Props to the whole TWoP crew. Well, with the exception of...nah, I'm just fuckin' with you.
It doesn't matter what Claire "BE FRIE FORE" Fisher and Mena "ST NDS VER" Suvari say to each other, because the viewer will be far too occupied turning to the viewer's friend on the couch and asking through the entire first scene, "Wait, are they going to kill off Mena Suvari? Are they? Because if so, I can't wait to break out the 'I'm So Glad They Finally Killed Off Mena Suvari' celebratory Cookie Puss Carvel cake I just happened to have waiting in my freezer!" Alas, finding two main characters (well, one main character and one Maine-sized forehead) in an episode's opening scene is supposed to and does lead to a certain sense of unease, especially when this show seems to have forgotten that girls are actually supposed to kiss boys. Just ask Missouri. They'll tell you.
We join Claire and Mena Suvari lying in bed and making moony eyes at each other, Claire, as if in response to the contention, "You didn't out-act me in that scene, Ambrose," insists somewhat forcefully as the episode's first line, "I did." We weren't there for it, but...she did. But Mena Suvari has some other notions of what they did or didn't do, answering simply, "No." Claire doesn't know why you say goodbye when she says hello, again insisting, "I was, like, major and intensely worked up like never before." The camera lopes around them in a slow aerial circle so God can see more clearly his new candidate for eternal hellfire -- remember, America, this scene is detrimental to your marriage -- as Mena Suvari repeats her belief that "that's so not it." Before Claire does official homage to woefully repetitive dialogue and shoots back that she "can't pay the rent" even though she "must pay the rent," she rolls over on her back after a silent second and tells Claire, "Stop looking at me like I'm the new zoo baby. I did cum." Is that how it's spelled? I hate writing that word out even in this most chaste context. It just feels so porny. I don't even like writing, "He was a designer cum musician," because...ew. But we're going to get off of it now, because I've gone and gotten cum all over this paragraph. See? Porny. And ew. ["I've always thought 'come' was the verb and 'cum' was the noun, but unlike at least one of my colleagues here, I never proofread dirty letters written to a men's magazine, so I won't be terribly forceful about it." -- Wing Chun]
Mena Suvari rolls over on top of Claire, and citizens of Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah are all, "Well, our marriage has just lost its sanctity, for some reason." Peering down at Claire intently, Mena Suvari soldiers on, "Honey, there's no way." Okay, first of all? Maybe she did cum (ew). Second of all, don't call her Shirley. Or whatever she's being called. Mena Suvari examines the lack of symptoms that make up the disease of Hot Lesbian Orgasm, including, "No funny face. No funny noises. You didn't melt into a smoking little puddle of Claire. Yet." "Smoking little puddle of Claire"? Such a sharp tongue this one has. Though maybe if it were a little sharper, Claire would have...well, you know. Mena Suvari leans in for a kiss that the rats in her rat's nest hair vote on a Constitutional Amendment banning, but Claire pulls away with a look of concern and asks, "What's wrong with me?" Mena Suvari promises that it's "nothing," adding, "We're just getting started. You wait and I'll make you scream." More deep tongue kissing as Louisiana is all, "I know the vote is coming up, but this is just too hot to look away from right now."
Ruth "I Want A" and George "Divorce" Sibley sit in the kitchen as I realize that the only problem with their ending their marriage would be that it meant Ruth was a Fisher cum Sibley cum Fisher. Ruth insists, "George, come to church with me." George, flipping through the "Animal Husbandry" section of a newspaper (because that is, in fact, what he is...he is an animal husband) responds, "Agnostics don't usually go to church, Ruth. That's part of the appeal." Well, it's an interesting interpretation of the scriptures to claim that the reason people don't believe in a higher power is so they can sleep a little later on Sundays, but I say you stay out of my yard and I won't leave a box of poo in yours. Like the old expression goes. Ruth tells him how happy she would be if he would go with her, with which George puts down his newspaper and takes her hand, cooing (I know. I didn't know he was a coo-er either), "Sweetheart, this is my day to catch up. I've got a million things to do." It's been quite an inordinate number of months, for example, since he's married anyone new.
David "What's Gay And Yellow And Goes 'Crack' In The Night? You!" Fisher enters the kitchen just then. He bids them all a "good morning" that's straining so hard to sound jolly that he practically sings it to the tune of the opening number of Showboat. Ruth asks him in rapid succession, "Can I get you anything? How are you?" causing David to answer in rapid succession, "Orange juice! I'm great! Well, my stomach is burning." Well, then, orange juice for everyone, because there's nothing for heartburn cum a heart attack better than a big glass of acid. He should be consuming base elements instead, like milk and slaked lime and Ace of Base. He should be strong enough for a man but PH-balanced for a woman. Ruth agrees with me, giving him water instead, as David unbuttons his jacket because he's totally having a heart attack and notes, "No bodies in the prep room. Do you think death spared Los Angeles last night?" Maybe L.A. installed a few more ATMs and death didn't have any other choice. Ruth asks what he's doing there, then, and he foreshadows that he should be around in case they "get a walk-in," which makes all of the linguistic sense of a hooker showing up early to her job on the street corner "in case we get a eunuch." Because the dead, not so much with the walking. David asks his mom and his stepdad (it's fun to call him that sometimes and I recommend you try it) what they're up to, and George snarks, "I have to work. And your mother's got the spirit." The writing: a funny line. The character: she didn't mock you for your agnosticism; you don't have to mock her for believing in a big man with a white beard who lives in the sky. Ruth asks David if he'd like to attend church with her, and David grabs his heart-attack arm and smiles broadly, answering, "Yes, I'd like that! Very much!" Ruth hands him his water and tells him she'll be "ready in a minute," leaning down to George (though not very far, because they're the same height when he's sitting) and informing him, "Last chance." Right back at her, George sarcastically requests, "Pray for me?" Which would be a lot funnier if he and Ruth didn't already actually hate each other so much.
David and Ruth pull out of the driveway and don't get plowed sideways by a low-flying helicopter. As they make the right onto what I'll just call Cahuenga -- because you're never really that far from Cahuenga and it's so damn fun to say -- an ancient light blue classic Lincoln pulls into the driveway. The driver, an elderly African-American male wearing a suit, unearths a piece of paper from his jacket lapel, looks at it, places it on the dashboard, puts on his hat, and dies. James Dubois Marshall made it from 1923-2004, and it's nice to know that end date was completely up to him.
Rico "What Was All My Searching For It's Never Hard To Find A Whore" Diaz wakes up in a wifebeater that doesn't have any idea how much stronger his wife is than he. He rolls over and Sideways Eight wraps an arm around him, an intimate gesture that indicates that he paid the extra ten bucks for the option to kiss. She tells him, "You were such a lover last night. So good. Mmmmmm." Ew. Stop it. Just stop it. It's scaring the children. And speaking of children, don't you have one? Where is she? Sleeping under a blanket sewn together with food stamps and tears or heating a can of beans over the lone blue flame of a stolen Bunsen burner? Rico disagrees, telling her, "It was you." It totally was. She leans in for a kiss -- there's nothing Missouri finds arguable with this, it seems -- and then asks him what he's still doing there, noting, "It's late. You gotta go home." She hops out of bed because there's no bad time for another look at her titties and her g-string. Is that what she wears to bed? Does she also sleep on the pole? Those g-strings are uncomfortable! Or, um, so my stripper friends tell me. She wraps some kimono-ish type of thing around herself and advises Rico, "Just tell your wife you fell asleep in the car." Thanks, Miss Lonelyhearts! Because she's totally the person to be dispensing relationship advice. Or maybe she is, since Rico has already tried talking to a member of the clergy. But Rico cops to the fact that Vanessa has thrown her out of the house, and Sideways Eight responds with a perplexed "Shut up! For real?" Yes, yes. For real. Sideways Eight sits cross-legged on, like, an old milk crate filled with broken dreams, takes a royal hit off a conveniently-located joint, and espouses, "I don't know who else she thinks is out there. Give up a man like you." Hit. Deep breath. Hold it. "She's fucked up." And...exhale. I wonder if that's medicinal. I hear bad things about lupus. Rico sits up in bed and faces Sideways Eight, asking with what sounds like an increasingly sense of desperation, "I could stay here for a while, right?" Fifteen hundred bucks has to be good for something, after all. She casts around her memory bank for a good excuse and settles on "bald-faced lie" because she has all of the power in this relationship, telling him, "It's just that this apartment is so small, and my cousins, they use it all the time." Ah, the cousins defense. It's simple and untraceable, like killing off an uncle when you have a book report due. No one else ever did that? Yeah, me neither. Totally.
"Love your enemy," preaches Father Gay at the big church. I can't remember the pastor's name. You know the one. "Turn the other cheek." Well, if there's one tenet of the good Christian spirit David wholeheartedly embraces, that'd be it. He steps into the aisle like he's about to launch into a full-scale Madeline Kahn impersonation and sit on some parishioner's lap while he croons "I'm tired," but instead chooses to speak more about Christ's message. Whatever. I thought this was an alternative church. ["No, this is Ruth's church. The minister at Keith and David's openly gay-friendly church is a lady." -- Wing Chun] Father Gay tells a story I've never heard about Jesus and Peter, and Peter forgiving Peter's brother seven times. But then, see, Jesus said, "'Not seven times, but seventy times seven.' Whoa! Do the math!" The answer is one million. And Christ never said "Whoa." It's in the Constitution.
Just like that, Jimmy Felon launches into the frame and takes the butt of his gun to Pastor Gay's face because this isn't actually happening and everybody totally knows it. Pastor Gay collapses because relying on the strength of the Lord might be as unreliable a concept as George suspected it was, as Jimmy Felon kicks the shit out of him and yells something about his being a hypocrite. As the chase music rages (indicating that the Fishers are totally about to run into a roadblock), David launches to the front of the church and takes down Jimmy with a total body check. He wrestles the gun from his imaginary adversary figment's hands, shoves the gun in his mouth, and growls, "How does it feel?" It feels FAKE. So get on with it. Ruth looks over at David with a look of concern because he's the first Christian whose mind has ever wandered while sitting in church. He mumbles the word "heartburn" and runs off to calm his stomach with a heaping hot bolt of lime-flavored vinegar.
"See" Nate "Run. Run, Nate, Run" Fisher...well, runs up to his house, not nearly sweaty enough for what we usually hear from him is three miles. I guess pot smoking and dog-talking aren't as aerobic as this show would once have liked us to believe. He notes the car of the urban legend named James Dubois Marshall, peeking in the passenger side window and observing (though not nearly well enough), "Nice ride." And even if he weren't dead (and he is, Nate), wouldn't you be a little more sensitive in your speech to a stranger in the driveway of a funeral home? It's not like he's a friend of the family, so it's obvious that he's there in some extremely death-oriented capacity. Nate pauses a second, leans into the car, and sighs, "Goddammit." Dead people. Always fucking up his day as an undertaker.
Brenda "If I Haven't Slept With You, You're Probably Also Dead" Chenowith sits on the couch while Justin Ther-geaux sits in an adjoining room playing what I'll guess is a cover of the Thompson Twins classic "Cuckold Me Now" on his French horn. She looks over at him and suggests, "Let's go away for a little while." He asks where she wants to go, and it occurs to me that there's no travel agent that knows the way to Nate's pants without changing in Atlanta, so Brenda instead muses, "North?" All right, Miss Tessmacher, where in the so-called ambiguous "north" would you like to go? "We could leave tomorrow and..." Joe cuts her off with a curt "can't," because he rightfully hates her and I don't know why he's still there anyway. He tells her, "I'm scoring the new Jet Li movie tomorrow." In one day? Is it a sequel made from leftover footage of a first film? The Two? Cradle 3 the Grave? I don't understand Joe's job. He tells her she won't be seeing him that much over "the couple of days," and she utters a chastened "Oh." He apologizes but doesn't mean it, softening the blow: "Afterwards. Maybe. Cambria. Carmel. Monterey." Mmmmm...caramel. Sorry. If we weren't going to watch an entire episode of The Simpsons later, that would be a lot more lame. He built those cities on rock and roll. The rock and roll of the electric French horn.
Nate holds Maya and sits at the kitchen table while George holds his arms over his head and asks of someone, "If you have no interest in the past and you don't read history, how can you possibly comprehend the present?" He's talking to Anita, who sits on the top of the stove (just turn the thing on, Ruth! Do it now!) wearing a black skirt and a lacy tank top that screams "Fuck me, Mr. McAllister" to everyone in the room, including the baby. ["I think it was actually worse even than that; to me, it looked like a slip she was trying to pass off as a dress." -- Wing Chun] Anita snarks back that history is "not what really happened. History is some stupid, war-mongering, patriarchal idea of what happened. Who give a shit about that?" George is tickled, and Ruth sees it right away when she comes in, waiting no time before suggesting to Anita that she's forgotten to wear at least some of her ensemble. Anita responds, "I was gonna wear a t-shirt over it, and then I was like, eh, fuck it." Either Anita's mother is somewhere feeling very, very ashamed right now, or we just found out exactly why we have no idea where Anita's mother was. She was killed by the bad seed and her head is in a hat box at the top of the pantry to George's nostril pot. In the meantime, Nate tells David they have a body coming in, and explains, "He was sitting in the driveway in this mint '60s Lincoln with a pre-need form sitting right on top of the dash." With the exception of automobiles, I haven't heard anybody use the word "mint" as an adjective since my sister used it. In the '80s. To describe a plethora of good and great things, many of which often centered on the Jack Wagner. Many of which, I remember, I was inclined to agree with. Ruth, meanwhile, tells George she though his day "was going to be filled with important activities," and he tells the many ladies in his life, "There's always time for a healthy debate." Well, he's definitely a Democrat. At least they've cleared that up. Anita, from the hot seat, notes, "There's no debate. I'm right, you're wrong, game over." Cue the music of the Pole Position car dying. To play, please deposit twenty-five cents. Prepare to qualify. Doo...doo...doo...DOOOOO!
George cracks up and Ruth notices, but in a flash Nate is pawning Maya off on her and escaping downstairs with David to tend to the body. Ruth's tizzy is further exacerbated by the arrival of Claire and Mena Suvari, whom Anita welcomes as "Gertrude and Alice." This refers to writer Gertrude Stein and said writer's lover Alice B. Toklas. No one knows what she did. ["Loved Gertrude Stein? Full-time?" -- Wing Chun] Mena Suvari mocks Anita's retro outfit, and if George had shoehorned in a line about how Anita obviously knew more about history than she thought she did if she knew how to dress so damn '80s, it would have taken us a long way in finding something to like about George. Ruth testily tells Claire that perhaps she should confine her friends to the coach house, and The Three Antiestablishment Narcissists Of The Apocalypse take their leave. "Pretty funny," George tells Ruth as he leaves the kitchen, and, standing by herself, she not-agrees, "Hilarious." Hey! No one leaves this kitchen without a shout-out to Sappho and at least one shrouded reference to Eleanor Roosevelt. Sigh. Lesbian jokes are wasted on the young.
Rico works on James Dubois Marshall, I guess tenderizing the steering wheel grooves off of his forehead and that's pretty much it. Nate checks out the toe tag and David walks in with Marshall's clothing, which he announces is "a thousand-dollar suit." He walks across the room on his way to turn the "It has been X days since all three employees of Fisher & Diaz have actually been doing work at the same time" counter back to zero (from approximately one trillion), and Nate muses, "You think you've seen it all." Apparently, Nate has not seen The Dreamy Musing Provisional Ordinance Of 2001, which stipulates that any human being daring to be so introspective as to use the catch-all sentiment "I've seen it all" must only do so while clad in a swan costume. Rico spins conspiracy theories that maybe someone left him there and ran, but Nate doesn't agree, replying with certainty, "This guy drove himself to his own funeral." Jeez, Rico. Read the recap.
Across the room, David calls Keith "I Want" Charles "In Charge Of Me." Keith asks what's up, and David tells him, "Nothing. Missed you. We haven't talked since yesterday." Keith corrects him that they talked just that very morning, and David apologizes, "Right. I spaced." Keith tells him, "You don't sound like yourself," which sends him into a frenzy that causes him to move an Office Max worth of products around on his desk at a very loud volume, apologizing, "Bodies are coming in left and right today. Nate, Rico, I'll be there in a second." He even fake-dials a few numbers on the land line phone, and somewhere in L.A., Heywood Jablome hears his phone ring once and then stop and just throws his arms up and yells, "First last week, now this." David storms out and Rico says, lowering his voice in pitch, "He's not fine." Nate responds, lowering his voice in sincerity, "Ya think?" Truly, Nate, only sleeping with your ex-girlfriend can make your brother better.
Over at The Art School For The Blind, Mena Suvari braids Claire's hair as Mena Suvari asks Anita where Russell is. "He's asleep," Anita tells them. "I fucked him into unconsciousness." Oh, you poor dear. Are you being blackmailed? On topic (I'll take "Bad Art" for $10,000 a semester, please), The Matthew Barney of LAC Arts announces from a spot on the floor, "It really costs a lot of money to rent chainsaws." Oh, you guys. Become accountants. Seriously. I'm not over thirty. You can still trust me. Claire leans forward all put out by The Matthew Barney of LAC Arts's lack of vision, speeching, "I'm not saying to do that exact thing." Mena Suvari takes over then, adding, "We're just trying to brainstorm a dark, edgy..." and Gertude (she would totally be the Gertrude) takes it to the homestretch, finishing Alice B's sentence, "confrontational concept." Anita pipes in then to say that she finds chainsaws to be "a cliché," and I'm inclined to agree, actually. After you spend your childhood years at a cheesy Long Island amusement park called "Adventureland" (it was one word, for quicker adventure!) watching an animatronic tree outside of the haunted house say the line, "Chainsaws. I don't like chainsaws. I once had a close shave with one" over and over and over and over and whoops oh look I'm seventeen and I don't have to come here anymore, chainsaws really do start to lose their edge as a controversial political statement. Even though they're tools of terror still in the eyes of that tree. The Matthew Barney of LAC Arts suggests machetes, but Claire and Mena Suvari shoot it down in unison, which causes Anita to observe, "What are you, conjoined twins?" Yes. In the lesbian porn fetish film Chang and Bang.
Vanessa "Don't Speak" Diaz wears a facial expression that looks like it's working hard to calculate mathematically how many vows her short husband has broken. Apparently, she's packed the kids off, and he tells her she can't just do that. Yes. Yes, she can. Because of the moral clarity brought about in sentences like this one: "They don't need to be exposed to you and your hoochie mama. Who knows where she's been." Rico asks her again to listen to him, but she refuses categorically and lays down a pretty strong "How Dare You" gauntlet in saying, "How could you? All that time, come home to us after screwing her." Building an airtight case for himself, Rico defends his actions thusly, "I never screwed her. Never until last night." It's pretty bad, but for as angry as Vanessa wants to be right now, I'm not sure "Vanessa, baby, it was only one blowjob" really would have sounded any better, so why not. "You kicked me out into the street," he continues. "Yes, I went to her. Yes, I had sex with her. It's all your fault." Acting the shit out of this scene, Justina Machado works her ways through what I'm guessing were a series of improvisational grunts, unless the writer of this episode really knew how to write out, "H-oh, m'no, rgh, bah!" with the accompanying state direction, "Have you always been this short? Mother always said I should marry a taller man." Vanessa begins storming from the bedroom as Rico tries to apologize, but she wheels around and snarls, "You break your vows, you fuck that whore, and you blame me? You coward. You bastard. You son of a bitch. You make me sick." And once -- only once -- do I wish that this would briefly become an episode of My Two Dads or something so the live studio audience could burst into spontaneous applause in sharing the love for Vanessa only her husband fails to feel.
David and Nate sit in The Sad Room listening to the Marshall daughter explain that her father had always planned to drive himself to the funeral home. Her mother sits beside her, responding to Nate's heartfelt "unbelievable" with, "Not if you knew him...He would always do what he said he would do. You could always trust his word." His daughter agrees, remembering, "He never wanted to burden us with anything." Rico, not seeing much of himself in their descriptions of a wonderful father and husband, burns with the pain of guilt before he starts with burn with other kinds of pain, I have no doubt, telling them, "I'm so, so sorry." They thank him for his sympathy as Rico all but bursts into tears, and Nate takes this opportunity to add in a way that I don't totally understand but which cracks me up anyway: "I'm really sorry, too." The poor Marshall women have to break Rico and Nate out of their own thoughts, a marvel for two women who suddenly live in a world filled with men who always want to burden us with everything, reminding them they'll be back for the service on Tuesday. James Dubois Marshall invented Tuesday.
George sits in the living room staring off into space and musing on an exceedingly long sentence beginning with "Who are the ad wizards" and ending with "Pig in the City," with lots of other words in between. Ruth enters and looks at him for a second, noting, "You look busy." He tells her that he's "contemplating," which is a word in "Old" that means "dying of Alzheimer's." She takes a brief guilt-trip into the room in responding, "You busy is so different from my busy." Your busy involves much more passive-aggressive nagging about how not busy he is. She asks him what's on his "packed agenda," and he tells her that he's got "papers to grade, yard work, I should really finish that article." For The New England Journal of Zzzzzzzz. You should subscribe. I usually read my copy while sawing wood in a thought bubble. Ruth turns the topic toward the fact that George is heading for a new Lolita, introducing it thusly: "It was nice of you to talk with Claire's friend this morning. I guess that goes on in your classroom all the time." I guess Ruth went to school with a lot of suggestive Police songs.
Keith stands stock still at a plush house party while "doom doom doom" music pulses on the soundtrack. Celeste sits on a couch conducting an interview while Keith looks on a fair distance away. His peace of simply doing his job, protecting Celeste -- from, I don't know. The cavity creeps, maybe? -- is soon to be interrupted by the stumbling arrival of Javier The Homo-Hating Homo, who stumbles over swigging directly from a bottle of champagne. He's totally one lampshade on his head away from falling headlong into fourteen early Mark Harmon movies. And that is a fire-able offense, no? Keith rescues the bottle from Javier's grip, causing Javier to wishfully ask, "Who are you, my wife?" I always pictures Keith as being more typically the husband figure, though that preconception is loosened somewhat in an upcoming scene, if you know what I mean and I think you do. "Whip it out," Javier insists while Keith stares straight ahead and Celeste stares at both of them and the shot sheet gets longer and Leon's getting larger. Javier asks about "this boyfriend" of Keith's, asking, "You love him?" Yes. "Is he sexy?" Mmmm-hmmm. "Big dick?" Excuse me? "Me, I gotta biiiiig dick...you know, you could really help me out. You know what I'm sayin'?" No, I find your clever subtext totally impenetrable. Keith shoots back, "Javier, I don't treat my man the way you treat your woman." He tries to pack Javier off, but he fights back all loose-armed and drunkenly -- one might go so far as to say swishily -- asking, "You don't think I'm sexy?" Keith pushes him further out, and Javier tries once more, adding, "You should check out my dick before you say no, man." Well, it's a better pick-up line than "You'd look like Tobey Macguire if you went to the gym," which someone actually said to me while I was AT THE GYM, but it still doesn't work.
Rico is sleeping on a dead-guy stretcher in the basement. With the same wifebeater on, he must feel right at home, though. That thing is like his whore-fucking security blanket.
IT TALKS! Maya makes some sort of gurgly sound and Nate responds, but being a good father and talking to his ex-girlfriend on his cell phone don't have to be mutually exclusive activities, people. He's soon to take a call to that effect, and he finds Brenda on the other side of the phone, telling him that she admitted about 14% of her indiscretions to Joe. She tells Nate that she and Joe are okay and he tells her he's "really happy" for her, even though his wife is dead and he wanted you to know. She tells him to come and see the house, and when he starts to protest, she tells him, "I can't just surgically remove you from my life." You fucked in a closet! This isn't arranged marriage between cousins. Cut each other out of your lives and you'll both magically be cured of cancer. Meh. It's fun to watch. He tells her he has other plans today, to take Maya to "Travel Town." Y'know! For kids! And I love how the production staff must be all, "Hey, you guys, we're always going to be totally authentic in our Los Angeles geography," but then Claire goes to "LAC Arts" and Brenda goes to Some University With A Good Psych Program, and doesn't really seem to go that often, I notice. Brenda brazenly asks if she can go as well, and Nate is all "weeeeeeeeell..." and makes the same face my mother made when I was two and called this woman who cleaned our house "Mommy" and then we didn't see Claudette around anymore after that. She tells him that she has "no ulterior motives," and Nate correctly observes, "Brenda, we always have ulterior motives." She argues that they don't because her ulterior motive is to get herself out of a committed relationship with Joe.
George looks at a tree in the yard and then hacks the hell out of it with a hedge trimmer. Maybe The Matthew Barney Of Lac Arts would like to stand in front of a shopping mall with THAT.
Vanessa sits on her bed, finding Rico's bills inflated and his pants on fire, asking no one but us, "What kind of man spends this much money on a chick without getting laid?" One who really likes blowjobs instead? She takes a deep breath and reaches for the phone, telling her sister, "I'm done crying." Uh-oh for everyone else.
Nate, Maya, and mommy -- er, I mean "Brenda" -- hop on a toy train in Griffith Park that looks so fun, but if I went there unaccompanied by a child, would I be looked at oddly and asked to leave? Anyone need a babysitter? Because I kind of also want to see The Princess Diaries 2.
Claire decorates the coach house with A LOT of candles and places some vagina flowers on a table in the middle of the room as a signpost that says, like, "This way to my vagina." You know who she doesn't want jiving with that message? Her mother, who lets herself right in and reminds us all in as stark a fashion as possible that Claire doesn't really have her own apartment, does she? Claire asks her what's up, and Ruth sits down gingerly on a couch she bought in a house she owns and starts right in: "That girl Anita. I think she should be contributing financially." Claire doesn't really agree, telling her mother, "She practically lives at Russell's," and Ruth takes it a step further: "Your Russell? That's terrible!" For Anita it is. Ruth objects to the way in which Anita "prance[s] around the house in her underwear," and Claire chimes in to disabuse her mother of the notion that any of her friends "prance." Except for Russell, a couple of times. And the guys on the LAC Arts Baton Squad. And I'm sure there is one. But I'll bet it's really ironic.
Celeste hops into the back of her limo and yells at someone about scheduling. I will guess it is, in fact, her publicist. She tells Keith to get in back, and she hurls her cell phone with a determined "oof" after the parting shot, "You think you have job security? I fired my own damn parents." Bless this girl, for her acting talent is not great. She rips a magazine from Keith's hands and flips it open to what Keith has to announce is "your picture." Thanks, Keith. It's like in Shakespeare when the characters announce, "What ho, it is the nurse!" because half of the Globe audience had seats too shitty to note the entrance and the other half was like, "Then why is it a little boy?" The picture is one in which, according to Celeste's own estimation, she looks "like a fucking two-dollar hooker." As do nine out of every fourteen members of the cast right now, so you're really in finer company than you'll ever be again. She goes into an apoplectic rage and begins slamming the magazine again the side of the car and screaming, and Keith has to pull her off...herself...because the truly skilled meta-skilled security guard has to protect his client from a coordinated assault by her own id. He tells her that she's beautiful, and when she calms down a bit, she tells him quietly, "I'm starving." Why not play in a telethon for yourself? Keith gives her his sandwich, which is filled with the only love she'll ever really know.
Vanessa and Angelica -- who I swear I thought for this entire episode was being played by another actress -- sit in Vanessa's car outside of The Sideways Eight. Angelica rubs Vaseline on her face and offers some to Vanessa before passing it to a future scene in which it's going to come in A LOT more handy. Vanessa promises that she's only there "to talk," and a beat up whoremobile (if you die in that car, you die in sin, y'all) is soon to pull up behind them and vomits out Sophia, reeking of shame. She gets out of her car, and Vanessa and Angelica get out of theirs, the latter grabbing a baseball bat out of the back seat because, wow. They walk right up to Sideways Eight, who asks, "Who are you?" They're movie producers and they think you're the Julia Roberts. You're saved! Unless they've come to ask you to star in Moaning Lisa Smile, in which case they might not be entirely legit. Vanessa identifies herself as Rico's wife, and Sideways Eight drops her voice out of the hoochie register for the first time in telling them, "This is not my problem. You have no right to be here." Vanessa says she thinks it is her problem, really, and Sideways Eight counters brilliantly, "It's not my problem, you don't know how to dress, and you can't keep a man." Really. Three entirely independent thoughts. She starts to walk toward her shanty, but Vanessa grabs her arm, with which Sideways Eight throws the first punch. Reeeee-owr!
All three of them get involved, though when they're all The Sharks it's so hard to know whom to root for! Just kidding. I'm rooting for the non-whore. Angelica screams something in the melee about Infinity's "fake tits," and she pulls back from the fighting to scream, "You're just jealous of my tits." With which Angelica grabs her own ample bosoms and screams, "Bitch, please!" I'm sure this is going just exactly as Vanessa hoped it would. Sideways Eight leans in and taunts, "Your man paid for these, gordita!" Mmmmm...gordita. Warm flatbread pita, meat, and three kinds of cheeses. Amazing Rico doesn't want to eat that instead. Vanessa and Sideways Eight hit the ground, Angelica pries them apart, and Vanessa screams for her to stay away from her husband and her kids, inspiring the response, "I got a kid too." I think it's meant to be a poignant moment of clarity, but, I mean, you could get that thing with chicken, beef, or steak. A neighbor comes out and screams that she's going to call the police, and Sideways Eight picks up her malk (her daughter always drinks plenty of malk), stopping three inches from Vanessa's face and snarling, "He doesn't want you anymore." Vanessa walks back to the front, grabs the baseball bat from her sister, and smashes the holy living shit out of that car. Angelica finds a conveniently-located brick and hurls it through the driver's side window. She simply could not be enjoying this more. A fair spell later, Vanessa lays down the bat and informs her sister, "We gotta go pick up the boys from school." What did you do today, mommy? Never mind, Julio.
George stands in the wreckage of the ex-tree in the yard, picking up the leaves. Yes. All of them. It's completely bare. The camera pulls back to find Ruth standing still, staring at it, asking, "What have you done?" He tells her he's cut back the Crape Myrtle, and she tells him that it is, in fact, not a Crape Myrtle, but "the tree Nathaniel planted for Claire on her tenth birthday." Oh, she was too high to remember anyway. She asks, "Can't you tell a Crape Myrtle from a Bradford Flowering Pear?" Yeeeees, I guess? George tells her it was diseased and Ruth tells him it most certainly was not, and when she tells him that he's destroyed a living thing, he laughs, "Don't anthropomorphize trees!" She's all, "I don't patronize bunny rabbits!" He tells her that it will either grow back or they'll get another one, which, when added to the Nathaniel line from earlier, makes me believe he has, indeed, destroyed a precious Flowering Metaphor.
David lies on the couch in his apartment flipping channels because the funeral has already planned itself, remember? Mercifully, he does not come across another HBO show, because the HBO-cures-cancer Sunday night synergy rave promos were more than I can handle already, thanks. A phone rings somewhere and David picks it up to find a voice on the other end asking, "Who's this?" David sits on the couch and reminds the caller, "You called me." It's "Sarge." We cut to inside a bar and are reminded of the paintball episode, the big-ass dude from the threesome re-introducing himself as "Sarge." And it's none of my business, but if we're bringing David's amorous past back to haunt him, maybe somebody wants to put in a call to that cute blond boy from choir. David tells him that it's "David Fisher." Long silence. "Of David and Keith." Silence that follows someone telling you, "Actually, I kind of liked Eyes Wide Shut." David tries once more: "You made us breakfast." This time, Sarge looks around and says an I-don't-believe-you, "Hey. David. Yeah." He has no idea who that is. He explains that he found a number in his wallet and didn't know who it belonged to. You know what I do with those numbers? I THROW THEM AWAY. If I'd ever had any to begin with, of course. They get pretty steamed up at the gym. David tells him with no hesitation, "Come over." Does he have the short-term memory of an owl pellet? David, you are an idiot.
Claire cracks open a bottle of wine and navigates through a billion burning candles as Mena Suvari enters the house. Hey! Hey. Claire is amusingly giggly and nervous, and Mena Suvari is appropriately hair-challenged. She tells Claire, "You are so damned cute." Mena Suvari steps into the room a bit further and tries not to cough, and Claire apologizes for buying scented votive candles, because that will totally fuck up romance if you're either a hypercritical lesbian or that really allergic chick from Safe. Mena Suvari kisses her and Claire goes back into her identity-challenged stump speech, telling Mena Suvari, "I feel like I'm at a middle-school cotillion." Well, that explains why there's a song playing that bears striking aural resemblance to "Eternal Flame." Mena Suvari agrees, telling Claire, "You have to turn off this vagina music, like, immediately." The chick on the soundtrack must have been pretty pumped when she found out they were going to play her song on Six Feet Under. I wonder during what word of that sentence the excitement went away.
Hello, Sarge. He comes in, throws his jacket on the couch, starts thumbing through the mail, and tells David, "This time I get you all to myself." I don't like this guy at all. He plops himself down on the couch and pulls out a Ziploc bag which can only be filled with one thing. Nutter Butter Coo -- "Weed?" the Sarge asks. I'm sorry. Is it "Sarge" or "The Sarge"? David steps away from the door at the sounds of drugs and responds, "God, yes." Well, they do say crack is the gateway drug to pot, Mary Jane, and even marijuana. Sarge rolls and puffs, turning to David and asks him what he's still doing by the door. Hopefully, not planning a panic attack, because...enough. David retires to the couch and kisses a boy, whereas...
...Claire rolls over on her bed and kisses a girl. And not that effectively, either. Her hands lie limply at her side while Mena Suvari crawls around peering into every orifice for an erogenous zone. With men it's easier. The Sarge found one right away. It's called "David's house." Eventually, Mena Suvari backs off, asking, "Are you feeling anything resembling excitement right now?" Claire asks if she's doing something wrong, and Mena Suvari tells her, "There's just so much more we could be doing." But it requires chainsaws, and those can be very expensive to rent. Mena Suvari suggests, "Let's make it like a dance," which is the cheesiest sex-suggesting dance cue since, "You want to see Lambada? I show you Lambada." And that song was better than this one, too. Sorry, but it was. Claire flips Mena Suvari off of her and tells her she doesn't think it's working, and when Mena Suvari gets all put off, Claire tells her, "You really want to get off, huh?" Mena Suvari says that she wouldn't mind it, and Claire teases, "Go ahead. I want to watch." Mena Suvari responds, "All right, yeah. Watch me. I'll cum for you."
David and Sarge similarly enjoy some hard-earned naked time. Nathaniel goes to speak with God about having another bus drive into him at some point.
Joe comes home to find Brenda asleep on the couch. He shuts the door quietly and wakes her up anyway, and she tells him, "I was waiting up for you." Because she is a Good Person and that's what Good People do. Joe doesn't seem too into that notion just yet, answering her questions with one-word answers. And once, mysteriously, by just saying, "Ooom-pah, ooom-pah." Oh, you heteros. You can't figure anything out for yourselves. He sits on a chair across from her and asks what she did today, and since she lied once, she can tell the truth now: "I went to Travel Town...Nate took his daughter and I tagged along." This would be a really opportune time for Joe to start figuring some shit out, but, well, see above disclaimer about the heteros. He moves to the couch and asks if she rode the trains, and when she replies, "Four times," I don't think they're talking about the same thing at all. He asks if she's "tuckered out," and she leans in for a chaste kiss and a chaster hug, which is nowhere near the immediate shot of David totally riding Sarge in the sweatiest "this show contains brief nudity" lie ever. I was really glad I wasn't watching it with my mom, but even knowing my mom was watching it somewhere was a bit too much.
Marshall lies in his coffin and Rico kicks it in the background. His cell phone rings, and an angry Sideways Eight yells, "You'd better lock up your goddamn Vanessa or I will." She recaps, not leaving that skill to the professionals, by telling Rico about the unpleasant meeting this afternoon and the unpleasant effect it had on her car. She tries to pin it on him with a simple "It's your fault," but he finally takes this moment to stand up for himself, yelling right back, "You started this. I've given you enough! My life is ruined because of you. You fuck your car, Infinity. I'm done." Oh, man. Now I bet she will. She's in ranting mode now too, proving her worth: "I don't need you anymore, dum-dum." Dum-dum? He's one of those lollipops from the pediatrician's office? I loved those. Except for the mystery flavor with the question marks all over the wax paper wrapper. What the fuck flavor was that? TELL ME WHAT'S INSIDE THE PAPER! "I got two guys better than you, and they're not stupid enough to tell their bitch-ass wives. Bitch!" She hangs up the phone. WHAT'S INSIDE THE PAPER?
Mena Suvari sleeps and Claire does not.
"I don't even know where we are," Celeste tells Keith in her room high above some city somewhere. You're in L.A. You're always in L.A. I know you're supposed to be in Iceland, Hastings, or this place, but every time Keith is outside he's in the same parking lot surrounded by the same palm trees and strip malls. But no ATMs. Of course. But you're totally in L.A. "Oh. Tampa," Celeste remembers. "Yeah, because when I got on stage, I said, 'How much do you love me, Tampa.'" You guys? Seriously? Her life is really hard. This feels like a Lifetime movie called, well, She's So Lucky: The Decline and Fall of Britney, airing Summer, 2012. Or week on VH1 and about Michael Jackson. Is someone recapping that? That network has temporarily lost its mind. Keith starts to remove that little wire doohickey from behind his ear and tells her, "I'd better let you get some sleep." She asks him, "You know when you're really tired but you can't stop your mind?" I have a feeling she does not. But, I'll humor you. Go on. Celeste asks Keith how his boyfriend is doing, and though we know the answer is "getting grease all over the furniture," Keith opts for the more egalitarian "Not so good...he got carjacked a while ago." Celeste, like, totally gets it, sympathizing, "I'm afraid of those things, too. Some freak out of nowhere with a gun. Those autograph hounds." With which my friend Beth LINL took pains to observe, "They're not really talking about David anymore, are they?" In fact, they're not really talking about anything at all. Celeste turns to face Keith and asks, "Stay with me? Just 'til I fall asleep." With which she backs him onto the bed with a "Shut up," and climbs on top of him. His first thought goes to the legality of it all, asking, "You trying to get me arrested? You're barely eighteen." She rips his shirt right off of him, saying, "Publicity. Last March I turned twenty-one." She asks if he's ever been with a woman before and he tells her, "Of course." Her shirt comes off and she leans down for a little very dirty talk: "I don't get fucked in the ass." With which Keith responds, "That makes one of us." So we noticed!
Sarge, meanwhile, put his honkin' boots back on and is halfway out the door. David enters in his bathrobe and asks Sarge what he's doing, and Sarge makes an excuse something something about his team, put his weed in his pocket, and makes for the door. David insists, "I want you to stay," but Sarge rebuffs his begging with a terse "Yeah, I get that. But, like, no." David won't let it go, and Sarge has to ask him in a deaf-guy voice, "Do you have a deafness problem?" He leaves David a joint, telling him, "You could use it." On approximately his fifth attempt to exit gracefully, David throws the joint at his back -- Ow! Plants! -- and barks, "What do I have to do to get somebody to stay with me?" Dude, you have a boyfriend. And your other one-night stand would let you leave. And he gave you crack. And he let you drive, which I love, personally. Sarge adopts a "fuck this shit" attitude by muttering, in fact, "Fuck this shit," and as he finally hits the door, David leaps on his back and not for the first time wakka wakka. Sarge pushes him down to the decorative throw rug, pinning him to the floor and asking, "Do I call the hospital?" David tells him not to, and Sarge suggests, "Get some help. You're losing it." I don't know how he would know that he was unraveling, unless David told him. And I don't know, frankly, when David would have found the time.
Ruth makes her way downstairs into the secret room of death and embalming, where she finds Rico making his gurney and standing in his boxers. She asks what in holy hell is going on, and he tells her that he's having problems at home and he didn't have anywhere else to go. She tells him how sorry she is but adds, "You can't sleep here." He tells her that he'll go, but she clarifies, "Come upstairs. You can have Claire's old room." He smiles, the tiny amount of Bar Mitzvah boy facial growth indicating it's been, I guess, about six weeks since he's shaved. Rico starts to cry and Ruth reassures him, "Your marriage has always been so strong. You'll be home soon." But Rico bawls, "I cheated on Vanessa and she'll never forgive me." Without missing a beat, Ruth hauls off and smacks him on the shoulder -- Ow! A lady! -- speeching on about "you men, always turning your back on what you have. Always sniffing around for something new!" This gives Rico an opportunity to turn it around, accusing her of having "three boyfriends" since her husband died, not including the hairdresser. But she wasn't cheating on anyone. ["She kind of was. She was with Ed Begley Jr. when Nathaniel Sr. was still alive." -- Wing Chun] AND she just invited you to stay in her house, you ungrateful, short cheating bastard. He tries to win her back with a trove of sweet, underrated pity, weeping, "I made a mistake. I just want to take it all back." She taps him lightly and noncommittally, not really caring anymore because boys will be boys, especially when you're actually, like Rico, an actual boy.
Keith watches David's number come up on his cell phone's caller ID. Maybe he can hear David dialing, seeing as they're both IN L.A. RIGHT NOW. He kind of smiles because he has funny news about girl sex that totally can't backfire personally or professionally, and he picks up the phone with a "yo." David's voice is very strained on the other line, and he immediately tells Keith, "You have to come home." Keith says that the tour will be back west in a few weeks even though he's there RIGHT NOW, but David vents, "I need you now." Keith pulls back and promises that he's listening, but David's already gone, screaming that he doesn't feel like he needs to explain that he's losing his mind, ending with "Where is everybody?" Like in that airline commercial nobody remembers but me. Keith tells David to go to his family's house because they always make people feel better, and that he'll be there as soon as he can. David hangs up the phone in a huff and throws it because that is apparently a side effect of having sex with Keith and also because David is a baby.
Gospel funeral! Nate stands in the back and grooves like a white man, while some ladies sing a song called "Oh, Happy Day," though I'm guessing the former Mr. Marshall wouldn't so much agree. Let him try and argue. Suckah!
"I think I figured us out," Mena Suvari tells Claire because they're never going to leave this house, ever again. Anyway, what has Claire figured out? She's talented and you're not? Yeah. One step ahead of you. Claire goes first, telling Mena Suvari that she thinks Mena Suvari is the "coolest and most beautiful person I've ever seen...but when I look at this whole thing objectively..." Mena Suvari takes it the rest of the way: "The attraction's aesthetic." No. She was going to make fun of your hairline. But nice self-preservation. Ultimately, Mena Suvari feels Claire has made her decision: "You're not into fucking women." And Claire still hasn't had an orgasm, but after seeing Mena Suvari's, "I really want one." Too bad, un-lesbo. Straight is the new straight.
This can't end well. We're in Brenda's airy bedroom, Nate lying on the bed with Brenda and Maya, while Maya plays with these little trains that I totally bought for my nephew. Doesn't this show know that girls like pink and boys like trains? Are you trying to make her Claire? Or not Claire? I'm still not straight on it all wakka wakka. Nate compliments her on the place, and she does nothing to simplify matters, noting, "Could've been us." Nate retorts that it's "not us." And, it's them. But not yet. It's time for a nap and Brenda insists they just let Maya sleep on the bed, and that they can retire to the couch in the living room and talk about "safe things." Or not talk. They can talk or not talk for hours.
Ruth prepares what looks like a pot roast as George enters the kitchen and announces, "I'm going out for a couple of hours." She bites her tongue until he's almost out the door, and then decides fuck-all and loses it completely: "All you do is come and go!" He reenters the kitchen and decides he'll hear more, and she vamps on by telling him that "marriage is not a gas station, George. You can't just pull in and fill up whenever you remember you have a wife." George holds his ground, calling the charge "unfair and inaccurate." And metaphorically unsound. And almost entirely nonsensical. He tells her he's treated her as a partner and a friend, making the mistake of adding, "If that's not marriage, I don't know what is." If you ever find yourself on the cusp of saying that? Look around and make sure you haven't been married seven times. He completely turns it around on Ruth, asking, "What about your own life? Why do I have to be the center of everything for you?" He asks why she has to hound him about every detail of his life, and she responds, "When I don't, there's shit on my doorstep." Fairly well-reasoned argument there. Maybe she shouldn't have continued: "Sarah was wrong. You're not like Nathaniel. You're worse!" George looks genuinely hurt, and tells her, "You're smothering me." She tells him that's bullshit and that he hasn't changed at all. He deals the blow: "Well, don't say I didn't warn you," and she asks if he's threatening divorce. "I'm your seventh spouse, George. How much warning do you think I need?" Coupla more wives wouldn't have hurt, it seems like.
"You jumped on him?" Claire asks David in the coach house because she's the dead couple in Beetlejuice and if she leaves the house, well, you know how aggressive sandworms can be. Walking around the place collecting the votives and carrying them to the trash, Claire asks for more details and David recounts the fact that Sarge sat on him. But not when they were fighting, wakka wakka. Claire doesn't mind this conversation because it's filled with creamy nougat segues that allow her to talk about herself: "Last night, I had a humiliating homosexual experience of my own." David asks what happened, and Claire tells him, "I couldn't even go down on her," which causes David to reply, "You can stop right there" because gay men hate pussy and that's why they're gay. The end. She bemoans the fact that "it would be so much easier to be gay," noting, at least, "I wouldn't have to deal with unfamiliar sex organs." David rightfully points out, "They're all unfamiliar unless they're yours." And sometimes even then! Did I say that out loud?
The guy who hired Keith is for some reason totally in Tampa right now. He enters a green room-ish type place and Keith, in civilian gear, stands to greet him. Hiring Guy asks Keith how he's doing, and Keith tells him, "I gotta leave the tour." Keith asks if there will still be work in L.A., and Duane (for that is his name) is all, basically, "Yeah. Fake yeah. But yeah." Keith relaxes slightly and tells Duane, "I'll go tell Celeste." Duane is confused: "Celeste fired your ass this morning." If she can fire her parents, she can fire her gay security guard booty call. Just like we learned in Sunday School.
It was bound to happen. I'm glad it finally did. They both deserve it. The end. Joe enters his own house to find Nate and Brenda on the couch in full make-out mode. Nate's pants are on. But they weren't going to be on for long. Awkward. "Nate's daughter's in the room," Brenda tells him as if that's going to make any difference, like the rest of that sentence would be, "And she would only stop crying if her daddy made out with me out here. Kids. Who knows what makes 'em go, am I right?" Nate jumps up and tells Joe that he doesn't want his daughter scared, and Joe tells him simply, "Get out." Brenda and Joe stand in the living room while Nate collects Maya, and when he's out of the place, Joe shuts the door and asks if Nate was Brenda's "indiscretion." He hasn't broken anything yet. Like her skull. This makes him a better man than I. Brenda nods her head and Joe finally gets his moment: "That depressing cripple. I mean, you're both cripples, obviously. I am so stupid. I was actually considering having children with you. That truly frightens me." Brenda tries for something and comes up with "It's not your fault," which is followed by her looking around the room in full recognition of the idiocy of said comment. Yeah, he's got that, thanks. Maybe therapy-speak will work? "I've obviously been in complete denial that I'm in recovery." Joe takes this opportunity to tell her to "shut the fuck up," which, exactly. "You neurotic, tedious, self-absorbed bitch." Exactly, exactly, exactly, and hey that's really sexist. No. I'm totally kidding. Of course she's a bitch. She stands and tells him, "I love you, Joe," but he lays back into her: "It's not sex. It's betrayal. That's your fucking addiction." Ooooh, score one for the doctor! Well put! Furthermore is his contention that she's "a fucking waste of [his] time." He'll just be going. His foot gets caught on the front door but it was a continuous shot off of Rachel Griffiths's last line -- "You think you know me but you don't" -- so they're not going to do it again in hopes that we either don't notice or take it to be this really authentic moment. Acting!
George enters the Fisher kitchen to find a burning hunk of meat, and when he removes it from the office with a maximum amount of huffery, he finds a note taped to wall to the sink. True to character it would read in huge block letters, "WHERE WERE YOU" with a drawing of a Crape Myrtle on the bottom, somehow drawn in a way he intuitively knows is passive-aggressive. You have to be a damn good artist to draw a passive-aggressive tree. You have to be Matthew Barney of LAC Arts good.
Sad to see couples break up. Keith chases Celeste around backstage, and she tells him she can't trust someone who sleeps with a woman while his boyfriend is recovering, telling him, "It's not cool to fuck the boss." And that's why I don't work for the Defense Department anymore. Saving face, Keith shouts after her, "Just so you know, I was leaving before you fired me." She holds up her arms and says a word she doesn't know: "Synchronicity." She kisses him once more and offers a sultry "Ciao, baby." Walk through that curtain, Trachtenberg. And let that be the last we hear from you.
From a flickering television, Homer Simpson reads, "'Dear Neighbor, You are my brother. I love you. And yet I feel a sadness in my bosom. Neighbors forever, Ned Flanders.'" Homer and his family laugh uproariously, and I can't say more because we don't recap sitcoms. But that scene seems to be from Episode 7F08 of The Simpsons, entitled "Dead Putting Society." David, Claire, and George sit in the living room watching it and not laughing at all. Are they waiting for The Drew Carey Show? What's wrong with these people? Yeah. I guess I wasn't that in love with Season 2, either. Nate walks in with Maya and wonders, I'm sure, why all of these people would be together voluntarily. He asks, "Where's Mom?" like she always sits down and watches The Simpsons with them at 6:30 on the Superstation. David hands Nate the letter because, dude, don't talk during The Simpsons. Nate reads aloud: "Going away. Don't contact the authorities. I'll be in touch when I'm ready. Dinner's in the oven." I guess when you can't make your husband appreciate you, the only choice left is to just disappear. Worked for her dead daughter-in-law.