how picked-over a spot was where he wanted to find dinosaurs or cave paintings or Dennis Miller's funny material or some such thing. Meanwhile, Ruth lags, yelling out that she feels "dehydrated." He laughs at her and tells her she shouldn't have drunk all of her water, and then offers her some of his. She takes the water and says that he had told her he didn't have any water left, and if you thought Ishtar was funny, you might consider this sequence its spiritual sequel. What mismatched buddies!
George suggests that they talk about lunch, but Ruth throws a curve: "I'm going to visit my only sister. I didn't realize we were going to be in Topanga." And because there's a glass blower somewhere already working on Ruth's decapitated head container, she throws in the random dig "Family is very important to me, even if it isn't to you!" She storms off and George follows and I don't know why and Lorelai is pretty.
Nate and Maya and Anita sit around the Fisher table, while Claire pours coffee and ANITA GO AWAY. Nate complains about his mother's absence, saying that he was going to ask her to babysit. Before being asked, Claire declines with a quick "I'm busy." Did anybody else think this is where Anita was going to volunteer and then she'd sleep with Nate? Not yet. Soon, though. Claire asks if Nate's frequent nights on the town indicate anything serious, and he fills her in with what I thought were lies that he's been seeing someone who works at Dog Camp. Anita complains about Maureen Dowd because, as I discussed last week, one per episode. So I'll say nothing about it. Except maybe to comment on the fact that the actress playing Anita has no idea who Maureen Dowd is. I'm sorry, but you can just tell. She delivered that line with the passion of Ace of Base phonetically pronouncing English words. Claire tries to clear up plans for the evening, asking Anita what time the movie is. Anita says she won't be going to the movie because she'll be getting Claire's sloppy seconds that night with Russell. Claire bites back, "Do whatever you want," seemingly complaining, "It'll be me and Edie tonight." Just at that moment David enters wearing jeans and rolling his head, telling a concerned populace, "I'm fine. I've just been working on Mrs. Morrison for a hundred and ten years." Claire changes the subject by telling David she's going to the movies with Edie, and he's all, "Girls' night out? I'm there." It sounds from off-camera like Maya is making some actual human sounds -- which clearly can't be then case -- so Nate begins to "calm" "her" "down" with a song that goes like this: "I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, an onion patch, an onion patch. I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch and all I do it cry all day." Make crying sounds in song! Best song ever! Edie kills the buzz because her parents were deaf and mute and beat her with a bamboo shoot and that's what she thought was "music," so she all defensively asks, "What the hell was that?" Claire tells them it was a song their mother used to sing to them, and Anita responds, "Well, that explains a lot." As it will when you meet me and you learn that the song I most often insisted singing with my mother used was "Fame." Okay. Fine. Is "Fame."
Now, I don't know if I buy this Stakeout premise entirely, but it pays off really well, so we'll leave it alone. Rico swings by The Sideways Eight and rests Hop on Baby Daddy against the door of her shanty. From the car, Vanessa watches, Rico slinks away, and Lorelai is pretty.
Justin Ther-just-geaux-already unpacks some boxes and banters with an entering Brenda about unpacking some boxes. She tells him she wants to finish unpacking later and is more in a mood now to "watch bad TV." You still got That's My Dog on TiVo, or...? Joe plops himself down on the couch as Brenda makes for the cable cords, Joe telling her that they'll have to make a decision soon on what should be the office and what should be the nursery, smothering, "You might already be pregnant." She tells him that she "got it yesterday," and his line is a leeeeetle too obvious in reply: "That's why you looked so sad when you came home late after class." He's clueless and we get it. She screws in some cords as she tells him that "maybe it's for the best," what with them breaking up soon and everything.
Professor Lesbian looks at Claire's photos of basement blood and other ephemera (please let "Basement Blood And Other Ephemera" be the name of her first solo show, y'all) and announces, "Well, it's definitely an improvement. Yet there's still something unsatisfying about these." The girl in the back row whose name we don't know volunteers that they're "technically good," adding, "It's just that they're...finite." Professor Lesbian thinks that's an excellent way to describe them, saying that all of them "don't leave us with anything to ponder." Except for one of them. Can you guess which one it is? I'll give you a...nah, you already know. Professor Lesbian tells Claire, "It looks like she knows we're scared, but what's so scary about this beautiful woman? What's so scary about getting close to somebody. Because we don't quite know the answer...the photo haunts us. Nice work, Claire." Professor Lesbian asks the class if they have any questions, and the newly-emergent "Elyse" -- I don't know if that's how this girl's name is spelled, but that's how they spelled it on Top Model, so -- pipes up with a critique of the critique, getting all mad, "Claire takes an erotic picture of her beautiful girlfriend and she gets an 'A' just because you're a lesbian." And my comment back is, "You're expelled, you mouthy bitch." Claire calls upon Anita to tell Elyse that Claire and Mena Suvari are not a couple, and Anita defends her friend: "She's not Claire's girlfriend. That I know of." You're expelled, too. Hating Claire for hating her lack of inclination toward alternate sexuality is not a family value! Or have you people never seen a bumper sticker?
The incredibly safe gray Volvo pulls up in front of Sister Sarah's house. Ruth knocks for a very long time and George tells her he doesn't think anyone's home, but Patricia Clarkson is soon to answer the door and hug Ruth, who breaks down in racking sobs. ["If only Peter Dinklage were to show up in one of Nate's dream sequences, it would be a total Station Agent reunion, y'all!" -- Wing Chun] Bettina appears at the door soon after and embraces the shrieking Ruth, fake-crying for a minute and announcing, "Oh, for God's sake, Fisher," because between these two are nothing but lightness and liquid sunshine.
Sister Sarah's back yard. Sarah is showing Ruth a series of hideously ugly papier-mâché monsters, and we discover that she has become an art teacher because it seems to suit her better than being addicted to painkillers. Bettina walks over with George just then and tells them, "George has just told me the entire history of papier-mâché. Fascinating." She barely registers the look of horror that must have enveloped her during his twenty-minute speech about the formation of the language that invented the symbol for the little hat thing that goes about the "a." George asks after the bathroom and Sarah shows the way, and when Ruth and Bettina are alone, Bettina reminds Ruth, "I left five fucking messages for you...why haven't you called me?" Ruth doesn't answer, and Bettina tells her that she looks funny, which Ruth tries to blame on dehydration, even though it's a plain fact that she just tends to look funny.
Vanessa, now starring in Another Stakeout, sits in the driver's seat of her car outside of The Sideways Eight talking to her sister. Good call, Vanessa. Angelica always seems to have a decidedly calming effect on you in times of strife. Let's see what kind of dulcet counsel she offers now: "That fucking bastard. I told you he was going to do this to you one day." She's like Patty and Selma all wrapped up into one feisty tamale. Vanessa argues that she's sure there's a "logical explanation," but just then Sideways Eight walks outside the house and Vanessa brilliantly mutters, "Oh, my Ggod." Angelica, hair in comedy rollers on the set, asks Vanessa what she's seeing, and Vanessa replies, "Rico's charity has a double-D." Tits-wise. Sideways Eight picks up the book and returns to the house to learn to read, as Vanessa holds one hand up in stark confusion as if she's waiting for someone just to explain this whole thing to her. She asks her sister if she'll take the kids tonight, and Angelica explains that she can't do it until the following day. "Fine," Vanessa utters. Angelica asks her if she's going to be "okay tonight," and Vanessa responds, "Don't worry about me." She hangs up and throws the phone down, acting the shit out of that scene, I have to say.
"What if there really is a handsome prince?" Julia Stiles asks from the movie screen where not nearly enough people are loudly mocking the trailer for The Prince and Me. But, good job, show! Because this movie was released domestically on April 2 of this year, even if it does raise the age-old philosophical question of whether or not a movie actually came out if there was nobody there to see it. This movie was way beneath where I thought Julia Stiles was, but her desire to dwell in Duff-ville made this movie seem even lamer than it would have been if it had starred someone who had dates a member of Boyzone, because let the IMDb say what it wants, Julia Stiles is old enough to be my dad. Because she's a lesbian, Edie notes that Julia Stiles is "really pretty," and David adds that she is gorgeous in a "subtle way." What is she, Mena Suvari's understudy? Stop kissing her ass. There are enough subpar blonde actresses who couldn't cut it in film on this show already. And Erika Christensen, Milla Jovovich, and Leelee Sobieski are all, "Screw you, Stiles, I am so in line right now" with their résumés in hand. David asks Claire what she thinks of Julia Stiles, just so she can recoil for the lesbian contagions someone sprinkled on her popcorn, when she shoots back, "I don't know what makes a girl pretty or not. I don't look at girls that way." Is she Javier's third wife? The script seems to think they two have quite a bit in common. The preview up is for The Clearing, another movie you didn't see that starred Robert Redford as a good man in a suit and Willem Dafoe in a bad-guy moustache. As you might imagine, it involves a direct parallel to the lives of the unapologetic narcissists who populate this show, and so when David sees Dafoe cock (eh, not like that) a gun in Redford's general direction, David thinks, "This is about me!" And he thinks it even louder than Redford and Dafoe thinking, "We are gonna be swimming Scrooge McDuck-style through awards when this movie comes out. Clear a spot on the mantel, people!" David stands up quickly and tells Claire he has to go take care of the tumor lady. At least we're safe in the knowledge that they're not there to see either of those movies.
Maile? Is that even a name? Isn't that the girl who told us to do the locomotion with her? Isn't it who Kenny Loggins tells to "come on, come on, let's go"? Not only is it someone's name, it is the name of the girl whom Nate is on a date with in the Italian restaurant where Adam Sandler trashed the bathroom in Punch-Drunk Love. Nate? Don't use the bathroom. The paper towel dispenser is broken. Nate tells Maile that he's a bit nervous leaving Maya with the new sitter. Awwww. After all the hue and cry about how Nate's forty-five smothering family members would take care of Maya if Nate wanted to go out and get a non-boo-hoo-y life again. Maile tells Nate that she used to babysit as well -- when she was in high school, forty-five minutes ago -- telling Nate that she used to snoop around people's private things. She poses the question, "Why do the ugliest people have the dirtiest photos?" Because hot people can get laid for free? Nate tries to talk shop, telling Maile that a widow once brought in "the grossest photo of her husband to help with the embalming." He asks her if she would like him to describe it to her, and she declines, asking him instead how he feels being back at work. He peppers liberal amounts of self-pity all over his pasta, outfits Maile in a t-shirt reading "I'm with self-pity" that has a big arrow pointing right back at him, and writes a short song-poem about his last six months in which the words "I wallow in self-pity" are often to be found rhyming with the words "to the dulcet tones of Scritti Politti," because that's how he's feeling and he wanted you to know. Never ask Nate how he's doing.
"So I woke up one morning and the bastard was gone," Kathy Bates tells us in one of her typical stories. She's sitting with a tureen of red wine in front of her as George sits silently to her thinking about Mount Saint Helens. Sarah busts in asking George what his deal is, asking him to tell them all about him, noting, "You seem interesting" because this is just the introduction to the opposite sketch. Bettina busts in because fat ladies can be so ballsy! She adds, "Yeah, Ruth tells me you had a son sending you boxes of shit." Hey, yeah. What ever happened to that guy, anyway? Ruth rebukes Kathy Bates for speaking out of turn, but she tells Ruth that it's nothing her own daughter wouldn't do, asking George, "You wanna compare war stories?" George's answer -- "Obsidian makes the best building material" -- does not suffice, partly because that's not even what he says. Instead, he tells Bettina point blank, "Actually, no I don't." He then stands up and asks Sarah if she has a television, explaining, "There's a documentary on PBS I wouldn't mind watching." Unless it's Nova's "Worst Husbands Of The Cosmos," it probably doesn't even have anything new he could learn from. Sarah points the way and George takes off, leaving behind him an angry wake of awkwardly-glancing aging femininity.
"Having a hard night?" asksa bartender David is about to hook up with . David has wandered into what I thought was going to be the bar of the restaurant Nate was having dinner in, but alas, Los Angeles has more than one restaurant and fewer than five fax machines. David orders a vodka gimlet, explaining in response to the bartender's "Really?" an almost apologetic, "My father used to drink them when he wanted something strong." Dude, you should be able to order a thimble-full of Clamato with one Goldfish cracker floating on it if you want and the bartender can keep his damn mouth shut. While he's waiting for his drink, David turns to look at the crowded restaurant, where he feels he can hear their chatter that goes something like this: "Let's kick the shit out of him. No, let's kill him." Because he is in pain. His waking dream is soon to be broken up by the bootytender, who offers David a plate of food the kitchen made by accident, thus kicking off an impending night of other people's sloppy seconds.
Celeste and Keith sit in the back seat of the limo. She tells him that he shaves well and seems to spend a lot of money on clothes, and he puts together that word is outed, cursing the name of Javier. Celeste tells Keith that Javier has a "blabber mouth," noting, "I think it's because he's got a real serious crush on you." Keith asserts that Javier is both married and straight, but on TV everyone who is homophobic is just trying to cover for what they really are because the writer of this episode believed the line that bullies are just insecure themselves. Uh-huh.
"Neil I met on match.com, the teacher I met on Salon," Sarah explains, perhaps still single because she hasn't tried TWoP Personals. ["May they rest in peace." -- Wing Chun] Kathy Bates giggles that George doesn't seem to be coming back in to dinner. They get back to Sarah's multitude of boyfriends, and when Kathy Bates proclaims one of them "a loser," Sarah shoots back, "He's someone to do things with!" Kathy Bates thinks that's "worse than being alone," and Sarah utters a brilliant, "Well, I like him, so shut up." Ruth busts in just then to say she thinks she should be getting home because "George drives really slowly at night" because how else is going to have enough time to explain how The Flintstones couldn't really have existed? Sarah offers her place for the night and Ruth immediately accepts because Lorelai is tired.
Casa Diaz. As the kids sit in the living room and unknowingly keep Rico from having his testicles tied into a cat's cradle, he speeches at Vanessa about the size of Mrs. Morrison's tumor. She's pretty noncommittal in her replies, so he asks if she's listening to him. She tells him that she is, repeating the last thing he said in that awesomely patronizing way that means "I'm hearing, but I'm not listening and I wanted you to know." He keeps chatting, oblivious, asking her if she can imagine knowing there is "something terrible just eating away at your insides," which resonates with Vanessa, who grits her teeth and spits, "Yes. I can."
Claire's and Edie's pinkies almost touch on the shared armrest at what sounds like a movie featuring a lot of running horses. Pamie thinks it's Troy. ["I thought Seabiscuit -- maybe the re-release?" -- Wing Chun] Man, if you're going to have such a baseline partisan reaction to politics, at least go see Fahrenheit 9/11. Or The Corporation. Or Outfoxed. Or...sorry, I could go on, but I'm too busy deleting new emails from MoveOn.org about how we should take back the country from the conservative media.
"Oh my God, this is so dirty," Maile giggles at Nate leads her into a seedy room at the seedy Pacific Sands Motel. Oh, Maile. You have no idea. Just don't walk barefoot near Nate's side of the bed if you don't want to find out why. And, kissy kissy love love right onto the top of the bed. Oh, not on the bedspread! Don't you people ever watch Dateline?
David sits at the now-empty bar, demanding, "I'll take one more for the road." The bartender tells him he won't be doing any such thing, telling David that they're closing. David checks his watch and mutters, "Shit," opening his wallet to pay and spilling change out everywhere. He goes to pick it up and his hand meets the bootytender's hand and...love.
They're back at David's apartment with the kissy kissy love love, but it lasts for but a moment when David hits the carpet and starts to invite him to fill at the Fisher Service Station. David suddenly experiences a flashback of a gun -- an actual gun -- in his mouth, and he backs off suddenly and stands up against the window, telling the bootytender, "I can't do this." Bootytender asks him what happened, leaving the house muttering, "Why do I always pick the crazies?" Because you live in L.A.
Keith stands with Javier outside Celeste's dressing room, observing, "She's in a better mood." Javier agrees and responds that he doesn't see any gay clubs on the horizon tonight, remembering, "Somebody called for you on the stage phone while you was [sic] on the can." But not Celeste's can, because that's bad hoodoo. Javier hands Keith a slip of paper, and Keith opens it up and reads the name on it. Incorrectly. Javier corrects his pronunciation in an exceedingly "I have a gub" kind of way. Keith, who's apparently never seen an episode of The Simpsons, nor spent any time in or near the seventh grade, is all, "Heywud Jewblowm." Javier helps Keith with his new vocabulary lesson, telling him to sound it out. "Heywood J. Blow," Keith tries again. A painter walks into the room, seeing as how the letters "Heywood" are on one side of the wall and "Jewblowme" are on the other, and proceeds to push the letters closer and closer. Today's recap is brought to you by the letters F, U, and the number 69. In the longest old joke of all time, Javier helps Keith read letters off the paper, until Keith's able to correctly identify the word "Heywood." Unless this is all to illustrate how Keith is a functional illiterate, this is getting a bit tedious. "J-A-B-L-O-M-E," Javier spells, winning the Mad Magazine spelling bee. Use it in a sentence, Keith. "Heywood Jablowme," Keith says. "Heywood Jablowme." Javier bursts into giggles. Keith asks what's so funny. Javier asks him to say it again. "Heywood Jablowme!" You know who loves these jokes? Mike Hunt. Javier gives Keith his best interpretation of bedroom eyes and says, "Sure, I'd blow you, Keith." Cue confused, conflicted look from Keith until Javier gives him a man-point with his finger, laughing a fratty chuckle. Ooh, Keith! Face!
Nate does that thing that only happens in movies and on television where he wakes up in the middle of the night, turns to the woman in his bed and stares at her because when you wake up in the middle of the night with a hankering to watch a sleeping woman, it's always well lit in the room. Old time-y music kicks in, a touch of Al Jolson fills the room. The song goes: "Oh! I'm the lonely little petunia in an onion patch!" Hope you like your visuals to be literal translations of lyrics, because it's time for Lisa in a petunia outfit, sitting in a pile of onions. We quickly veer from the lyrics, though, because while the song continues, "And all I do is cry all day," Lisa smiles the beatific Lili Taylor permagrin of spiritual understanding. "She seems sweet," says Lisa, a red light of a cheap motel sign blinking just behind the white curtained window. Lisa keeps her hands on her hips as she tells Nate that he and Maile would make a lovely couple. Nate says, "Oh, she's just someone to have fun with. We don't really have that much of a connection." Lisa rises, hands still on hips, and walks toward the bed, the costume making an awkward scratching sound as she moves. Watch out, Nate! She's got a pistil! (Sorry.) She tells Nate he needs to make a connection. Nate props himself up and explains to Lisa that his lady friend isn't really ready to settle down. "Now, you," Nate says, smiling, "you're ready to settle down." Lisa nods, "I'll say." She thinks that Nate and Maile could get together and have a beautiful life. Lisa leans in toward Nate and tells him, "You could have the life with her you didn't give me." Nate almost crumbles, promising Lisa he gave her everything he had. "Right," Lisa says, unconvinced. She sits back down on her onion...patch...chair, and offers some advice. "Stop with the cheap motels. Stop sleeping with the crazy ex, and try to have a real relationship with this one." I want to see Lili Taylor's acting journal for this judging petunia. "I will keep my hands on my hips because that makes me seem more like I have petals. I've bloomed, but I'm still a shy flower. I have never had the pleasure of a bumblebee's fuzzy legs kicking through my pollen." Lisa asks Nate what's stopping him. Nate explains that he can't ever go through the pain of starting a life with someone, only to have it taken away from him. Lisa pegs Nate with an onion. Even when committing assault she remains saintly. "It's pain," she says. "Get used to it." She turns into a pitching machine, hurling onions over and over at Nate's pate, smiling with all of her teeth. Maile sure is a good sleeper.
Claire and Mena Suvari are in her Vintagemobile looking very, very awkward. "I guess that's it," Mena Suvari says sadly, and Claire agrees that, yes, it is. And then, hot girl/girl action. Mena Suvari leans in for a kiss, but Claire is all cold fish-y about it and Mena Suvari feels like she's kissing her brother. She back up and asks Claire what's going on, saying she feels like maybe she's into her, but maybe she's "just confused, right?" Claire casts her eyes guiltily downward and nods at nothing. Mena Suvari tells her she could be into Claire but that she needs to hear her say it too, and Claire smiles her best non-lesbo smile and apologizes, "I can't say it." She turns to Mena Suvari and tells her that she knows she wants to be with her all the time. Mena Suvari takes this as an opportunity to try one more time, and Claire pulls back and apologizes, taking her leave. Maile, she sleeps on in peace.
Rico presides over the Morrison funeral while Nate takes a phone call to discover Brenda as the caller. He launches right in to tell her they need to have an "honest conversation," in which he tells her that Petunia Lisa came down to earth in the form of a flower and told him he needs to reform his sex life. He says it somewhat differently than that. He also adds that "Joe seems like a good guy" and advises Brenda to "go be with him...give [herself] a chance to be happy. He counsels her to tell him the truth, which Brenda remember didn't work so well when she tried that with Nate.
And then, my tape loses sound entirely and the rest of the episode takes place in utter silence. I watched it the first time it aired, so we'll just make some stuff up. It's almost over anyway.
Silent Rico comes over and tells Silent Nate to get off the phone. Nate says something about the fact that wakes run themselves, though it could always be "cakes are fun in hell" or perhaps "purple monkey dishwasher." Rico gets all short (heh) with Nate and snarks at him in some way short-term memory doesn't allow for much memory of, storming off and leaving Nate to tell Brenda something about finding happiness and peace or binding cheaply for crappy zines.
Bettina rests her pocketbook on George and Ruth's car as he talks to her about something out of earshot, even the first time around. Up on the deck, Sarah tells Ruth that George reminds her of somebody else. A plank of wood? A womanizing wood plank? I can keep guessing. I have plenty of time with no dialogue to transcribe. The person George reminds Sarah of is Nate Sr. Not in education or baldness, but in the intense need to maintain privacy. Oh, my god. I don't remember any of this.
Justin Ther-neaux comes home to find Brenda reading a big book of other-people-improvement. He comes in and sits down on the couch to her, and she can barely look at him and barely wait when she tells him that she's done a real, real bad thing. She tells him that she's dealing with some recurring problems in her personality, which is a fancy way of saying that she's been banging somebody else who isn't him. Joe takes a moment to digest this information, and then sits forward on the couch and tells her it's over. She asks him if he might just consider making it a "new beginning," and he tells her he doesn't think much of that idea at all. Ever her boobs are sad.
David lies in bed wearing the exact same flannel pajama bottoms I sleep in. He talks to Keith on a cell phone, explaining the phone call from Amanda Hugenkiss or whatever, and Keith tries to very slowly navigate the conversation to whether he should make a pass at Javier. David doesn't seem overwhelmingly invested in having this conversation, and Keith asks him what's wrong, exactly. David replies that he doesn't want to fool around with other people anymore, reminding Keith that they could stop any time if one of them wanted to. Keith says he doesn't remember that arrangement. Hey! We do! David cries and cries.
Rico shows up at home to find Vanessa staring out the window. He cranes his neck behind him either to ask where his children are or to look back to when we used to like him more in the past. Vanessa begins her indictment of Rico's gonads by brandishing his cell phone bill at him with his calls to Sideways Eight actually highlighted in yellow. She yells and yells and yells and he tries to tell her he hasn't really done anything wrong, but she rants on in a screaming fashion. She tells him he has to get out of the house and runs into her bedroom, slamming the door. Lorelai is pretty.
Claire ransacks her room looking generally put out, until she is interrupted by an entering Mena Suvari. Claire asks what she wants, and Mena Suvari is all, "I can't live without you." But she's just screwing with Claire, and cracks up and hands Claire her lost wallet. She asks something like whether there could be anything between them, and Claire tells her that part of her wants to sample the forbidden fruit of Mena Suvari's petunia, and part of her doesn't. So she's going to give it a try. But first she's going to brush her teeth.
Rico looks like he's standing outside of a confessional when he begs for entrance into The House Of Sideways Eight. She lets him in and makes the punishment fit the crime so they could finally show us her boobies.
Nate makes Maya make her first sound ever as they're generally adorable on the floor of the living room. Suddenly, a petunia-less Lisa is sitting on the couch, telling Nate he should just go ahead and love Brenda instead, and that she only said those things about Maile to keep Nate away from Brenda. She looked better as a flower. Lorelai is pretty.