Props to M. Giant for a sick job last week. My own work on this show during my week-long vacation included Stee hitting pause on the TiVo when we were watching the opening scene and asking, "Okay, Mr. Recapper. Let's see how well you know this show. Who bites it?" I looked at the busy carful of angry yuppies and their spoiled children and announced without hesitation, "All of them." It was a triumphant moment, but was quickly overshadowed by Stee asking my brother, "Okay Mr. Musician. What instruments are used in the first chord in this show's theme song?" With zero hesitation, the answer came forth, "I think it's possible that's a zither." Blau: 1. Blau: 0.
"Hello?" So asks the slightly panic-tinged voice of a man who, upon fade-from-white, reveals himself to be a balding, tie-clad, middle-era Brando type. Like, post-Last Tango but probably pre-Superman, but the former without the nudity (thank god) and the latter without the songs of Margot Kidder (thank god). Anyway, this gentleman -- oh, what the hell, let's just throw caution to the wind on this week of all weeks and call the man "Brandon't" -- holds a black phone receiver in his hands, at the end of which is what your grandparents will explain to you later is a "cord." Said "cord" runs into the wall of an elevator, in which this Brandon't seems to be stuck. But no matter how many times Brandon't hits the receiver button or barks increasingly vehement hellos, his calls to 867-530-nein go unanswered.
"Dammit!" he exclaims, because the script told him do, and he hangs up the broken phone for similar reasons. An aerial shot of the elevator reveals that there are three other people in there as well: a young blonde woman in a pink skirt whose Vapors Of Vulnerable Femininity have induced her to sit slumped in a corner; a younger African-American gentleman who is wearing almost the exact same hoodie Wing Chun made me buy (a fashion item which recently inspired a married female friend of mine to tell me she thought I looked "hot," thank you very much ["but for the record, I didn't want you to get it in order to attract married women, since...you know" -- Wing Chun]); and a business-clad woman who very well may not be Tina Fey. Brandon't stabs awkwardly and repeatedly at the alarm button, causing Hoodie Guy Who Isn't As Hot As I Am to observe, "If it hasn't worked for the last forty-five minutes, it's not gonna work now." Tell that to the last fifteen minutes of every Six Feet Under episode this season, Hoodster. Not Tina Fey blames the nighttime security guard in their building, positing, "He must be drunk and deaf." Or, blue-collar day laborer that he is, maybe he's just unable to hear their cries for help, drowned out as they are by the sound of him whistling into a large jug with three X's emblazoned across the side. The poors. Such adorable, dirty, heathen darlings. Pink Lady sits up and tries her cell phone, but Hoodster pulls some backstory from those big, comfy pockets and reminds her, "We don't get reception up here, all right? Just wait for the rescue teams." Apparently the cause of so much hope lo these last unfilmed forty-five minutes, those so-called "rescue teams" must be out looking for an ATM in Echo Park, because sister...they ain't coming.
Just at that moment, a loud creaking sound forces their eyes melodramatically skyward (well, elevator-roof-ward) as if they're shooting scared pickup shots from Anacondas: The Hunt For Bloody Torso and the snake is getting its taxes done on the fifteenth floor but is almost done. Realizing that the elevator seems to be moving in some other direction than "good," Hoodster heads over to the buttons and starts pressing all of them at once, which inspires Pink Lady to insist, "Don't do that! You'll make it worse!" But Tina-Fey-Lesley-Ann-Warren chimes in, noting, "We have to do something!" Maybe they should try talking about a zither. It impressed everyone at Stee's house.
But Brandon't has got other ideas: "Let's all try to pry this door open one more time." Brandon't, Pink Lady, and Tin-not Fey line up at the elevator door and put themselves in prying position, as Hooster retreats to the back of the elevator and frets, "We're gonna drop ten floors and we're all gonna die." Tin-Not Fey tells him he could use "a little more Bruce Willis attitude," at which point Hoodster storms off again, stars in Bonfire of the Vanities and Hudson Hawk, has his career briefly resuscitated by a groovy role in a Tarantino movie, proclaims this entire situation "wet and it's dry, my my my my," and then has his age called into question again when his wife leaves him for a boy even I'm too old to date. Wow, dude. Killer Bruce Willis. The remaining three, meanwhile, pry the doors open with all of their well-timed might, and Brandon't climbs up to the nearest floor, which the elevator is about halfway up to. Once Brandon't makes it out and stands on firm ground, he tells the others, "I'll take the stairs and get some help." But just then, The Thrill-o-vator Of Death screeches down another few inches, and the other three look up in horror. Can elevators really just go into free fall? There's a sign in the elevator in an office building I spent a lot of time in that specifically reads, "If stopped, there is little chance the elevator will drop," which I've also regarded with the only possible response: "Well, thanks. I wasn't worried about it...until now." But the three remaining inhabitants of the elevator seem very concerned, and so Brandon't lies down half inside the elevator, perched to pull the other three out. Hoodster runs to the front, in front of Pink Lady, who we learn from the shot is actually quite pregnant. Bad Hoodster! The views expressed by Hoodster do not necessarily reflect the views of those who wear his wardrobe, those who picked it out for him, or American Eagle LLC. Tin-not Fey pulls Hoodster back and Pink Lady marches up to the front. But just as she takes his hands, the elevator door begins closing and the inner mechanisms of the thing register that to mean, "Going down." So the doors pin poor Brandon't in, and a plate comes down from inside the elevator door, pinning him down from all four sides. As the three others pin themselves across the back wall, they watch in horror as Brandon't gets clipped in half before their eyes, splattering blood everywhere. His legs, still on the floor outside the elevator, twitch meaninglessly as if doing the I'm Half The Man I Used To Be Waltz as we learn that Kenneth MacDonald Henderson made it from 1954-2004 thinking he wouldn't be a cartoon flipbook or a character found in the bioexorcist's waiting room in Beetlejuice.
Ruth "So I Married An Axe Murderer" Sibley and her husband George "Gimme Bomb Shelter" Sibley sleep soundly inside a dream sequence so big it could have a malfunctioning elevator installed inside. Dawn...well, dawns outside the window, and a shot of the window is soon to give way to a blinding flash of light followed by a cataclysmic explosion. George and Ruth sit up in bed with a start, Ruth's hair billowing down around her Dream Sequentially, as she screams, "We have to find out what happened!" George climbs out of bed and Ruth immediately tells him to put on his slippers and mind the glass, because even in George's paranoid fever dreams she's the queen of the harpies. He stands up and navigates his way around the dream sequence room, taking care to note that houses don't have to maintain any architectural integrity during a dream, which bolsters a commonly held theory that The Brady Bunch took place entirely in a dream sequence. While an air raid siren blares, George ventures outside into a post-Holocaustal hellscape. He takes off his glasses, because when earth is a smoldering pile of cinders, best to blur the edges of reality and not be able to tell your optometrist "E-F-P-T-O-Z" on command. From behind him, he hears a female voice ask, "George?" He turns around to see, through clouds of scorch and asbestos, a woman in a blue dress, and asks her, "What did you do?" Avoiding the obvious answer -- "What someone should have done to Los Angeles a long time ago" -- for fear of lapsing into a George Carlin routine from 1979 (and nobody reads and everything is made with cilantro!), the woman in blue responds only by saying his name again: "George." Say it loud and there's music playing. Say it soft and the George in question will be all, "What? Can you say that again? WHA?" because no one has been named George since the Hoover Administration and...well, they're all losing their hearing because they're old, is what I'm trying to say. Just as she begins walking out of the shadows, Ruth's voice replaces the woman in blue's, because that was a dream sequence and now she's waking him up. "George?" she asked, her hair tied back in The Sane Bun Of Earth's Mundane Continuance. He wakes up with a non-start, informing her, "I'm awake." She informs him, "You were whimpering and paddling with your feet." He was whatting with his feet? "What were you dreaming about?" The swimming section of the Presidential Fitness Test. "I don't remember." Old Georges also forget things a lot. Like telling the truth, for example.
Speaking of a predilection that sways away from the truth and also speaking of a penchant for spending one's best time horizontally, Rico "The Short And Short Of It" Diaz lies in bed staring at the ceiling, his finely cultivated nine-day accumulation of stubble almost visible just below the skin. He lies motionless for a moment, and is soon utterly unmoved by a screeching alarm set on the most annoying sound possible (that isn't "accidentally setting it on a radio station that wakes you up playing Hoobastank"). He reaches over and turns the alarm off, and we see him in Claire's old bedroom, where he lives now. If it's supposed to be empty and desolate in order to underscore his life without his wife and children, I say wah wah, because the décor is still kind of nice, and it's easier to watch TV in bed when you're alone anyway.
Claire "Less Artsy, More Fartsy" Fisher sits in her WB Product Placement Corner (a funky desk with stickers, a steel desk lamp, and an iMac that looks like it was used for researching the Interweb during the third season of Buffy, making calls about her upcoming art show. "Call me if you do need directions." "Bring cool people." "[Stage direction: While taking a sharp hit off a conveniently placed bowl, for an effing change."] All in quick-cut, jolt-y, she's-not- the-only-one- desperate-to-prove- how-artsy-she-is camera jumps. She even leaves Edie a message in an attempt to prove the smoke-and-mirrors contention that they didn't totally boot Mena Suvari from this show the second the forums told her they had to.
Amidst the subtle serenade of Alan Ball's favorite song -- "Please Recognize My Insanely Cool Indie Cred Vis-À-Vis The Song Playing Right Now," by, like, Death Cab For Average Face But Great Personality -- Anita rematerializes, carrying a garbage bag that I'm surprised she hasn't just labeled "emotional baggage" with masking tape and used as the centerpiece in some ambiguous new "show." Anita throws the bag down, reminding Claire that she is not the only person who exists in the history of humanity, and informs her, "I broke up with Russell." Claire grapples for something resembling interest in another person, asking, "Why?" Are you kidding? Because it's Russell. And also because, after futilely trying to develop Anita's character all season (peppy new friend, potential art threat, dilettante third wheel, etc.), it was important for her to do something with some actual agency to remind us that she is an actual character on this show. Her other options were "eat a plate of worms," "blow up an amusement park," or "stage a hostile coup at the end of which she declares herself the Mayor of Jakarta," I think she's made a pretty sound decision. Anita responds that it's because Russell's "such a fucking victim." If that's really the single criterion for ending a relationship with another character on this show...well, let's just say I hope Rico's Bachelor Pad has about a thousand million billion extra rooms for the singles who are about to descend.
Anita changes the subject, noting that Russell "got in [her] face about [Claire's] show." Claire is secretly glad that people are talking about her when she's not around, because the classic narcissist suspects that everyone is anyway, but she has to pretend she's incredulous because...well, she's such a fucking victim. Anita tries to cast herself in the role of good guy in describing her fight, as she explains to Claire, "I was like, 'Whosever idea it was, and I don't fucking care, Claire ran with it.'" Anita? No, you didn't. In fact, here was the real conversation.
Anita: We're breaking up.
Russell: Claire stole my idea!
Anita: Shut up, fag.
Russell: Wanna do some blow and have sex?
Anita: Whatever. You have a small penis.
Russell: So, about the sex?
Anita: Sure.
[Stage direction: And, really unsatisfying sex for all parties]
Even though they're fictional characters who don't actually exist off-camera, that was their conversation. Somehow I totally just know it.
Anita changes the subject again and tells Claire that she brought her a present. She takes out what looks like a small vial and wishes Claire "Happy fame!," which I had for dinner in Chinatown last night and which, yes, was delicious. For some instinctual reason, Claire knows it's cocaine, which proves my theory that the only thing that differs among kids who grow up in the suburbs is the amount of drugs they do. Claire walks over, following her nose because it always knows, and calling the coke "disco" because, suddenly, the dialogue is entirely out of Things to Do in Denver when You're Dead, for some reason. Anita asks Claire is she wants to do some before they take off, but Claire bemoans the fact that she has to go to the Mallory Gallery "and meet some huge, like, movie star...some celebrity woman wants to buy my stuff." Anita proclaims Claire "too cool for [her]," and Claire doesn't disagree at all. Friends don't like friends who like themselves.
It's Maya! And she's...talking! I think. It could be feedback. My TV's kind of old. Or it could be someone playing a Beatles album backwards. Sometimes I let some of the Manson kids crash here. Anyway, Maya is sitting across the table from Brenda "Such A Fucking Victim" Chenowith, who responds to whatever it is Maya says with "It's a fishtail!" Hey, whatever happened to that completely random patient of Brenda's who threatened to jump off a bridge? This show has really displayed such an economy of scale this season. Anyway, Nate "Such A Fucking Victim" enters in a tizzy, the weight of the world and all future plot development teetering on his shoulders, and barks, "I'm calling the lawyer again. Where's the phone?" If it's anywhere near your kind treatment of your partner, you've got quite a scavenger hunt ahead of you. Brenda thinks about doing that thing where one person talks and then another person talks and then you have a conversation, kicking off the sentiment, "He already told you...." But Nate remembers talking also, and he's going to do a whole lot of it starting right now: "He already said that Barb has no right to custody. But I just saw this article on the internet." He saw it "on the internet"? Seriously, no one talks like that unless they're using Claire's computer. Brenda reminds Nate that he's the father and Barb's the aunt, a genealogical fact (or...IS IT?) that nevertheless inspires Nate to snipe back, "You're not taking this seriously." Yeah, Brenda. Take off the hilarious clown mullet, because we're starting to believe that...oh, I see that is your real hair. As Nate dials one of those fake TV numbers, Brenda again warns him against living in a "constant state of panic," a sound piece of advice which inspires Nate to offer the rejoinder, "Well, that's easy for you to say. Maya's not yours." Zee-ouch. But Nate has to put on his fake phone voice just then, and upon acting as if he hears someone on the other end of the line, he continues, "Can you reach Mr. Sutcliffe for me, please?" If "Mr. Sutcliffe" is the name of Brenda's Psych 101 textbook, they patched him through and he's speaking through her: "This isn't about Maya. It's about your emotions and how you deal with them." Nate suggests that she stop using her "therapy voice" on him, and she stands up because the stage directions tell her to and shoots back, "How would you know. You've never tried therapy." He responds with the line that means you probably (a) are a man and (b) are a dick and (c) need therapy more than anyone else in the world when he lets her know, "I don't need therapy. It's not my fault there's a disaster every time I blink." Maybe it's not. Or maybe your chest hair works surreptitiously after you've gone to sleep. Sorry. I know that didn't make that much sense, but we're running out of season here and I wanted to make sure I got in one more dig about the chest hair. Carry on.
"What's with this book?" Brenda rants on, standing and picking up the copy of Stiff. "It's macabre!" Ooooh. That word practically undoes years of her diction coach's hard work, right there. Nate waves her off and explains that it's from Michaela for David -- GIVE HIM THE BOOK ALREADY, YOU GODDAMN INSENSITIVE NARCISSIST -- and that he just hasn't gotten around to giving it to him yet. Remember the book. Watch the book. Touch the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Lick the book. Book. Book. Book. Book. Book. Book. Book. Book. Book. Book. Yeah, I haven't read it either. People with ADD, they aren't good readers.
David "Such A Fucking Victim" Fisher sits in a dark room, staring ahead of him at a police lineup featuring five Hollywood waiters and Jimmy Felon. Strangely enough, I have flown across the country, like, fourteen time since the abduction episode aired, and on two of those trips, I saw the same episode of Frasier (you got a better suggestion?) featuring that guy as "Man Who Delivers Ice Sculpture To Niles And Daphne's Party." And he was great. But then you wouldn't believe what happened at the party, what with Frasier's wine selection and Martin's crusty insolence and the whole misunderstanding about the recipe for the foie gras! Priceless!
Seriously, I have got to stop flying Continental.
David proclaims #3 on the lineup the winner, and when he says it, Jimmy Felon looks up through the glass and gives David a foreboding glare and a small, everything-all-right- with-your-ice- sculpture-sir kind of smile. A quick cut later and he's roused by the sound of Keith "Such A Fucking Victim" Charles repeating David's name over and over. David is lying in bed, the chest hair gene clearly running recessive within him, as Keith asks David if he has any plans to get up today. David utters an exhausted "Yeah," which causes Keith to here-we-go-again himself over to the bed and ask David what's wrong. "I'm still replaying that fucking look he gave me," David says, because one-way mirrors have clearly not been invented in Los Angeles yet and the guy knew exactly where to stare. Keith asks if he wants to talk about it, and David bemoans that he's told Keith about it "nine hundred times," which makes it sound vaguely like Keith's fault. He adds that he wants to "move on and leave it behind" him, and Keith helpfully suggests, "So do it." Ah, yes. The Nike commercial cure to post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, close enough. But David proclaims himself "fucking stuck," wishing that he could tell his captor "what I think of him and what he did to me." Keith reminds him that he can do that, and David counters, "I know. I said it all to the therapy pillow." Heh. I know teenagers have lots of confusing feelings, but today it is unlawful to bottle 'em up...you gotta LET 'EM OUT... like I do, every night between 10 and 10:15, on a pillow shaped like my father. "No," Keith speeches. "You can visit him in jail." David freezes and then shoots back a comical "Are you serious?" Keith is, and David's mad, spitting back that he thinks that would be an "extremely self-destructive" thing for him to do and he can't believe Keith would even suggest it. With which Keith stands up and exits the room with great purpose, which is going to look pretty silly when he gets to the front door, looks around confusedly, and quietly mutters under his breath, "Y'know, I'd go outside, but I'm not entirely sure if I have a job right now or not."
George sits at the kitchen table chatting merrily while an apron-clad Ruth stands at the stove and looks angry at everything that moves, everything that contains a vowel, and everything in her grandmother's attic. People? At everything. "Two hours? Great!" George chirps. "Let me know when you're on the ground and I'll come meet you." George ends the call and informs Ruth, "My daughter is on her way to Hawaii ,and she has a layover this afternoon. Would you like to meet her for lunch?" She'll only be in for a few hours before she's off to her pharmaceutical conference, but wouldn't it be a time! Ruth lightens when she discovers that George wasn't on the phone with an ex-wife, a bunker specialist, or a figment of his imagination.
"I'm not the person who's supposed to be here," a frazzled-looking blonde tells Nate and Rico in The Room Where People Are Sad. "We've been divorced for ages. He must have a new wife or a girlfriend." They assure her that she was the only person listed as Bradon't's emergency contact, and she frets, "He worked at the same place for twenty-five years. I'm sure he just forgot to change the form." But why go for a perfectly logical, tactically-based solution when there are allegories afoot. "Maybe he still loved you," Rico suggests, thinking entirely about himself. Mrs. Brandon't pauses for a moment and then proclaims that she's "moved on." Rico's upset because it's about him and Nate's upset because it's about him and Mrs. Brandon't's upset because she's under the misbegotten notion that it's about her, and Nate forcefully asserts the fact that "there are decisions about the funeral that have to be made." She loses her temper a bit now, shooting back, "Well, I don't want to make them! Now, there must be someone else who can deal with this, 'cause I can't believe it. How can you get killed by an elevator?" Nate obliges: "Well, there were three other people trapped inside and he tried to get them out, and the elevator tore him in half." At which the woman begins spontaneously puking, and we get to see a fair bit of it. Man. Nate's deadside manner just keeps getting better and better with each passing season, doesn't it?
You know that trick with the magician and the box and the cutting? Here's where it stops being funny. Downstairs, David tends to two separate tables, each featuring one half of the former Mr. Kenneth MacDonald Henderson. Nate marches in and announces, "I hit a new low!" What'd you do, Nate, cheat on Brenda with your Lisa pillow? No, no. He just "made the bereaved vomit." David turns off a loud whirring machine and props up his safety goggles, telling Nate the guy is embalmed and that he doesn't want to send the guy somewhere else. Nate tells him that they worked it out, and the turns the topic to the fact that he feels it's "weird" that they don't "sew him together." David reminds Nate that once Brandon't is dressed and in the casket, "You can't even tell the difference." And if you don't like the funeral director's handiwork, maybe you'd better become a funeral director yourself and...oh, wait a sec!
And, finally, the book from the first act goes off in the third. "Here," Nate says, handing David Stiff. "It's a present from Michaela." David proclaims her "a sweet kid," and then, taking in the book's title, amends that, "a little morbid." Well, check out the mise en scene of that room you're in right now and tell me that she didn't nail it, Captain Death of the Death Star. David flips through it as Nate pronounces Michaela "so unlike her mother, that crazy bitch from hell." But lo! For just as Nate says, this, David finds something slipped between two pages of the book. What is it? It's a clue! In fact, it's a photograph of Lisa. Wearing a brown corduroy jacket and a maroon shirt because she's modeling the fall fashions in the L.L. Bean catalogue...OF DEATH!
Oh, no one cares no one cares no one cares la la la lee la la looooooo. Keith walks around his apartment in a suit watering plants because...well, why not. That guy whose ear David bit off is on the other line, informing him, "I'm taking a break from angry, ugly white men." Well, then, here's the remote. Happy hunting. We cut over to him -- Roger, I think? -- wearing a white bathrobe, a blue Speedo, and several rolls of fat cascading down off of what I can only call his "belly." This might be the wrong outfit for a booty call, Roger. Keith expresses no interest in talking to him, but Roger keeps him interested with a suggestion: "I have a business proposition for you. And I'd like for us to meet." He invites Keith to his house to talk -- man, that house has a lot of plants in it -- but Keith offers that his response is a firm "probably not." So Roger plays hardball, because from the tone this phone call has taken thus far, can you really imagine any other game he'd be more interested in playing than that? He informs Keith that "certain papers have yet to be signed. Our lawsuit might rear its ugly head again." Keith reminds him that they had "an agreement," a sentiment which causes Roger to observe, "I don't think a blowjob is legally binding." He asks Keith one more time, and Keith tells him, "I'll think about it." With which Keith meanders off to water a big plant shaped like his brain.
"Well, you see, Nicole," the white-bearded docent of The Contrivance Museum of Art has to loudly say in order to indicate to people that, yes, that is Nicole Richie in a cameo as herself I can't help wondering whether she knows is ironic. I'd make fun of her outfit or something, but...well, Nicole Richie doesn't need any more press. "Claire has a plurality of influences at work here," says Mallory. He goes on to explain further: "Bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit with the fringe on top, and a delicious bullshit-y cherry on top." Docent Bullshit asks Claire if she'd like to add anything to what was basically tantamount to a poo-smeared white card affixed below the typical art show photo, and she steps forward to vamp, "Of course, it's more involved than that." But Nicole Richie -- not a movie star; star of as many movies as I am the star of -- cuts her off, noting, "I totally get it. It reminds me of paper dolls and bad relationships and lies people tell about stupid things." With which her father comes swooping into the room with a pen and paper and exclaims, "That's a perfect lyric. Now what rhymes with 'people tell about stupid things'? I know! 'Something something, everybody sings!'" Yeah, jambo jambo!
A giant Italian restaurant somewhere near the airport. Or at least I hope it is, because if this girl has a two-hour layover and she left LAX, she's already missed her connecting flight. George and Ruth discuss the eatery, which Ruth used to go to when she was a girl. "Sarah and I would eat thousand island dressing all by itself." And the status of the inhabitants of those thousand islands? Well, Ruth just laughs and laughs. MANIAC! George agrees in his own increasingly psychotic way, noting, "And this building has stood through all the mudslides, fires, earthquakes." And all the tectonic shifts in George's character. What an amazing structure.
George's daughter Maggie makes an appearance from the back of the room. George gives her a big hug that suggests that a piece of Big Red told him to "hug a little longer," and Maggie finally breaks it up.
A cleaved edit later, they're mid-dinner, Maggie announcing, "With managed care the way that it is, most of these samples that I haul around end up going to patients who can't pay for prescriptions." Yes, yes. I'm not bored at all. George asks what's new in antibiotics, somehow managing to pronounce the "i" the same every time he hits one without ever landing on the actual "long i" sound itself. She pulls out a sample box and hands it over, telling him that it will "knock out just about anything." Ruth asks if he's sick (well, yeeeeeeeeees), but George tells her, "I just want to be prepared." He continues his long, slippery slide into the pool marked "wonky survivalist pool, no breathing," rhetorically asking his daughter, "Did you know you that you can order potassium iodide off the internet now?" Ruth asks what that is, which...well, bad idea, I think, and George explains that that it blocks the body's intake of radioactive material from a nuclear accident. But his pronunciation of "nuclear" shares in common quite a bit with the President's.
Nate lies on the couch blinking and breaking stuff, blinking and breaking stuff. From the table in the room, Brenda volunteers, "I'd like to talk about this morning." Nate, lying with what looks like a photograph facedown on his chest, asks, "What about it?" Brenda stands now, and explains that Nate's "big emotions" are "not that easy to live with." Translation: you're an asshole. She legitimately complains that he dumps on her a lot, but he counters non-legitimately that if he got some support from her, "that's not how it would feel to" her. She's basically all, "Girl, please" about that rationale, telling him, "All I do is support you. It's like a full-time job." But he can't hear her, because he's too busy ignoring his girlfriend's emotional needs because he's looking at a photograph of his dead wife. She takes the picture out of his hand and announces, "I can't compete with a dead woman." Nate shrugs. Brenda shrugs. And Fat Joe is all, "'He Shrugs, She Shrugs' is totally the name of my song, y'all."
George and Maggie, Maggie and George. Back at the LAXeria, Maggie regales Ruth with stories about her father back before he was a great old coot sitting on the porch with a shotgun, reminding them of the time when he took the kids "hiking, camping." Ruth beams like a schoolgirl, clutching her pearls and exclaiming, "Camping! I love camping!" Remember when he took you hiking and you bailed because he didn't care about family? Just saying. For some reason, Maggie even takes it upon herself to sing a clip of a campfire song George used to sing that goes, "Above the plain of golden green." Excuse me, honey, don't you have a taxiing plane somewhere you need to go forth and deal with? George excuses himself to make sure the restrooms are equipped with radiation detectors (or maybe to do something else. They don't take the cameras in there with him), and as soon as he's gone, Maggie turns to Ruth and, in the most deadly serious tone someone can muster after singing the words "A-hoo-ya-ya," asks her, "So, how's he been?" Ruth pauses and answers with a thoughtful "Fine." Maggie keeps pushing: "No problems? You can tell me." Ruth asks just what she means, and Maggie -- seeing that Ruth is horrifically unprepared for marriage to a nutter -- grabs a business card from within her remaining stores of Cipro and tells her, "Ruth, I want you to have all my numbers." Ruth thanks her and Maggie tacks on for good measure, "He trusts me." Yeah. I liked him better when he was a slightly distant womanizer.
Oh, fun. People on TV watching TV. David and Keith are sitting in the living room watching a black-and-white movie it's too late for me to look up, and David picks up an early conversation in asking, "Do you think I should?" Keith, glass of wine in hand because does this man drive him to drink or what, shrugs and responds, "I can't tell you what to do." David posits that if he sees Jimmy Felon face to face, David can finally "get [his] balls back." Keith offers to go with him, but David says with no conviction at all, "No, I have to handle this alone." Keith reminds David that that's also what he said when Keith was on the road, and that this time he's not "taking any chances." They hug meaningfully and fans of beefcake sigh.
The Diaz children -- both named Julio if I had to guess at it -- watch television in the living room of Rico's ex-house. Vanessa enters in her nurse's uniform and starts complaining about the state of cleanliness in the house, telling them, "Look at this mess. You're supposed to be helping me out here." She grabs a garbage bag and forces them onto their feet, an event that causes much sudden laughing and frolicking in the living room. And it's all watched by Rico, sitting outside in his car. In which he is alone. For once.
Anita doesn't sleep on Claire's couch, woken up as she is by the constant flicking of a lighter and the tiny bubbles of the resultant bong hit. Anita requests that Claire go to sleep, and Claire sums it up in one word: "Can't." Clown'll eat me. Anita notes that sleep will come easier if Claire would "stop sucking weed and lie down." Claire notes that she feels "buzzy" and stressed about her exhibition, and Anita asks if she "got into the blow." Is this a Lifetime movie? Is somebody's mother Joanna Kerns? What's going on? An instant message pops up on Claire's iMac '99 from "MrChen106," and if you think I didn't just add that to my buddy list, it's like you never knew me at all. It reads, "Let's fuck at the end of the ep." Okay, no it doesn't. Actually, it says, "hey u." Uh-oh. I smell a smiley. LOL! Claire, or should we call her "CFisher2002" (which I totally didn't add to my buddy list, because...well, shut the fuck up, Claire), responds, "billy! talk me down i'm flipping about my show." Now, some people don't always go all out on the capitalization on IM. I do depending on who I'm talking to. But seriously? A sentence is a sentence in any space, cyber or otherwise, and that is not a sentence. MrChen106 is quick to write back, "don't think about it, watch bad tv." One step ahead of you, Sisto. CFisher2002 giggles. Fade2white.
Shot of Lisa in a car. Shot of Lisa on a beach. Shot of Lisa sitting by the water. Shot of hand on Lisa's check. Seagulls. Caw! Caw! Shot of Lisa in a house, shot of Lisa with a mouse. She wasn't alone on that beach, and Nate's dream sequence proves it! Nate wakes with a start and races into the room, where he announces to Brenda, "Check this out. This is what Lisa wore." I get it. Foreplay. Very hot. Brenda doesn't even bother feigning interest in what he's talking about anymore, but Nate insists, "She bought this shirt a week before she died." So we're looking at the shirt she wore and the beach she was on, so how could Michaela have sent him the picture of Lisa on a beach if Lisa never made it to Santa Cruz. Good question, Nate. Let's see what Brenda has cooked up as the answer: "I don't know. There's probably a simple explanation." But Nate wants to hear it, and he tells her, "I'm going up there!" Brenda barks that "this is never going to end," but Nate can't believe that she wouldn't show a little more sensitivity. Brenda suggests she "call the little girl and ask her," but he knows they'll never put her on the phone. He sarcastically thanks for her the support, adding, "This is exactly what I'm fucking talking about." She tells him she thinks driving up there is "ridiculous," and he snarks back, "I don't need your permission...I'm gonna take Maya to my mother's house." Brenda notes that if he doesn't think she can take care of Maya, then there's not a really compelling argument for the three of them living together, a contention further bolstered by the fact that Brenda and Nate absolutely fucking hate one another. He relents and apologizes, and then apologizes again, telling her, "I have to do this." Brenda looks sad because she's bought a shirt and she's gone to the beach and no one seems to give a rat's ass about it.
George sits in the -- what room is that? Is that the sun room? -- talking to the lady in blue from his dream. He tells her, "Every day, it seems harder to breathe. Is that my imagination?" She turns from the window and faces him, and responds, "No. The air is poison, George. It's a scientific fact." He tells her that he keeps thinking something terrible is going to happen, and she comfortingly tells him, "It's already happening. Our days are numbered. It's only a matter of time." He tells her that he believes he can prepare, and the lady in blue provides a clue as to who she is, maybe, when she responds, "Don't be naïve, George. You weren't brought up that way. There's no hope." He puts his head in his hands and yells, "Stop saying that," and just then Ruth enters the room to find George deeply immersed in conversation with no one. "No. No, I won't," he tells no one. Finally. The invisible. George finally finds his best listening audience.
Mrs. Brandon't sits alone at her ex-husband's wake. Seeing her all furrowed brows and almost tears, Rico is soon to walk forward and ask if she's all right. She tells him she is, and then tells him she's not, and asks if he'll stay and sit with her. He sits down across from her and she starts right in: "The way he died. Oh, god, it's awful. I can't stop thinking about it. If there was anyone who deserved to go in their sleep, it was Ken." Who? Oh, half-pint over there. That's right. She continues on, "We weren't close anymore." Rico hopefully remembers, "He was your husband once." But that was a long time ago, she argues, and, in fact, "When I got the call, I had to think, 'Ken who?'" Rico doesn't seem happy with that development. But now it's all come back, you see. Every minute they spent together. All the times they had. All of the elevators that didn't brutally cut him in half. She tells Rico that she's going to bury him with the rest of her family, and Rico agrees, "Family's family. Divorce doesn't change that." Actually, it does. But that's what you say when you're in mourning, so...have at it, y'all. "When people get in your heart," she begins, and Rico takes it the rest of the way home: "They stay for good." So, Rico, I hear you gave back your house key and stuff. Any truth in that?
"Maggie, this is Ruth...I'm worried about your father." What a coincidence that right after the daughter warns her about things going terribly wrong, things go terribly wrong. It's too bad she didn't change her attitude and be all, "Ruth, just a warning: sometimes my father sneezes hundred-dollar bills."
David walks up to a window in what we'll assume is the prison. A security guard asks him for ID, and then spins through the rigmarole of what he can bring in, what he can't, when his tray table has to be returned to the upright and locked position, and so on. When David looks up again, the security guard has turned into Jimmy Felon, who asks in a whiny tone, "Are you wearing any implants or prosthetic devices?" No. No, he's not. The door swings open, and David begins down a long hallway into the prison. David walks slowly down the hallways while we're all puzzling out our jokes about how someone in the middle of the hallways can smell his cunt and someone at the end of the hallway blah blah fava beans.
Claire wears a black dress and Anita does coke and it's all so fucking pretentious in the ladies' room at the Mallory Gallery. Anita offers her blow to Claire, and she worries that it will just make her more nervous, which Anita tells her won't happen. "It makes you feel really important for about twenty minutes," Anita promises, which makes Claire go for it. Claire waits for the wacky junk to take hold, and they're walking down the steps into the gallery. Anita tells Claire she'll meet her back in a half-hour for a refill, which means ten minutes of not feeling important are in store for Claire. I don't think she likes that math.
But also it's still the middle of the day. Vanessa lets Rico in the front door of her house, as she tells him that the boys (Julio and Julio) are not home. No problem, Rico says: "It's you I came to see." They sit down across from one another, and Rico starts right in: "Vanessa, I apologize. This is all my fault. All my fault." Vanessa immediately starts to cry, as Rico continues on that he gave his ex-whorefriend that "time and attention" -- Vanessa would also like to add "money" -- that he should have given to his family. "Even if you hadn't slept with her, it was adultery," Vanessa tells him, and Rico agrees because...well, back up against the wall. She tears up a bit more and tells him, "You finally said it. Thank you." All of which adds up to the fact that Rico can move back in now, right? RIGHT? "We can't go back. Everything has changed. I never expected this. And I feel really sad. But it feels right." Rico says "no" as many times as it takes to fit the word "no" inside the word "Nonononononononononononononononononononononono," and then regains his composure in time to ask her, "Don't you love me anymore?" She does, indeed, "but it's just not like before." She tells him she's not trying to hurt him, but then lowers the boom: "I want a divorce." Rico weeps and keeps repeating, "You don't mean it. You don't mean it." Except for the "getting in your heart and staying for good" part.
Back at the Exorcising Your Demons Correctional Facility, moody streaks of daylight stream in from the outside while David sits alone in large visiting room while I desperately wish this were an episode of Arrested Development. An orange jumpsuit-clad Jimmy Felon is led into the room, his hands cuffed behind his back, his facial hair wolfman-esque in its ugliness. David steels himself for battle, and Jimmy Felon enters, takes his place in front of David, pauses, and asks, "Who are you?" David answers, and recognition dawns in Jimmy's eyes. He sits down across from David and asks, "How you doin'?" Evidently, David isn't doing that well: "I hope you're happy here behind bars, where you belong." Jimmy Felon counters that no one belongs behind bars, and asks David if he's ever been through detox, noting, "It's like dying." Yes, yes. With the pain and sweats and the baby on the ceiling. We've all been there. "Did you bring me something?" he crazily asks, and a Glarkware shirt about visiting someone in prison and only getting this stupid t-shirt pops into my head and is quickly discarded. David shoots back, "No. I hate you." Which, awesome. I wrote a line of dialogue almost identical to that one, and it's totally the best work I've ever done. David makes a quick travelogue of his activities with Jimmy on that fateful ride, blaming him for the fact that he feels like everyone is going to "humiliate and murder" him. Jimmy promises, "Well, they are. So I did you a favor. Now you'll be a little more careful, won't you?" Jimmy: 1. David: 0. David demands an apology, and Jimmy seems to possess a high level of clarity when he argues, "For defending myself? Fuck you." David sighs and says almost wistfully, "You really are sick," and Jimmy counters, "I'm not the one who sits in jail when he doesn't have to." Checkmate. David stands up and Jimmy calls after him, "Look, you can come visit me again if you want to." David stares and responds, "No, I won't be back." Jimmy suggests they do lunch when he gets paroled (no, really), and David leaves with the words, "Probably not. I'm pretty busy." See that? He was really just crazy all along. Wow. That was the most wildly unsatisfying resolution ever.
Claire's eyes bug wildly as she makes the rounds of the Mallory Gallery, telling people what to think about art. Her professional bullshittery is interrupted by periodic glances of Russell, staring at her forebodingly from a nearby balcony. Back in the bathroom, she snorts another spoonful of inspiration, and rubs some of it on her teeth because that's what she saw people do in a movie about drugs once. Anita asks Claire if she's spoken to The Matthew Barney Of LAC Arts, and Anita suggests, "You should at least get him high." Claire wants to know what people are saying about the show, and Anita says she really doesn't know. Claire busts back out into the throngs, leaving Anita alone to get barged in on. Cocaine sure does make people nicer.
Maya's hair is in pigtails and Brenda wears earrings that are taller than Rico! And that has been your Page Six fashion round-up of Claire's big, big show. Ruth comes over and greets Maya, and then stands up to talk to Brenda. "Everyone's very impressed with Claire's pictures," Brenda says, which is basically like saying, "You got a haircut!" where it sounds like a compliment but really it's just a generic observation. Because two sentences about other people besides themselves nearly break the characters on this show in half, Brenda turns the spotlight back on herself, as she tells Ruth, "Nate and I are back together again. That must seem very sudden." Ruth attempts to comfort her with the information that she married her husband right after they met, which would be a lot more comforting, truth be told, were the man she chose to marry not sitting at home right now thinking a bag of pecans were the reincarnation of Hitler.
Art! Art! Art! Are we trapped in here for the rest of the episode? Is that what's going on? Sisto loves art, so he's there to see the show, and when Claire appears behind him, he asks her, "None of your pieces have names. How come?" So she takes her art stance and tells him, "I feel like when you give something a name, people take your word for it. Which is okay for some things. But not these." God help whichever one of them loses the battle to change their IM name to "Untitled" before the other one has a chance. "I want you to really look at it and deal with it on your own," Claire continues as Russell circles ominously. "It's like life." Shut up. It's not like life at all. Claire starts to laugh just then and tells him, "I have no fucking idea what these pictures mean." Billy laughs because art is a lie. And put down the gritty handheld camera, Maestro Ball, unless you're trying to convey that this art show is actually taking place at sea.
Seriously? Nobody cares. Stop telling me I do. Because I'm going to make a list of things I don't about this scene, and care is going to be the very first one of them. Out by a fancy pool, Keith tells Roger, "You don't need a bodyguard." Raise your hand if you're a glorified extra who has outlasted his usefulness by, like, ninety episodes. Keep 'em where we can see 'em, Charles. But Roger presses on, promising Keith, "I have enemies." You're looking at one. "I just want to feel safe. And I will pay you a shitload of money." This is starting to sound more attractive to Keith, who now allows that he may be able to do it, but only on a "freelance" basis. But first he needs something in writing that he's going to drop the lawsuit. Then some extremely beefy guy wearing jeans takes off his jeans and jumps into the pool naked. "Is that one of the people you're afraid of?" Keith asks. "That's Steve," Roger answered. "He stays in the guesthouse sometimes." Well, maybe he needs his own stupid side plot too, then. Six Steve Under porno spinoff, anyone?
Back at the Mallory Gallery, Claire makes idle talk with Olivier. She tells him she wasn't sure he'd come, but he assures her, "It's my responsibility and my pleasure to support you, Claire." But she's fucked up! And actual human sincerity is so 9/12! She doesn't care. She's anarchy! Viva la Claire-volution! "Wow," she says. "And so it all begins," Olivier counters. "With the first success, corruption." She asks, "It's corrupt to finally feel like I did something right?" Olivier tells her that yes, it is. Whatever. He was only there to bang Brenda's mom anyway.
And there she is! Brenda's mom. Wearing this crazy pink shirt that looks like it's going to flare out like one of those flaring dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Brenda tells her that she looks "recovered," and she laughs and talks about how "fabulous" she feels. She then regards Maya and asks, "Is this the fruit of Nate's loins?" Brenda introduces her mother, but it's no avail, as the child is non-responsive. "Don't take this personally, but I don't think she likes you. She hardly knows you're here," says Brenda's mother, in an undisciplined nod to making fun of the poor child actor they've drugged into compliance.
Claire walks by just at this moment, and Brenda's mother pulls her over with an excited "Do you do commissions?" Claire takes a swig of red wine and responds, "Uh, yes?" Brenda's mom suggests that Claire take a photo of her with Olivier and mix all of the pieces together. Not a half bad idea, actually. She then moves in for a giant bear hug, tells Claire that she's "brilliant," and takes off. Left to their own devices, Brenda tells her, "Congratulations." Note that she still had not mentioned that she likes the art in any way. Claire puts down her wine glass and excuses herself in a hurry. Have you no soul, Claire? Ugly babies need the most care. She walks away, blinking really fast, and in a moment she's accosted by The Matthew Barney Of LAC Arts, who congratulates her and asks if she's blowing him off when she tries to get away. He tells her that she's being "fucking rude" and totally ignoring him, but she tells him, "I'm a little fucking busy right now. I'm in the middle of my fucking show." He reminds her, "I'm the one who got you this fucking show," takes his leave, and takes Anita with him for good measure. "Fuck you, then," Claire says to no one in particular. "Fuck you all." Do you guys think anything is going to happen in the finale?
Oh, look. Here's something. Nate's car pulls up to a place I'm still convinced is Idaho, no matter how many times I'm kindly reminded that Barb and her family actually live in Santa Cruz. Nate gets out of the car and walks across the house's front lawn, where he immediately finds spooky Michaela spookily swinging from a spooky tree. He walks right up to her, pretending he's not crazy, and smiles and waves. He bids her hello, and then leans down to the swing and asks, "Where'd the picture come from? Do you know who took it? Why'd you put it in the book?" A long pause, and then: "You should talk to my dad. He's in the office." Santa Cruz, Idaho. Population: haaaaaaaaaaaunted.
Closing time. Russell has found Claire again, and we discover her screaming at him, "My god, you freak, when are you gonna let it go?" Russell says that that will happen "when [she admits] in public that [he is] part of [her] work." She tells him in no uncertain terms, "They are mine. And people love them," and with absolutely no buffer at all, Russell comes out with, "I love you!" She shakes her head and argues, "You fucked a man and lied about it." So really, what else is he to do but scream back "You had an abortion without me!"? Claire practically spits in his face, and just then, Billy reenters out of seeming nowhere and asks if there's a problem. Russell turns on him and whispers, "You are so deeply irrelevant," and then turns back to Claire and asks, "Are you fucking him now?" Billy acts the older man and holds on to Russell's arms, but it's really only to stop him from looking like a big queen when he lets go and Russell goes all "tickle fight!" on him and just starts flailing his arms wildly. Fag.
"Are you crazy?" Hoyt offers from the other side of a mahogany desk from where Nate sits. Nate warns him, "I'll ask you one more time. Then I'm calling the police. Did you take that picture?" Hoyt good-guys his arms upward and is all, "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa!" He looks at the picture then and remembers, "This was a couple of years ago. We had a picnic." Nate knows he's a liar -- a "fucking liar," in fact -- and tells him, "You were there on that beach with Lisa the day she died...this proves it." Hoyt tries sidestepping it once more, but he shifts uncomfortably in his big leather chair and takes care of hanging himself: "This is a place that we used to go. I'd drive south and I'd meet her there." Nate doesn't get it. "Alone?" he asks. Hoyt: "We had a thing." Nate gets the appropriate look on his face for someone who just found out whose sloppy seconds they are, as Hoyt continues on, "You know Lisa. She was intense." Nate asks if it went on while he was married, and Hoyt tells him, "Before." But Nate still doesn't believe him, so Hoyt has to change the subject again: "She told me what it was like to be your wife. What the fuck is wrong with you?" More more more! "She might have killed herself because of you." But Nate knows for certain that she didn't kill herself, and that she never would have left Maya: "So you tell me what happened on that beach right now. Right the fuck now." Oh, fine: "I wanted some time by ourselves. Lisa said she wasn't into it. Y'know, clean slate, never again. Okay, fine. I couldn't let her tell Barb." He promises, "I didn't get angry at her." He says they had a talk and went their separate ways. And you know who knows that now? You wanna guess? That's right...Barb. Because she's standing on the bottom step of a flight of stairs leading into the office, and she's crying and crying. So, like any responsible husband, Hoyt reaches into his desk and pulls out a gun, shoving it in his mouth and blowing his head off in a flash. It's really quite graphic.
Rico arranges photographs of his kids, Julio and Julio, on his bedside table because he lives there now.
Claire brings Billy into her house because an art show at a public gallery is a postmodern "A," but sleeping with the teacher is a time-tested "A+."
Police car lights blaze as Hoyt's body is wheeled out of the house. Man. That must be half the police force of Idaho out there.
Ruth wakes up and finds herself alone in bed. She finds her way down to the bomb shelter, where she finds George asleep on a cot in the back. She wakes him up and he tells her he must have fallen asleep. Yeah. That explains the sleeping, all right. She tells him, "Let's go back to the house." But he looks at her for a second and replies, "I can't do that." She reminds him that that's where they live, but he's giving her another think coming: "No, Ruth. This is where I live now." Another lesson learned. Never get married.
No, seriously, you guys? Never get married. Never, I say, get...ah, nobody listens. Nate, still covered in Hoyt's blood, returns to his house, where he discovers Brenda angelically waiting for him, holding Maya. He hugs Brenda and suggests, "Let's get married and have a baby." She accepts as Maya is asphyxiated between them. How romantic.
David lies in bed awake as rain pours down outside. He walks into the living room, where he finds his father standing on at the deck, clad in his suit, smoking a cigarette. David approaches and notes the rain, as his father tells him, "You were brave to face him...I'm proud of you." David smiles a little, and then replies, "I thought it would set me free, but it didn't change anything. Except now I know he really is insane." Dead Dad Fisher tells him, "You're missing the point," but David argues, "There is no point. That's the point." Dead Dad sighs and says he expects better from David than this "phony existential bullshit." I like that he expects better from David, which means, by extension, he expects exactly that from all of his other disappointing, sickly pretentious children. "You can do anything, you lucky bastard. You're alive. What's a little pain compared to that?" Is that the point? I guess it is. Something big must be going on emotionally in someone's life, after all. That's the only time on TV it ever rains in L.A.