"Okay, you know something, Norbert? I need money." So says a doddering overweight thirtysomething gentleman who went to the prom with his cousin and has a tendency to dangerously overuse the letters "IRL." He pads around a cluttered apartment that the set decorators found a template for in an old file marked "Bomber, Una" that features scattered papers, books about how pick up loose women, and lots of those make-them-yourself plain white boxes from Staples designed for the storage of papers, books, and, in this gentleman's case, I'm guessing, at least one human head. Okay. Maybe just a doll head. But does that make it any less weird?
We pan around the place to note the presence of old computer equipment -- maybe this portly gentleman is just upset because he has finally obtained a warrant to arrest Nick Brunch and can't afford to buy a plane ticket to Oslo -- and past that a series of age-appropriate (for a five-year-old) figurines of the comic-book variety. Though there's another word I learned in my childhood to describe toys such as those, and the word sticks in my mind because I wasn't allowed to play with them, even though I'm sure I asked. And that word is "dolls."
As we continue our episode of Cribs: Unabomber, we swing past some vintage-looking videotapes and an open box of Alpha-Bits, which are delicious and educational. Comic Book Guy speaks into a cordless phone no doubt modeled on early wireless communication used aboard the Enterprise, telling Norbert, "My rent is three weeks overdue and you're not helping." Norbert suggests that his fat, nameless, near-death friend "sell something," and I can only hope he's suggesting something akin to the totally awesome Radioactive Man design he made on his Lite-Brite and not anything to do with his sperm, blood, clothing, or plasma, because if the rest of the human gene pool is sullied with the intimate matter of this man, the aliens have already won. And that's precisely the excuse he gives to his parents whenever they ask him why he doesn't have a girlfriend. In response to Norbert's suggestion, Comic Book Guy crassly shoots back, "How about you just loan me some cashola from your trust fund instead?" Oh. A mooch. Who makes other people feel guilty about the fact that they have money. Who uses words like "cashola." The mortal coil is really gonna miss this guy.
Norbert won't have any of it. He realizes that if you give a man Fish Boy, Lost Prince of Atlantis, you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man Fish Boy, Lost Prince of Atlantis, you feed him for a lifetime. So he suggests, "You could sell me your entire Justice League Of America Versus The Aliens series. A guy on Ebay sold one last week for $500." eBay jokes? That's very "dork culture 1997" of them. Everyone uses eBay now. I saw it in the commercials where delightfully suburban white people sing to the tunes of classics from the '50s through '70s.
“ Nate asks Rico if he had a 'rough night,' and Rico responds, 'A little rough. I miss sleeping in my own bed. I miss the boys. I miss Vanessa.' Yeah, but how was the blowjob? No one on this show ever focuses on the positive. ”
Our first close-up glimpse of almost-dead guy shows us a man with terrible hair, enormous black-framed glasses -- which must have led to quite a debate among the production staff as to whether it would have been more or less realistic to have added a piece of masking tape around the middle or if that would have been too Meatballs of them -- and an open flannel shirt that his cooler, well-meaning cousin bought for him from Aeropostale in 1992. "Wanna know what you could sell that would pay for rent for, like, the three months?" Norbert asks. Just do the vintage comic-book thing. We know you're on your way there anyway. Spare us the drama if you have any decency at all and let's get The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Norbert out of the way already. "Blue Twister. 1941, Issue #1." But Glenn Shadix won't have any of it, responding with conviction, "No fucking way. Can't do it." Norbert plot-develops that "it's worth three grand, easy," but Dead Man Climbing takes this moment to grab onto a rickety bookshelf and start feeling around on the top shelf. An aerial shot reveals that the aforementioned "Blue Twister" sits on the very top of the bookcase, and Dead Guy announces, "I'm never selling it. In fact, I'm gonna be buried with it. It's in my will." Look out, Fallout Boy! Just as he says that line, the bookshelf gives way and collapses on top of him. He lets out a gasp of air and dies, and we fade to white to discover that Lawrence Tuttle made it from 1969-2004 without so much as one feel of a lady's soft bosom. As the character that launched a thousand tired imitators whose existence is owed to conversations such as that one might say: Worst. Death. Ever.
Rico "An Affair To Remember" Diaz sits at the Fisher kitchen table slurping Apology-Os out off of his spoon of sadness. He looks up to find George "There Go The Brides" Sibley staring down his nose (roughly a distance of sixteen miles) at him. George picks up his newspaper and begins reading earnestly from the Stuff No One Cares About (in my house, that section is helpfully labeled "Automobiles") section, but is soon interrupted by the entrance of Nate "Hair Of The Dog" Fisher. Nate offers an unusually chipper, "Mornin', fellas!" because he can only be happy when other people are sad, in an emotionally parasitic fashion that George could probably describe in terms of the actual parasite Nate resembles, right down to its thorax. Nate asks Rico if he had a "rough night," and Rico responds, "A little rough. I miss sleeping in my own bed. I miss the boys. I miss Vanessa." Yeah, but how was the blowjob? No one on this show ever focuses on the positive. And at least you don't have the dreaded lupus. On the other side of the table, George feels fine, just fine, juxtaposing, "Not me. Slept like a baby." I'm sure there was a ton in common between sleeping George and a sleeping child. Ssssssh! They're so cute when they're only thrice-divorced! Nate explains that he "dropped Maya off over at Bettina's with Mom," so I guess Patricia Clarkson had a shooting schedule for a twee movie about love and talking about maybe New Jersey that precluded her from living in her own house this week. George asks how she is, and Nate enters in his own name on the "Name Of Fisher Girl Not In Room" on his Mad Libs entitled, "Fisher Women: Can't Live With 'Em." He answers, "Maya's fine. If you want to know how my mother is, she suggested that you call her and ask her yourself." And again, I'm torn. Because on the one hand, this really is a pretty desperate ploy to grab some attention from the emotionally distant man you thought you could trust enough to marry. But, on the other hand, George's craggy face is too long by half. So they both have their credits and debits, is all I'm saying. And, by the way, Maya is not fine. That girl was never right to begin with.