"You stupid, stupid son of a bitch!" yells a woman in a white bridesmaid dress as she kicks the shit out of an "un" "conscious" gentleman in a tuxedo we can guess to be her husband because of the obvious love shared between them. A wide shot captures her Mia Hamm-ing the formally-clad man in a parking lot, as a cluster of four horrified revelers watches her make like Homer Simpson on the Krusty Burglar. They would yell in horror if they actually had any lines, "Stop! Stop! He's already dead!" Because he is. Because it's the opening sequence of Six Feet Under. So you may want to kick a little softer and, while you're at it, stay out of the way of any mysteriously falling pianos. Because really, it could be any of you.
"You have got three beautiful girls!" Bride Of FrankenDeadGuy rants on as the onlookers onlook and the wife spits and kicks and a festive event chimes on in the background while a jazz band plays cocktail music that's probably, if I know anything about this show at all, a bluesy sax riff on "I Get A Kick Out Of You." Bride Of FrankenDeadGuy isn't finished, as she lands footfall after footfall to her kid's future therapy bills and bellows, "They are never gonna be able to have cocktail hour!" A tight shot on the tux-clad man's face shows a pool of chunky-style vomit strewn about an acre around him, and to that lies his car keys. Was she about to let him drive the car? And, of course, the far more compelling question of this scene: what kind of a caterer serves rice pudding at a wedding? [“Maybe Arthur's already landed in a new career?" -- Wing Chun]
"You are a fucking alcoholic!" she screams, and finally another gentleman steps in because why won't anybody think about the children. He lightly chastises her with an incredulous cry of "Suzanne!" and she turns furiously around and screams, "WHAT?" A final shot of FrankenDeadGuy lying in his own pool of ill-advised dessert choices fades to white as we learn that Robert Duane Wething made it from 1958-2004 as the ever-living personification of the expression "She drives me to drink."
Nate "Man About Frown" Fisher sits on a couch in what appears to be the former house of Justin Ther-neaux and his partner in baby batter, Brenda "Biological Crock" Chenowith. In his hasty exit, Joe seems to have left behind many of his main possessions, including the furniture, some knickknacks, and the home's main accessory: its cuckolding slut of a female resident. Because look everybody, I found her! She's straddling Nate on the couch, which is a perfectly fine place for them to sit now that there's nobody to walk in and catch them in the act of doing anything, now that they've alienated the last person either of them has ever met and perhaps got hip to this new door-locking technology as well.
Nate registers a pained look on his face, prompting Brenda to ask, "What's wrong?" Red flag! Red flag! I mean, Christ, Brenda, I know you two haven't been together in a while, but it's not like you've never met the guy. You know better than anyone that asking Nate "What's wrong?" is like asking a deaf man, "What can't you hear?" What? I said, "What can't you hear?" What? I SAID...oh, I see what's going on here.
If plot development were made of pennies we'd all be shitting copper when Nate tells Brenda in reply, "I just do not want to go to fuckin' Idaho." I typically feel the same, so not going to Idaho is usually exactly what I do. Potato-hating sucker. "I'd be fine if it was [sic] just the dedication of Lisa's ashes," he continues as no one but the camera crew and the twin keep an eye on Nate's child. "But I don't want to be with the Kimmels." In other words, his crazy family may be no better than her crazy family, but at least his crazy family lives near a Jamba Juice. (STOP! No need to email me that there are, in fact, five Jamba Juice locations in Idaho. I also have an "internet" installed on my computer, as it turns out. ["Five? I'm moving to Idaho." -- Wing Chun]) Nate rides the Pity Train to Pity Town but pretends he's about to take a detour to I-Actually-Care- About-Somebody-Else- For-Once-Ville, indicating Maya (again, without looking at her, DAD) and vamping, "I really don't want to put Maya in that situation." That situation plus one straw wrapper for her to stare at equals Maya doesn't care because she's two. If you really want to do something for the kid, you could stop finding ways to conjugate the word "fuck" into every blank of the "Nate Fisher Mad Libs" when you're around her, or she's going to embarrass her daddy real bad when she starts nursery school. As for carting her off to Idaho to attend the dedication of the ashes of the mother you're responsible for killing? I'm sure that's probably fine for her.
But Nate thinks not, moaning on, "Death, death, death. I feel like I'm done looking back. I just wanna look forward." But forward is where the death is, Nate. While you guys let that thought totally blow your mind, Nate pauses for significance before adding a final, "With you. With us." Brenda looks away from the fireplace, into which she had been hurling other good ideas of the "not moving in with Nate" variety, including, "taking some time before moving in with Nate," "giving herself a chance with a guy who might actually have been normal," "'getting into counseling' as a court-ordered dictum rather than 'getting into counseling' as a career path," and "trimming off the back of what is rapidly becoming HBO's most expensively-styled mullet." But she seems pretty happy with what he has to say, asking, "You do?" He smiles back and assures her, "Yeah, I do." They kiss. Man, that kid could be anywhere.
Oh, there she is! Nate walks over to her and asks, "What are you doing, little monkey?" Memo to Nate: you're not supposed to say "little monkey" to kids who actually look like little monkeys. You call the cute kids "monkey" and you just glare coldly at the ugly kids in the vague hope that when they grow up they'll be really funny or really skinny. Man, it's like this guy has never even heard of good parenting.
Back at the mantel, Brenda gestures toward a number of boxes around her and informs Nate, "Half these boxes are full of Lisa's clothes." Well, if they're hand-me-downs, Maya had better hope that her first growth spurt finds rough-hewn pants with hemp drawstrings to be the dominant fashion of the day. Particularly when worn with ponchos with peace signs on the back. But Nate tells us that they are for Maya, "so she can see 'em when she grows up." Because if he doesn't want her scarred as a result of her mother's death, why not make her the docent of the Dead Mommy Museum? Brenda agrees in an I-don't-know- what-you're-getting-at kind of way, responding, "Well, when you think about it, this ceremony does the same thing." Huh? "You want to go so that when Maya grows up, you can say to her, 'You were there.'" Just like the World's Fair. But with lots more dead mothers.
"I have colitis!" announces perennial wacky neighbor and sometimes Six Feet Under director Kathy Bates. "Baby" Ruth "And Butterfinger Fresh Guaranteed" Fisher looks down and sadly mutters, "Oh, no," and, see, we're supposed to believe that Bettina is telling Ruth that she has some terrible disease and that Ruth cares very, very much. But hang on, fans of hilarious visual comedy everywhere. Press pause on your Pay Per View copy of Scary Movie 3 (Michael Jackson as the little girl from The Others! Priceless!) and come take a look at this! Instead of talking about actually having colitis (which is no joke, believe you me), we are soon to discover that Bettina has merely put the seven-letter word "colitis" down in an in-progress game of Scrabble among Ruth, Bettina, and a younger girl who has never heard my incredibly helpful maxim about being funny or skinny, as stated above. And it's a seven-letter word, sure, so you get major bonus points for that. And Ruth takes pains to point out that Bettina nailed it on a triple word score. But besides the three points for the "c," all of the other letters are worth just one. So that's nine points for the word, twenty-seven with the triple word score, and I believe another fifty (is that right? I'm not sure because I've never done it) for Scrabbling out. ["Probably more than that, since in order to use all her letters up, she'd have to create a second word, most likely by adding the 's' to another word that was already on the board, so she'd get points for that too, right? I'm a nerd." -- Wing Chun] Don't be glum, other players! You guys are still in the game! Except for the third player, who takes this moment to grouse, "Fuckin' Jesus, mom. You're a seven-letter whore!" That's no way to talk to your mother! You should be removed for your insolence and be forced to try the salad. No! I mean the word "salad." That "d" is a trove of points. Bettina and the miscreant daughter we've heard her mention at various points over the years (let's call her "Cousin Oliver") start snipping at each other, and Ruth starts to tear up and tells them, "I'm going to miss this. I don't want to go home." A quick shot of the board shows that someone has put down the words "cat" and "red" and that that person is losing, particularly because whoever put "cat" down did so on a magic turn during the scene, seeing as the board does not contain "cat" the first time we see it but does the second. Also, someone threw down "anti," which I would definitely look up. Ruth scans her letter and asks if "umurawi" is a word, seeing as those are the letters she has. Even if it were (and if this were Balderdash instead of Scrabble, it would be defined as "a learned shaman who performs sacred rites at Senegalese weddings"), it would still need to be pluralized with an "s" from "colitis" to find a place on the board. ["You are a nerd also!" -- Wing Chun] Ruth realizes how up in her umurawi her awful husband has really been to her, and seizes this opportunity to begin sobbing. Bettina II raises an arm to place sympathetically on Ruth's shoulder, in the process burning enough calories to reward herself with a Dove Bar.
Persistent knocks on a door cut us over to the apartment of The Matthew Barney Of LAC Arts. He walks shirtless toward the door in a way that makes me wish he were much, much hotter, and upon pulling it open we find Russell and Anita rolling in a keg. But I thought art students only drank PBR to be ironic. Into the frame stumbles Claire "My Anti-Drug Is Drugs" Fisher, who asks, "What time is it?" Russell fields it, barking, "It's Miller Time!" Is that still their tagline or did Russell just kick it with a marketing slogan from before he was born in 1990? Claire wraps herself in a blanket and throws herself down on The Matthew Barney Of LAC Arts's couch, Anita immediately asking Claire, "Guess [The Matthew Barney Of LAC Arts] is the refrigerator magnet of the week, huh?" "Refrigerator magnet"? Where is this dialogue ripped from, the lost script of Heathers 2: The Return Of The Diet Cokeheads? Claire curls in her fingers and puts her right hand up in that universal acting catchall for "Oh no you di'int," shooting back, "Oh, I get it. Because you and Russell are like Mr. and Mrs. Suburban Happy Love Couple." Anita claims that maybe they are, and uses funny-sounding domestic words like "ranch house" and "cul-de-sac" to show how anti-establishment she is, because nice Gap everything, you upper middle-class suburban white dilettante.
Claire turns the talk to the topic at hand, asking, "Did you bring weed?" Anita says that she did, but is quickly interrupted by her small garden gnome of a boyfriend, who calls over asking if she brought "the CDs." Compact discs, eh? Are they thirty? Is this the past? Did they order those through Columbia House? If these kids are half as achingly cool as this show would like us to believe they were, it's all iPod, all the time. While Anita makes moon-eyes at Russell -- which are, I guess, the second best way to look at Russell, right after beer goggles -- Claire starts rifling though Anita's bag, much to the owner's vexation. Careful! You'll get fingerprints all over her exaggerated sense of self-importance! She bats Claire out of her bag like I bat away the frequent ant I find snacking upon the dusty, chewy Velamints at the bottom of my grandmother's pocketbook (it's true, you guys. My sister and I wrote a haiku about it and everything) as Claire snarls, "I thought you brought pot." Anita snarks, "Well, I could get it for you, Stonehenge" because this has gone from Heathers to Will & Grace, and Claire is suddenly being characterized as a drug-addled, subtlety-free train wreck, spitting back, "Get it, then." Anita pulls out the necessary paraphernalia and Claire grabs it greedily, though I can't describe what any of it is because marijuana is against the law so what the heck's all that stuff? ["I thought I saw a cool pencil holder." -- Wing Chun]
Bride Of FrankenDeadGuy sits in The Room Where People Are Sad, telling Nate and Rico, "I want a lot of flowers. I mean it. A lot. I don't want it to look like, y'know, like I didn't care, because I do. More than they'll ever know." Pause for where the dialogue should have been cut, and then the rueful postscript: "More than anyone." A young blonde girl sits to Bride Of FrankenDeadGuy, clearly one of her daughters, as her mother continues on that she wants to find a kind of flower I can't spell and neither can my closed captioning, unless the word is spelled with three boxes and an accent grave. I think it's "umurawi," and it's "halfway between tulips and roses except that they have no thorns and they're usually purple or white." A steel-toed boot and a green thumb! What man in his right mind would drink himself to death to get away from this? Rico tells her that she can say a few words during the service if she'd like, and she stares off into space and speaks in a squeakier voice, "Hi. I'm Suzanne Wething. Some of you may have seen me kicking Rob in the parking lot at Jen's wedding. Naturally, he was already dead from alcohol poisoning, so you can all stop looking at me like that." Rico and Nate just look off into space while the little girl stares down at the floor. Awkward. Bride Of FrankenDeadGuy tells them all, "It's no secret. Paige knows. Your sisters know, don't they?" The girl I'll guess is Paige mutters, "Uh-huh." Bride Of FrankenDeadGuy looks back at Rico and lets him in on a little secret, phrased in the form of a Lifetime Movie: "Daddy was a drunk."
Why does the universe keep making me go to weddings? We join David "Homo Neuroticus" Fisher and Keith "And Tenille" Charles, walking though what I'll just call Fortunoff, David clutching a wedding registry in hand and announcing, "Waterford W-Collection Eleven-Inch Spire Stem Vase." Insert joke about gay men and eleven inches and I'll meet you on the other side of this sentence as soon as you're done high-fiving your frat brothers. Keith observes that "Terry doesn't fuck around." Of course he doesn't. Because all gay men are perfect. David suggests, "Maybe we should get married," and Keith observes, "So people can go on vase-buying errands for us?" Take it from someone with as deep a sense of wedding fatigue as you can possible imagine, Keith. The answer to that question is yes. The only other reason is for health insurance or if you're in a wacky '80s sitcom standing at the altar to someone named "Dora." But David still has romantic notions of married life, and he counters that he wants to get married "so we can say all of those 'forever's and 'no matter what's." Keith says that they're already in each other's wills and that they basically are married, "even if the law refuses to recognize it. Then again, I refuse to recognize most of the Bush administration, so I guess it all evens out." And, okay. Clearly I have never agreed with a sentiment more strongly than I agree with everything -- except for the "most," which I would replace with "all" -- that Keith just said. But it was delivered in such a ham-handed, thuddingly unsubtle fashion that it's like David printed out the wedding registry on the back of the last six months of Graydon Carter's editor's letter. They suck. We know. Now let the moment breathe.
Speaking of wildly unsubtle moments, David asks Keith why he doesn't want to have a formal ceremony, and Keith tells him it just doesn't feel like "the perfect time." David says that there never is a perfect time, and that sometimes you just need to "pick a moment and do it," to which Keith actually replies, "You mean like Nate moving in with Brenda and taking Maya with him? If you ask me, that sounds crazy." It sure does. A character on this show talking about somebody besides themselves? Insane! Particularly if it's Keith, who knows so little about David's family that it would be more likely he'd make some reference to a magazine he saw Celeste on the cover of and then follow it up with, "David, have you realized Josh Hartnett has appeared on Teen People's list of the Top Twenty-Five Under Twenty-Five for about twenty-six straight years now? If you ask me, that sounds crazy." Unless you're going to argue he just said it to change the subject. And if you argue that? You're totally wrong. They stumble across the eleven-inch vase, and Keith notes the price tag with horror, asking, "$225? They're not gettin' this from us." I guess that is a bit steep for two guys who are BOTH supposed to be at work right now. Keith grabs the registry and points to the $30 garlic press, causing David to chide, "You really want to be the guys who gave them the garlic press?" No. I want to be the guy who chipped in on the $30 garlic press. When the hell did they have mutual friends who were a gay couple, anyway? Don't just be all quietly mumbling, "Um, well, we met them at the gay" and expect we're just going to let you gloss over this shit.
George sits at the computer in the office hitting the "escape" button over and over again. Dude. "Escape" doesn't do anything. Nothing on that top bar does. I've had a computer since 1986, and I still only have cause to hit the "function" keys if I sneeze really hard and accidentally smack my head on one of them. And then you blow up Saturn. Seriously, I have no idea what they do. A browser window sits on the screen, the words "Action Canceled" sitting on top and asking us if we want to work offline. Escape! Escape! Escape! STOP IT, GEORGE! "Control"? Meet "alt." "Alt"? Meet "delete." Control+alt+delete? Meet George. But George, whose last meeting with a computer seemed to have been double-clicking on his copy of the new Mosaic browser (which is somewhere on a Mac Classic, sitting in a dumpster, still loading) so he could hop onto that information superhighway. He grabs the mouse and starts clicking in the ample white space of the open browser window. I'm sure that'll work. The front door opens and closes, and Ruth appears in the office with a suitcase. "I'm home," she announces. George takes off his glasses and stands, tearing up again because he's a laaaaaaaaaaaady. The music is suitably umurawi.
What the hell did Brightstrips do to deserve this? I mean, besides write a very large check, I imagine. Although they seem to be of kind of an indeterminate brand, so it is possible we're watching Vanessa apply the product to remind us of her evolving makeover. Vanessa peels off a strip and pastes it over her top row of teeth at the exact moment the phone rings. Rico is on the other end of the phone, sitting in his car, not getting a blowjob for a change, telling Vanessa with determination, "I wanna see my kids." He tells her he wants to drive them to karate the following day and then to lunch, but Vanessa gives an excuse about a carpool and Rico erupts, "You can't keep me from seeing my kids." She tells him that's not what she's trying to do at all, and then tells him that he should just come to the house the following day. Rico pauses and asks, "At the house?" She rolls her eyes and responds, "Yes, that would be better." Because no one has a job on this show ever anymore, he tells her that he'll come from 2 until 4, but she tells him that he should come from 3 to 5 instead, because there's nothing more fun than a game of "Planner," with the possible exception of watching a wild game of it unfold on your television screen. Do my teeth look like they're getting a little yellow to you guys?
George and Ruth stand in profile, silhouetted against a giant window in one of the Sad Rooms. It's the most unnecessarily faux-artsy shot I've seen on this show in a long time, and when a little research shows that Peter Care, the director of this episode, was also responsible for the cinematic hellscape that was The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys, I say a silent hosanna that this scene features neither a lengthy animated sequence or a Culkin, and I move on. George is still crying, explaining to Ruth, "I was hauling this box of meteorites out to the car, and I thought, 'How many times you gonna keep doing this?'" Ruth, still with a little residual case of the Saucy Bettinas, asks in as even a tone as possible, "We're supposed to stay together because you don't want to move your rocks?" No, he argues, instead saying that they should stay together because of...love. Awwwwww. But she has some conditions. Condition #1: "I don't want to feel bad every time I ask you a question." Well then, maybe she could help him out by not asking SO MANY FUCKING QUESTIONS! He doesn't say that. But it would have been awesome if he'd gone all Barton Fink on her again. Condition #2: "I want a healthy, continuous flow of family around here. Like making a space for Kyle and Becky." George joins us in a chorus of growing discontent by asking, "Becky?" We learn this is the resurrection of a dizzyingly old plot thread in which Ruth wanted to set George's crazy black sheep son up with some weird girl we'd never seen before or since. Not to mention that fact that the last time we saw her, her name was totally "Betsy." At least in the recap. George puts his hand to his brow and seems somewhat challenged by this one, and I jump right back into the "his kids hate him, so leave the kids alone" I feel in regard to all of George's children. Ruth? Mind your umurawi. Ruth continues on: "I set them up." WHEN? From Mexico? That doesn't make any sense. "Not to mention your other children, Brian and Maggie." Anyone else sensing a season-finale dinner party the likes of which we won't soon forget? "And I need to feel like you like me again." George promises, "Ruth, you're my favorite person," which I actually really like as a sentiment. He promises her, "I'll try." Then he breaks down in tears again and Ruth hugs him and whispers, "You poor thing." I guess this wouldn't be the time to tell her he was downstairs trying to download divorce papers from www.youweretheworstmistakeofmylife.com/forms.
Lazy writing dials long-distance. The script quite literally phones itself in, as Nate walks around his living room holding a phone and fields questions of the "what is that you saaaaaaaaaaay?" variety. This might be the worst method of conveying information available on television. Let's quote it verbatim! "Yes. We'll be at the Black Forest Inn. Yeah. 11:10 in the morning. Yeah, Hoyt. No, 1170 is our flight number. How could we land at 11:70?" Who knows what mysteries might await them in Potato Standard Time? ["Sounds like metric time to me." -- Wing Chun] Nate terminates the phone call and announces to Brenda, "That guy is such a knob." Because Brenda is now very, very nice, she volunteers to take them to the airport, but Nate's got another idea: "I've got a better idea. Why don't you come with us?" I've got an even better idea. Why don't we all swallow a small vial filled with cholera? Brenda, too, senses this might not be the smartest move, immediately offering that she doesn't think so. But Nate is on a Brenda bender, and he tells her, "I actually think it would make the whole thing livable for me." And what could be more important than his needs? If you answered "anybody else's needs," you've never seen this show before. She thinks on it for another second, and then tells him, "Byron. I can't. I have an appointment with Byron tomorrow." But Nate has more in the way of needs than a certifiable psych patient with diagnosed everything and an active prescription to everything. Brenda tells him that she would feel bad if she left Byron "all by himself in the middle of reality." And also? It's her job. HER JOB, PEOPLE. Everyone go to work. It's making me insane. Nate counters, "What about my reality?" Well, Nate, it's just that you're usually so self-sufficient we usually completely forget that you're there. But now that you mention it.
Ambrose, for all of her cool girl chic, really does the Benes out on the dance floor. She flails her arms wildly and makes a pinchy white-girl face which she thinks makes her look "come hither" but really makes her look "go thither." She spots Mena Suvari from across the room and goes "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"-ing over, jamming on the one all the way. Mena Suvari looks like an insane person tonight, by the way. He hair is piled on top of her head like she's the subject of another of Peter Care's finer projects, that being a series of Depeche Mode videos in the '80s and '90s. To which I say...go, Peter Care. Mena Suvari, for her part, is not even slightly amused by Claire's dance, and when she gets to the wall against which Mena Suvari is sultrily leaning, Claire starts pulling her arm and yelling, "Dance with me!" Mena Suvari rolls her eyes because she hates Claire and Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez, and mutters, "It should be illegal." Claire asks her what should be illegal, and Mena Suvari shoots back, "People trying to get other people to dance. Doesn't work." Good point. You know what else doesn't work? People trying to get other people to rethink Mena Suvari's hair choices this season on Six Feet Under. A "Hang In There!" poster has lost its kitty, is all I'm saying.
Claire stares at Mena Suvari for a long, long time. Finally, she moves in for a kiss, and Mena Suvari dodges out of the way and is all, "What the fuck, Claire?" Claire tries to be super-cool and groovy about it and just asks, "What?" but Mena Suvari is having none of it, yelling over Now This Is What I Call Product-Placement 11, "What are you doing?" Claire defends her lecherous actions, telling Mena Suvari, "You just look so fucking beautiful tonight," to which Mena Suvari snipes, "High much?" Okay, this behavior in no way reflects at all one's behavior when high. First of all, there are not nearly enough delicious cheddar cheese pretzel Combos in the vicinity for a convincing portrayal. Claire asks why Mena Suvari is being such a bitch, and Mena Suvari reminds her, "The world's not your own private fucking chemistry set, Claire." But if it were, she'd invent your ass a chill pill.
The Black Forest Inn, Idaho. Maya sits on the floor watching television while Nate gets off the phone in disgust and announces, "There's a barbecue at Peg and Ed's in an hour. I should've told them I was coming tomorrow morning." A barbecue does sound somewhat overly festive, I have to admit. The phone rings again, and Brenda starts reaching for it, but Nate practically body checks her onto the floor in attempt to get to it before her. She promises, "I was gonna pass it to you," but he says that he'll just let the caller leave a message. Nate calls the front desk and finds that there is, indeed, a message, but that it's for Brenda. "Byron," she intones all gravely, as if that meant anything before, like, yesterday.
According to TV, gay marriage is exactly like straight marriage, except with scads more pretty Hollywood extras sitting in the adorably rough-hewn, outdoor wicker pews. An omni-raced non-denominational pastor stands in front of a tasteful set of sheer curtains as two impeccable dressers face each other and recite The Vows That Dare Not Speak Their Civil Disobedience. David tears up watching one of the men tear up during his recitation of the vows, as Keith sits to him in the gay Los Angeles sunshine, seemingly sound asleep. Keith sticks it to the man through very peaceful protest.
Claire returns to the coach house looking like last night's bender did her no good at all. She looks like she went crazy Broadway-style and joined the Junior Campers. Claire Fisher: the few, the proud, the apple-cheeky. She carries a large brown bag filled with sadness and artistic compromise, and she dumps it posthaste and immediately picks up some pot-containing drug paraphernalia from the table in front of her. She takes a deep hit off of the Mary Jane, and has barely exhaled when a voice from to her bed bids her a soft "Hey." She gasps in I-See-Russell-People horror as she notes said Russell lying to her bed with his shirt unbuttoned and her blanket halfway over him. Man, and my biggest fear was always finding a roach in my bed. I had no idea how much worse it could get. He explains in a zombie-like, drugged-out, second-act-of-Hair kind of way, "Anita and I crashed here. She left early this morning." Claire seems unimpressed even with Russell's oddly patchy, Rorschach Drawing chest hair (I see a character whose presence has outlasted his relevance. What do YOU guys see?), turning back to her Sad Bag until Russell decides to kick it Lewis Carroll-style and announces, "I fell into a K-hole last night." Of course you did. "And I'm climbing out. Right now." Claire sits down at the table and opens an economy-size tureen of Tropical Blend V-8 Splash. It's 10% fruit juice, 90% product placement! I know a show without commercials has to make its advertising buck from somewhere, but this episode is seriously starting to turn into an episode of Supermarket Sweep. Anyway, Claire knows what Russell is talking about, asking him, "Who had K last night?" He doesn't know. "How was it, fun?" He doesn't know. It looks like a blast. He continues on, "I might have been raped, and I'll only recover the memory under intense hypnosis ten years from now." Claire laughs and mutters, "That's cool." Meanwhile, drugs issue a press release that's all, "Don't blame us. They were never that interesting to begin with."
Michaela The Maybe Ghost, Her Brothers Of The Corn, Non-Adroit Hoyt, Barbed Barb, Lisa's parents, and Nate (with Maya on his lap) sit outside around a picnic table in an ample back yard in what I'll just say is Idaho. Lisa's mom asks Nate asks if it was hard for him to get away to come to Idaho, leading the witness, "You didn't have anything else going on?" His answer seems to be the right one ("The bitch has been throwing onions at me in my sleep" being the wrong one), telling her, "Nothing as important as this." She tells him, "It's been hard lately," adding, "You think you finally get to the bottom of the feelings, and then there are more." For the first time ever, Nate looks sort of "Lisa, eh" about the whole dead wife thing, and he just kind of half-smiles and tells her, "Yeah." Nate doesn't engage because he got to the bottom of his feelings, and the bottom-feeder he found there is only refraining from cheating on him right now because everyone in Idaho besides her is currently at that house.
And speaking of Brenda, we're back at The Black Lodge or whatever it is, Brenda barking into the telephone, "Byron, just tell me what's goin' on." Byron, who has Scrappy-Dooed himself right into the middle of the action after just a week, tells Brenda from the other end of the phone, "I'm on a bridge." She asks him where, and he responds, "In Los Feliz." Los Feliz? What bridges are there in Los Feliz? There's the Shakespeare Bridge at the end of Franklin, but if you jump off that, the only thing you're going to break is your phone. It's quite possibly the least threatening bridge in bridge history. The 1986 Billy Joel album The Bridge is scarier than that bridge. But then again, who wouldn't be at least a little but terrified of "Modern Woman," am I right? And this is why I would make a horrible therapist.
But we're to believe Brenda that is a very, very good therapist, so she shouts over the sound of scurrying traffic, "Byron, you need to get down off that ledge right now." A tight shot of Byron with just the blue sky around him finds him panic-stricken. He tells her, "There are so many cars. And each of them has someone inside, driving." Well, let's hope there are no suspension bridges between Byron and his bungalow on Obvious Street. Wait, wait. I think he's coming to the point. "And all those people, they all feel things." Yeah, well, then you've never met my friends. Dead inside, all of us. Brenda asks Byron to do something for her, but he busts in and yells, "I need you to do something for me, too. I'd like for you to honor your commitments. But obviously that's not something you think you should do." The crazies. They always know the truth after all, don't they? She apologizes that she had a "family matter" come up, an excuse as true and legitimate as if she's cancelled her mental patient so she could stay home and watch a Family Matters marathon on the Superstation. Byron seems to sense this, as he tells her, "Was it something really important or did you just blow me off?" Is there a third choice where...oh, no, sorry. The "blow off" choice was actually the answer. But Brenda is much more considered with his current precarious state, and she begs him, "Byron, please get off the bridge." We cut back now to discover that Byron isn't on a bridge at all, but is sitting on the back of his couch in front of a large window. You want to talk about what's dangerous? Let's discuss Byron's interior decorating scheme. He finally cops to the fact that he's not on a bridge at all, admitting, "I'm in my living room." Brenda tells him she can hear the sound of traffic coming from the other end of the phone, and he tells her it's just his air conditioner, though when I saw a portable tape player on his living-room table (and who doesn't have one of those sitting on his living-room table these days?), I really hoped the traffic was coming from a sound effects tape and that it would end and suddenly sounds of the carnival would be coming from the other end of the phone and Byron would be all, "Can't talk right now. I'm at...the carnival! Doo-doo-doodle-oodle- oo-doo-doo-doo! Bye!" But alas, instead he just turns off the AC, leaving Brenda to tell him, "If you ever do anything like that ever again, I'll have to stop seeing you." She hangs up with the maximum amount of righteous-indignation- even-though- this-is- technically-my-fault allowed by law and, for no apparent reason, thinks about cheating on Nate.
Croquet mallets? Way to convince Idaho you're gay, Hoyt. This is Idaho. If you don't have a brewski in your hand you might as well be wearing a dress. Anyway, the Kimmel family frolics around in the ample back yard while Nate looks on from some furniture bought on the final day of the Idaho summer season (which runs from June to July) with a nod of fatherly approval. Michaela runs over just then, asking, "Uncle Nate, did you ever give DavidStiff?" Nate looks at her like he's seen...A GHOST! But alas, she's no kind of ghost at all, so he collects himself enough to retort, "Uh, what?" The master orator at work! What is wrong with people, that they can't even remember to do simple tasks like that? Selfish, selfish, selfish. He apologizes that he "completely spaced," and she tells him it's all right (because everybody else does), even going so far as to suggest, "You can read it too. It's very informative." I'm trying, Michaela. But unfortunately no one's bought it for me yet. She runs back to the join the rest of the family and Nate immediately forget she exists, but his quiet time is once again compromised by the appearance of Barb, who observes, "You look tired." Now this is a conversation about which Nate can feel on firm footing. One entirely about him. He tells her that he is, and Barb suggests that Nate go back to the inn and they'll bring Maya back later. This is quite a cry from when Barb told Nate that he needed some serious mental help, which I think is the last time they even spoke. But I get that they have to show Nate as being perfectly at peace with his dead wife's family and his lunatic girlfriend before the fates come to smack him down once more. I'm with you, show. Don't worry about us. Barb again insists that he leave and go get some "alone time," and Nate tells her, "Just give me a call when you pull up outside." So he can zip up his fly and end his time alone.
Connect Four? CONNECT FOUR? What's ? A round of Hungry Hungry Hippos and then a fight about Bill Buckner's fielding technique? Writers? It's 2004, not whatever year it was when you were a kid. So put down your game of Simon and your Commodore 64 joystick and talk to some actual children. Until then, Julio whups his father's ass at the game, which I'm betting Rico didn't let happen on purpose. Vanessa walks in the room at this moment, her hair sexily straightened, and lets Rico leeringly admire her for a moment. "Wow, look at you," he tells her, and she might actually be able to accomplish that if she notices she can see her own reflection in her ever-whitening teeth. An awkward moment is broken by the ringing of the Diaz doorbell, and when Rico asks who is coming over, Vanessa replies, "You remember Kenny Sims?" Do I! What a dick that guy was. Rico asks all put out, "From high school?" Vanessa pulls the door open to reveal a tall, strapping gentlemen with facial hair straight out of The Frylock Guide To Grooming. Oh, dude. That guy was Isabel's husband on Roswell! Stop it already just stop it stop it STOP IT. Rico bids him a bemused hello and Vanessa has done this all on purpose.
Outdoor swimming pool. Perfect catering. Sparkling blue sky. Try and tell me that god doesn't love the gays. David bids hello to a woman with a woman with a child who we learn is adopted from Guatemala, and David tells her, "My partner and I have had the most preliminary of adoption conversations." You HAVE? Did I miss a season? David asks the woman what agency she used, and she tells him, "Whole Family Center. They're good people...but they're kind of religious, if you know what I mean." Their offices all face toward the holy city of Mecca? "They don't work with gay couples." Oooooooooooh. "You might want to try Rainbow Kids or someplace like that." Yeah, David. Try Rainbow Kids! That was nice of her to offer, as I'm sure you'll...hey, David, why are you staring at her like she just ate the baby?
Nate walks into his room at The Black Lodge Or Whatever and finds Brenda lying on her bed reading. She's excited to see him and asks where Maya is, and Nate climbs on top of her, explains that she's still with her cousins, and asks, "Miss me?" She tells him no which makes me pretty happy because shut up, Nate, and tells him that she had a "totally surreal phone session" with Byron. He asks her what happened, which is almost like not asking a question at all, because the one time he ostensibly show interest in someone else, it's in regard to a question she's not legally allowed to answer. She cites "the whole client privilege doctor thing," which would be like a medical doctor telling a patient that he's going to help them because he recited "the Hungry Hungry Hippo Oath." You're supposed to know what it's called, Brenda. And sorry for the nineteen consecutive references to H3. Wouldn't it be awesome if people started calling it that?
Nate starts kissing Brenda's neck and asking, "How do I know this client exists, anyway? How do I know this isn't some hot guy you've got on the side?" She winces a little and he tells her, "I was kidding...wouldn't have moved in if I was [sic] worried." Brenda regains her composure and tells him, "This is the first time we've been together." He asks her what she means and she explains, "The other times we never had a relationship. One of us was always escaping or lying." You. And again you. Nate adds: "Or stoned." Again, you. Brenda's happy that "now we're really here." And I'm sure it will last forever. He tells her that he drove back to The Black Lodge to tell her that he loves her, and she asks, "And to make sure I didn't escape?" to which he responds, "Yeah. Oh, yeah." No. Oh, no.
I'm tired of knowing what cool bands these are. Russell and Claire sit on the floor of the coach house, Claire bogarting the final few puffs of a joint. They look at photographs of her because life on Planet Narcissist is sustained by inhabitants breathing the air of self. Russell suggests that he likes one picture, but Claire points out how much she hates her nostrils, so she rips her nose right out of the photo and hands it back to him. Russell all grossly starts making out with the nose, which Claire thinks is gross because it is. They start smacking at each other like seven-year-olds, and so help me god if this ends in sex or tickle-fighting, I'm taking week off. But instead it ends with Claire falling back onto the floor and announcing, "I'm so much happier when I'm high." Meh. I'm taking week off anyway. Claire lies in a coma as Russell further defaces her photography, ripping out her eyes and her mouth and placing them over her actual eyes. He becomes captivated by it because HE'S HIGH, telling her, "I wish you could see this." She tells him to grab the camera, and he goes to town photographing her because drugs.
Now, let's just say you had a son. And let's just say you had a son who sent you poo in the mail. Now let's say you had a wife who invited over the poo-sending son TO YOUR HOUSE and arranged for him to go on a date at said house with a woman you've never met before and whom your wife barely knows. With you in attendance. And your wife. On a double date. At your house. Do y'all see why I can't totally tie the hate on for George? Anyone? Help me out, here. "The problem is not nucular war," George instructs the group. Hey, George? If you hate the President, don't go pronouncing "nucular" like the President. It sounds ignorant and low-class, and you can argue with me from here to the usage note, but it's incorrect. It is. IT IS. Anyway, George, if the problem isn't nucular war, what is it? "The problem is what's gonna cause nucular war." Will it be me getting my hands on a dirty bomb and promising to unleash it on the first person who fails to pronounce it "NOO-CLEE-ER"? No, no, it won't be me. I was just kidding. Take me off your watch list. Prank call. Prank call!
Ruth rebuts that she doesn't see them living through a nuclear war, and not only does she go with the obvious observation, she also goes with the obvious pronunciation. That being, "the correct one." She goes on to say she doesn't see nuclear war happening in their lifetime, and Kyle (who I'm sure has requested the poo poo platter har har har wakka wakka) scoffs unsocially and leaves George to observe, "I married The Glass Is Half-Full Girl," to which Kyle snarks loudly, "Which time? Oh, this time. Of course. Yes, what was I thinking?" Jeez. You nailed the joke for sentences ago. From to Ruth, Becky makes like the girl who works at the fabric store, noting, "This decaf is so cinnamon-y!" But Kyle's not having any of it, because the human body craves some sort of winter, so depressive types in L.A. have to create a nuclear one: "I think when the A-bomb is launched, it's going to be over god." I think it's going to be over Manhattan. Kyle continues that all of the religion will get together and conspire to end the world just like their big, fancy books in the hotel bureaus say they will. George argues that all religions also have an underlying message of hope that will stop people from blowing themselves up, "whereas corporatism..." Kyle laughs that his father thinks nuclear war will occur as a result of oil, but George holds up his glass and correct his son, who is the only one still listening, including us: "Water. The apocalypse will be over water." Ruth tries, god bless her, because she saw a preview for that Day After Tomorrow movie but it just seemed too scary for her, and she hops in all unprepared, "Global warming. I thought that was supposed to melt the glaciers or something." George tells her that's only good news for people who like their water salty, and Kyle then busts in and asks his suddenly best friend of a dad, "Have you checked out the Pentagon Report on the Guardian website?" I have. It's here and here, and it's worth canceling dinner over. George asks Ruth if they're done, and the boys leave the women at the table sipping cinnamon-y decaf while the men retire to the basement to watch the online trailer for the upcoming apocalyptic nature film, The Glass Is Half Dead!
Back from the wedding, David and Keith walk into the kitchen of their apartment, David ranting about the absurdity that there are children waiting for homes and that those people in power still make judgments based on sexuality. I can understand this sudden indignation, seeing as he just discovered this today. "People are stupid," Keith observes with a shrug. Sure are. Did you see that one guy pronounce the word "nucular" back there in the last scene? Geesh. Keith throws open the fridge and observes, "There's nothing to eat here except fuckin' eggs," and David apologizes for going shopping for eggs twice. David retreats to the pantry to see if there's anything in there, and he opens the door with a gasped "Oh, my god." Keith asks what's what, and David picks up an infant from inside the cabinet and tells Keith, "It's a Chinese baby." Keith asks who could have left it there, and David smiles big and offers, "Someone Chinese!" But it's a dream sequence, you see, and all they have is couscous and a side of umurawi.
George sits downstairs at the computer sometime later, and Ruth comes down in a bathrobe and tells him it's midnight. But he's hungry for facts and thirty for Naya, telling Ruth, "Take a look at this site." On the screen is white lettering on a blue screen trumpeting, "World Potable Water Supply," and below it is an hourglass dripping water from the top to the bottom rather than crystals of sand telling me I'm almost out of time in the latest round of "Facts In Five." Ruth tries to tell George that this is just someone's opinion, but he counters, "It's not an opinion. It's a scientific hypothesis." Ruth tells him how pessimistic she finds the whole thing, being all up with people as she tells him, "If it happens, we'll die. But in the meantime, can't we be happy?" George thinks that such simple emotions are for the layperson only, asking, "Happy? Ruth, I'm crawling my way to comfortable. I can't even think about being happy unless I'm doing something to help save this planet." Like marrying everyone on it, populating it with sociopaths, and chopping down other people's trees? She tells him he's obsessing and that he she come to bed, and he sighs deeply because he also thought "potable" was a word that had been invented entirely for Jeopardy! also.
"Lisa is here with us right now," a woman standing over an urn promises a small congregation. Oh, I beg to differ. "Not in this urn." You can say that again. "But in all of us." Maya is sleeping. If Mommy's ashes could dance around like a purple dinosaur, you'd have her back in no time.
Aaaaaaand, speaking of funerals, we're back at Robert Duane Wething's final rest, and in The Room Where People Are Sad, the Bride Of FrankenDeadGuy tells a blonde crying girl, "I want the crying to stop. Now...We're not leaving here until this stops." She leans in really close to the girl now and tries the hard sell: "Halley? Do you want to go to the Cheesecake Factory or not, because we are not leaving here until this stops." Dammit! I haven't been to the Cheesecake Factory in, like, forEVER. David makes an appearance just then, trying as much diplomacy as possible, asking, "Excuse me?" Bride Of FrankenDeadGuy bites his head off asking him what he wants, and David reminds her, "She's lost her father." Bride Of FrankenDeadGuy stands and tells him to "shut up," adding, "This is none of your business." And just like that, Halley stops crying. Straight parents are terrible!
Barb practically chases Nate as he runs with Maya out of the mausoleum's nearest exit, asking if he wants to get coffee. He apologizes that they have to pack and catch their flight, and goodbyes are exchanged through kisses for Maya and manly handshakes for Nate. Barb tells him to "keep in touch," and everyone leaves the frame except for a suited man who it seems works for the dead urn place. What does he want? How shall we ever find out?
Vanessa pads prettily around her house in broad daylight because she doesn't work either, I guess, and Rico strolls in the front door. Vanessa icily tells him, "You should ring the bell." I think Rico has something to say, y'all. "Okay," he starts off. "I have a problem with you bringing Kenny Sims over here and parading him in front of my boys." Vanessa responds with a wholly nonplussed "Oh, really." Rico says that it will "confuse them," and Vanessa says that Kenny's just a visiting friend. But Rico is having none of it, starting in: "Bullshit. You're looking, Vanessa." She's basically laughing at him, and when he adds, "Look at you!" she turns to face him and asks, "Look at me, what?" He chides her for getting her hair straightened, and she tells him, "I am a grown woman, separated from my husband." Rico asks when they got separated, and she's yelling now as she tells him, "The day you left, Rico. You don't live here anymore." She tells him to give her his house key or she'll have to go through the expense of getting the locks changed, with which he grandly hurls his key at the floor. She chases him toward the front door and this episode will never be over.
Nate, Brenda, and Maya sit at The Idaho Café getting ready to take off from the godforsaken land of potato-y horrors. Or, y'know, maybe it's really, really nice. Brenda takes off to grab a straw so that Maya can take her drink with her because Brenda is now Maya's new mommy, and as soon as she departs, Barb walks through the front door with an excited "Hey, you guys!" So happy, all of a sudden. But as they chat of all things chocolate muffin, Brenda skulks back over and Nate introduces them. "Brenda Chenowith?" Barb asks. Uh-oh. "I know your name. Lisa mentioned it to me." Surrounded by other words including "whore," "wife-stealer," "emotionally manipulative competition for my own husband's affection," and "broom closet." Other than that, I'm sure it was all very kind and measured. They all stare awkwardly for a moment, until Barb asks, "So you two are...?" Nate cuts her off and clarifies: "We were." People? Just admit when you're in a relationship with another person. If you can't, you're doing something wrong. "I didn't know that you were here!" chirps Barb, in what I would think was passive-aggressiveness if I thought Barb had a proclivity for passivity. She doesn't. If she didn't like this, she'd just be a bitch. She's fine with it because Nate's about to be in a lot of trouble and we sort of have to clear the decks for that, I guess. "How nice that you have someone to join you." Awkward awkwardness abounds, until Brenda turns the attention back to the child, and Barb takes her leave with a pinched "travel safely." She takes her leave and Nate sits down, Brenda observing, "Small town." Life can be pretty insular in Umurawi, Idaho. Sorry, Ruth. No proper nouns.
Claire develops her photos in the darkroom as Billy stands too close to her. Strong words in the staff room! The accusations fly! It's no use, though, as Billy uses his age as a positive (I ought to start trying that!), artfully reminiscing, "When I went to school here, there were lines up and down the hallway of people waiting to develop their shit." And then as now, that's exactly what it was. Claire agrees that a miscarriage of Art-with-a-capital-A is afoot, agreeing, "Fucking digital." Yeah. Fight the real enemy. Claire turns the topic to Claire (surprise!), asking if it's weird for Billy to have her in his class. He asks the same question of her, and she tells him that it's "weird in a good way." She tells him that sometimes she doesn't listen to him at all, and that sometimes she'll just "stare at [his] legs. 'Cause they're really long." A+ for you! I'm going to start saying that to people in positions of authority. She asks him out to dinner and he accepts, and he looks at her wonked out photos that she didn't even take and tells her, "That's interesting." Meh. It's a 4.5.
"Just the name 'Rainbow Kids,' it's so fucking condescending." I thought you were the one who was against discrimination, David. David and Keith celebrate their terrible lives with a dinner of sushi and sake, Keith advising, "Let it go." A gentleman to them calls out for "another spicy tuna hand roll, and put jalapeno in this time." Really? David rolls his eyes at the man's insolence, and Keith excuses himself so David can regain his lost power by kicking this small man's ass. The gentleman calls out, "And more ginger, too!" and David quietly adds, "Please." The guy looks at him and asks, "What did you say?" Words are exchanged and the guy asks, "Who the fuck do you think you are?" David, because he'd be a great gay dad, replies that he's a member of the human race. Keith returns to find that David has bitten the man's earring out. Because I'll bet it was pretty faggy, and they don't want him getting to "Rainbow Kids" first.
The grey-suited man alone in the frame at the mausoleum is named "Stan." We know this because the Stan from the first act has gone off in the third, and he has come calling at Lisa's parents' house, where he apologizes for disturbing them and gets right down to business: "When I was transferring the ashes into the urn, I couldn't help but [sic] notice there were a lot of bone fragments. It's the kind of thing you see in much, much older cremains. You hardly ever see that now, technology's improved so much." Mrs. Dead Mom tells him to "just say it," and so he does: "I don't think they're Lisa's."
Meanwhile, on an airplane above Los Angeles metro, Nate and Brenda hold Maya's hands as the plane begins its descent into Los Angeles. Nate's in the umurawi now.
There will be a sub week. Please behave.