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The Corpse of the Week turns out to be an old high-school friend of Nate's, which gives him a chance to talk about how at peace he is with his own mortality. Rico's sort-of girlfriend seems to pull a Lisa, but Rico's really just getting a painful lesson on the difference between "dead" and "not interested in Rico," which is not as fine a line as he may have suspected. But at least Rico gets a sort-of date with Vanessa out of it in a way that I can't wait to see blow up in his face. Brenda spends one day interning at a free clinic, then bails while her mom gloats. George has a good couple of days, but it's not enough to keep Ruth from hating him and then joining forces with him to drag his daughter Maggie into their ever-expanding black hole of misery and despair. At Keith's suggestion, David asks Claire to donate her eggs so that their eventual, potential surrogate baby can have Fisher genes, but David, freaked by the very idea, downsells it so much that Claire declines. And Billy's tired of being sexually and artistically frustrated, so he secretly flushes his meds. Run, Claire, run! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
We open on a garage door as it opens. It's two openings for the price of one! A newspaper-in-the-driveway's-eye view shows a gargantuan SUV backing out, looking like it's going to run over the camera. But instead, it stops so that the driver can attempt to pick up his newspaper without bothering to get out. A hand stretches down from the vertiginous heights of the SUV's interior, but the paper remains out of reach. That is, until the driver falls out entirely. With the brake released, the vehicle is free to roll gently down the hill, and none too gently over the driver's head. And that's it for Samuel Wayne Hoviak (1965-2004). Let's hope that his wife is less lazy in a few days when the paper containing his obituary is on the driveway.
You want a third opening? Well, the one between Brenda's legs is currently getting a vigorous thumping, courtesy of Nate's meatpole. Thank god for blankets. Nate offers to pull out, but Brenda tells him to fire away, so we know some time has passed since the wedding/miscarriage extravaganza. Thus freed to release the hounds, Nate goes for the home stretch. And then we see a little girl at the foot of the bed, jumping up and down and grinning at them like a loon. Aside from that, she looks just like Maya. Brenda tries to call a halt. Too late, Brenda; I'm already blind. "Too much man for you, huh?" Nate laughs. "We've got a little visitor," Brenda explains. Nate rolls off, chuckling at his daughter, "Hello gorgeous. Dancing for us?" Still hopping up and down like -- well, like Nate fucking, Maya says, "I'm dancing for me." Another line! And the episode title, no less. Those twins are going to get their SAG cards yet. Nate blithely suggests breakfast and hops out of bed. I hope Maya has preceded him out of the room, because although we can't see any Nate-parts, we didn't see him put anything on, either. "Raincheck," he says to Brenda, who's still lying there with a hilarious, slightly freaked-out "Everyone's okay with this?" look on her face.
Over at David and Keith's, the morning "let's become parents" routine isn't quite as much fun; instead of a penis, it involves pens. Specifically, Keith's asking David to sign a stepparent petition. Apparently, the surrogate and Keith will be the child's legal parents at the time of birth, but then the surrogate will sign away her rights and David will adopt the resultant baby as a co-parent. David starts to flip through the document, but Keith assures him that it's all kosher: "I signed your form, now you sign mine." I assume by "your form" he means the adoption application. I don't know if referring to the two processes as "yours" and "mine" is the healthiest way to go about this, but something tells me it's just the beginning. David signs. "We're really doing this, aren't we," he says nervously. Keith thinks David's about to go off, but David says it's going to be great. He also adds that he talked to the person at the adoption agency, who's faxing over an orientation schedule. Mornings are better for Keith, but nights are better for David, so they agree to go with nights. David thanks Keith, and then says, "This doesn't mean you get to pick the name." Keith protests that he's being nice because he loves David, and David smirks that Keith's being nice so that he can pick the name. "The fact that Jackson Charles Fisher is an excellent name and pretty much guarantees that our son will be playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers is a completely separate issue," Keith says amiably. This is the sort of thing happy couples disagree about, you understand. That must mean David and Keith are happy, right? Right?
And what do unhappy couples disagree on? Well, as Ruth is about to show us, every goddamn thing. She's busy in her kitchen, where she's joined by George. "Look at you, always working," he says admiringly. She says that's because there's always work to be done. He tries to help, and then gets snapped at for using the wrong towel. "You've been at sixes and sevens with me all day," he says, not unreasonably. Sixes and sevens? Is that how old people say "bitch"? He offers to take her to the deli for a sandwich. "It's 10:30 in the morning," she snaps. George placatingly says he'll make his own sandwich. He heads over to the fridge and starts fumbling around, looking for condiments. When Ruth turns around from the sink, he's been replaced by a vision of her legless grandmother, perched in a wheelchair and snarling, "Well, if it's too much of an imposition to help your grandmother, I'll make my own sandwich. Just tip my chair over so I can crawl to the breadbox!" "Let me do it!" Ruth cries, and pushes past George to yank sandwich fixings out of the fridge and throw them on the table. George says he can do it, but Ruth can't hear him way up there on that cross. ["I get in that mood when I clean too. It's most of why we have a cleaner." -- Wing Chun]
Nate and Rico are doing the intake interview for the Sam, the Corpse of the Week, and his wife appears to be about as upset if she would be if he'd only run over the paper and not his own head. Nate recognizes the CotW's name from high school, although he didn't recognize the photo, not having seen Sam in years. Nate asks the wife how she happened to come to Fisher & Diaz, and she says she drives past all the time on the way to Sam's parents' house. Which Nate remembers, of course. The interview over, she stands up and calmly walks out. Not a casket climber, I'm thinking. Alone with Nate, Rico says, "A buddy of yours, huh?" Nice of him to pay attention. Nate confirms, "Me, him, and this other guy were best friends all through high school." You suppose Other Guy will be showing up later?
That gallery owner from last season is shuffling through a stack of Claire's photos in Billy's apartment. Which I guess is her and Billy's apartment now. Anyway, she's nervously jabbering on about her "totally different direction" and how she "took the collage stuff as far as [she] could." So her big breakthrough? Nate and Brenda's wedding photos. Oh, brilliant. You know, I've decided that from now on this space will be filled entirely with the marketing proposals I write at my day job. It's not "recycling work I've already done for a different purpose because I'm lazy;" it's a "totally different direction." That's cool with you, right, Wing? ["If they're proposals about Six Feet Under, go for it." -- Wing Chun] Gallery Owner looks unimpressed, although the photos of spilled-on George and angry Ruth give him some pause. There's a moment where I think the private photos that got Claire smacked upside the head are going to end up in a public gallery and thus get her shot in the face with a bazooka, but Gallery Owner thinks otherwise: "They're quite beautiful. But I can't sell them." He explains that nobody wants pictures from someone else's wedding. Well, duh. Even an ignorant philistine like me knows that. Claire offers to take out the more wedding-y photos, but Gallery Owner says, "I wouldn't advise you to compromise your artistic vision." I'm not sure if he's fucking with her. Claire gets more desperate, finally coming right out and saying she was hoping for another show. Okay, so maybe she could take some damn pictures, then. Gallery Owner gets up to leave. Claire grasps at straws, saying she's got more ideas for the collage series. He says he's got a group show coming up month, and if she can come up with two pieces from her collage series, he'll see what he can do. "Just two?" she calls after him incredulously, because she had one show and now everyone owes her a living. "The world is an evil place, Claire," he says as he walks out. Okay, he's fucking with her a little.
Nate joins David and his old high-school buddy, Sam the Corpse of the Week, down in the Body Shop. David's gushing about the new, less toxic chemicals he's using so that he can live to see his grandkids. Who won't be at all freaked out by their Grandpa Death, I'm sure. Sam looks to be in pretty good shape for a guy who had an SUV drive over his face. I'd tell him to check his tire pressure if he weren't already dead. But then we can see the stitches from the closed Y-incision, so Rico must have already worked his restorative magic. Nate tells David who he's looking at. Once David remembers Sam and gets over his initial surprise, his first reaction is, "Wow, he got fat." Okay, the dude's not that fat. David confesses his former crush on Sam: "He was always so nice to me and he had such great shoulders. He was run over?" Nate says Sam ran over himself. "How do you do that?" asks David. "I have no idea," admits Nate. David gets a call from the adoption agency on his cell phone, and leaves the room for the conversation. Which of course cues Nate's visit with the Corpse of the Week. A high-school version of Sam appears to Nate, accompanied by the oh-so-dated strains of the Pretenders' "Back on the Chain Gang." Sam beholds his older, heavier self with disbelief. "What a lard-ass. I guess I ate too much pussy, huh?" he cracks. Dude is not that fat! Nate mocks Sam for his youthful obsession with his six-pack, and Sam turns it around: "You swore you'd never become a fucking funeral director, and look at you now." Nate says at least he doesn't need a golf cart to get around. Dude! Is not! That! Fat! Okay, he's got a bit of middle-aged spread, which happens. In my case, it happened when I was twenty-two. Nate and High School Sam talk trash about the girls they slept with back in the day, and Sam asks, "You remember feeling like there was nothing in the world you couldn't get away with? And that it would always be that way." Wow, High School Sam is deep. Nate remembers, silently, and then he's alone again with just the dead Sam, because High School Sam is out of there like a pigeon from Hell.
It's another joyful meal with George and Ruth. He asks whether she made a vegetable, and she martyrs that the spinach lasagna she's putting on the table should cover that. George says he's only asking because sometimes she forgets about something in the oven until they've almost finished eating. "I guess I must have Alzheimer's," she sighs sarcastically. George says her quirks are endearing. And also that the food is delicious. He asks what's in it, and she complains, "Do you want me to list all the ingredients?" "Not if you don't want to," George says pleasantly, but he was just wondering about the spice. Ruth gets up, goes to the spice rack, and hands George a little bottle. He marvels for about ten minutes at the wonder of "Italian seasoning" and the smorgasbord of spices therein, while Ruth remains stubbornly immune to his cheery attitude. George tries lightening the mood with a joke: "You know what you call an Italian hooker? A pasta-tute." Ruth goes all schoolmarm. "I guess it's not that funny," George admits, and is immediately rocked back in his chair when Ruth stands up, screaming, "You're goddamn right it's not funny! None of this is funny. You tricked me into marrying you. You knew you were crazy and didn't tell me and now I have to take care of you for the rest of my life! What did I do to FUCKING DESERVE THIS?!" But then we realize she's only screaming in her head, as we see in the cut that she's still sitting there pouting silently. "You can really taste the rosemary," George says obliviously. Rosemary goes great with passive aggression.
Speaking of taking care of crazy people, Ma Chenowith is over at Nate and Brenda's remonstrating with her daughter about Brenda's decision to do her internship at a free clinic. No shocks here; Ma's a snob, Brenda wants to feel altruistic, Ma offers to get her out of it by making some calls to set her up with another internship: "I hate to let the fact that I've slept with half of Southern California's psychiatric academia to go to waste." I wonder which half? She wants to know how Brenda's going to be able to help crackheads anyway. Brenda says, "Because I've had my own struggles with addiction, and because we're all human." "Oh, honey," says Ma, "we're not. That's what you're going to learn." Enter Nate and Maya, presumably fresh from day care. "Hi, Mommy," Maya hollers, and somewhere in a desolate, unmarked, shallow hole in the desert, Lisa spins fast enough to power most of the West Coast for a month. "Look at you and your happy little family," Ma condescends to Nate. Brenda tells Nate that her mom thinks she's making a mistake. Nate shows his support, which earns a withering "Yes, let's all save the world" from Ma. She thinks Nate and Brenda are both being naïve. "Sometimes that's not such a bad thing," Brenda says. I don't see why I have to come up with a snappy ending for this paragraph if the writers won't come up with one for the scene.
You know what is a bad thing, though? Watching Rico make out. He's climbing all over Sharon the dental hygienist in the Fisher living room. I think I'd feel self-conscious about making out with a dental hygienist, like she'd be able to taste how often I floss or something. When Rico comes up for air, he invites her up to his room. She looks like she's about to agree, which of course is when George wanders in, asking, "Am I interrupting anything?" Rico looks back and forth between his de facto landlord and the chick beneath him with her skirt hiked up to her waist, and says, "No, of course not. It's your house." Rico, you big wuss. He climbs off of his date. "My wife's, actually," says George, but he doesn't go anywhere. Rico re-introduces Sharon, and George doesn't need much prompting before he seems to remember meeting her at the wedding. And he needs even less prompting (i.e., none) to join them on the sofa to watch TV. Sharon decides this is a good time to take her leave, giving every sign that she's suddenly over Rico. The fact that he's short and dorky and until recently smelled of formaldehyde was fine, but apparently George is a deal-breaker. Not that Rico is taking the hint. For some reason, Sharon pretends to agree to have lunch with Rico the day. Yeah, right. Don't skip breakfast, Rico.
Meanwhile, Billy is, darn the luck, actually getting some, but is unable to climax due to the anti-psychotic drugs he's on. I guess a Seroquel a day keeps Creepy Jesus away, but it also keeps the little swimmers from escaping. Billy rolls off of Claire, disappointed. To her credit, she says it's okay: "I came already." "Oh, so I don't matter?" he smiles at her. "No, of course not. You're here purely to service me, and now that you've satisfied me, I must kill you." She tells him not to freak out, saying it'll make the time that much better. She snuggles up against Billy and closes her eyes happily, while he stares at the ceiling and wonders if this is really so much better than just being crazy.
David and Keith are also getting ready for bed. Well, David's already there, but Keith's about to join him, and he's not too excited about David's name choice: Logan. "It's like a porn star name." My issue is that, either way, the kid's going to end up with two last names. What is with that lately? Am I the only one who's noticed this trend? thing you know, people are going to start naming their kids O'Halloran and Rybczyznzk and Fonzarelli, and in a few more years, roll call at kindergarten is going to sound like a World War II movie. ["Better that than Keith Charles, the man with two first names." -- Wing Chun] Keith stands over David, smiling. "Why are you looking at me like you're about to eat me?" David asks sleepily. Keith says David's beautiful. "Shut uuup," David says. Keith says he means it, and keeps staring. David slowly and amusingly removes the plastic tooth-guard/retainer thing he's wearing and says, "You're starting to creep me out." Keith says he wants their baby to be "part you too." David says they're kind of out of luck in that department, but Keith suggests that they ask Claire to donate her eggs: "That way the baby could be a combination of the two of us. Or as close as we can get, anyway." David silently considers the prospect of raising a pretentious art snob who does drugs and has sex with crazy people, but he uncertainly says he'll ask. I wonder how that would have gone if Keith hadn't buttered David up first? They chastely kiss goodnight, and David replaces his retainer. Fade to white.
And smack into a dream sequence. Orchestral hoedown music that Rodgers and Hammerstein rejected from Oklahoma for being too corny welcomes David onto some deliberately fake "farm" set with a red barn, plastic cows, and a painted backdrop. David looks around in confusion, which turns into amazement when Keith drives a tractor onto the scene, wearing overalls with no shirt. Watching at home, the Village People smack their heads and go, "A farmer! We should have had a farmer!" Keith hops down and announces, "I am the Egg Man." "Goo goo g'joob?" David answers tentatively, as if there were any other possible response. Keith smiles and gestures toward the barn. The door, with its "Eggs for sale" sign, opens up to reveal a farm-girl version of Claire with pigtails, a gingham dress, and a basket. Oh, and a GIANT, PLASTIC, PUPPET HEAD. She's fucking creepy, with these big Hummel eyes and cheekbones that nearly poke my eye out. Nowhere near as funny as Puppet Angel. Puppet Claire holds her basket out to Keith, who reaches in, takes an egg, and happily bites into it like it came from Cadbury instead of a chicken. He nods encouragingly at David. Puppet Claire holds out the basket to David, who reluctantly takes it, selects an egg, and bites into it. But the only thing that cracks is his teeth. Then David turns around to see that Keith and Puppet Claire are driving off together on the tractor. Puppet Claire turns to wave goodbye. David looks into the basket he's still holding, to see that all the eggs have been replaced by a red, deformed, half-bald puppet baby. "Daaaa-deee," it groans. David recoils in horror. He wakes up in the morning light to the sound of Keith already up and showering. Emotions play across his face, but I can't honestly say that one of them is "Gosh, I wonder what that meant?"
Brenda arrives at the crowded, steadi-cammed chaos of the free clinic. The clinic's boss shows Brenda to a somewhat ratty but large office, and I hope I'm not supposed to feel sorry for her because that room is huge. There are bookcases and everything. The boss explains that Brenda's sharing the office with another intern who works alternate days, and that there's a staff meeting at 2:00 in the afternoon. Until then, Brenda just has to keep herself busy reading through a box of files. "I'm glad you're here," the boss says. "We need you." The boss says it like there's a "but" following that statement, but it turns out there isn't. Brenda says she's glad she's there too. That was the shortest orientation ever. Brenda settles down at her desk with her box of files.
Back at the funeral home, It's time for Sam's viewing, and Nate's stationed to the door to the chapel. Rico takes up his position opposite Nate at the other side of the doorway. "I thought you had a lunch," Nate whispers. Rico says he does, but that he's just waiting for Sharon to call him back. "Might be a looong lunch, if you know what I mean," he adds. Nate snickers at Rico's patheticness, but pulls himself together in time to wish Rico luck. Fortunately, Nate is rescued by the fact that the mourner is Other Guy, the third member of Nate and Sam's high school triad. He's now a big, blond, middle aged dork whom Nate warmly greets as Tom Wheeler. They're happy to see each other, but Tom says he wishes it had been under better circumstances. "I never thought he'd be the first one to go," he says. "So how does someone run over himself?" Nate still doesn't know. And thus endeth the running gag before it's flatter than Sam's face pre-Rico. Tom and Nate agree to get a beer and catch up later.
Elsewhere in the house, Ruth is welcoming George's daughter Maggie for a visit, saying that George has good days and bad days. "More bad than good," she adds. So Ruth is at least accomplishing something. Maggie says that George always sounds great when she talks to him on the phone. "Your calls always help," Ruth allows. As Maggie sets down her luggage, George happily comes into the room and greets his daughter with a hug and kiss. She tells him he looks good. "Well, I feel pretty good," George says. "I guess sending thousands of volts of electricity through the brain must have done the trick." I guess so. Do it again. Ruth invites them to sit down for some iced tea. George tells Maggie he's still having problems with his memory. "Yesterday he forgot our home phone number," Ruth announces flatly. George looks embarrassed. Ruth continues: "He needed it at the pharmacy. He was hunting all over the store for me like a lost little boy." Maggie says that's normal, and George puts on a brave face. "The doctors say it could be a very long haul," Ruth adds. That sits there for a minute while everyone absorbs Ruth's sunny, positive attitude. Maggie finally asks George what he's up to, and he says he spends a lot of time resting and reading. In fact, he just finished a book that Maggie says she's been wanting to read. "Let me get it for you," he says, and then adds pointedly, "before I forget." Once he's gone, Maggie tells Ruth that George seems a lot better to her, and adds that she didn't know what to expect from what Ruth had been telling her. Ruth moans that she doesn't know what to expect every day. Maggie looks uncomfortable. Perhaps she's thinking that at least when George was in the hospital, nobody there hated him.
But Maggie's not nearly as uncomfortable at I am as I watch this scene of Rico, down in the Body Shop, leaving what sounds like only the most recent of a series of desperate voicemails for the dental hygienist who's blowing him off. Rico needs to stop leaving messages and start getting them, methinks.
And up in Claire's former studio, things are about to get even more awkward. David's helping Claire get ready to move a desk or something over to Billy's apartment, and offers her a way to return the favor: "Donate some of your eggs to Keith and me?" Claire doesn't look too excited about the prospect, but she thinks for a second and asks, "Like, when?" David says as soon as possible. He then explains that they have to find a surrogate first, and then she and Claire would have to go on birth-control pills at the same time to synchronize their menstrual cycles, and Claire would get hormone injections, and she couldn't exercise, drink, or use drugs: "Eventually the eggs would be harvested through a needle inserted through the vagina. Your vagina." Through all this, Claire has gone from mildly ooked out to horrified. "Ew," she whispers. "It's like...surgery," David finishes. Claire sits. David says he realizes it's a lot to ask. ["It is, which is why women can make as much as $8000 donating them, if a slide I recently saw before a movie is to be believed. When he saw that, and realized what a nice TV that money could buy, Glark considered donating his eggs." -- Wing Chun] Claire says she hadn't given much thought to her eggs, but she's not sure she wants to give any away. "It really wasn't fair of me to ask," David says. "You're not mad?" Claire says. David scoffs: "Even if it all worked out, there'd be the weirdness of having a niece that you're also the mother of." Claire agrees that that's kind of creepy. "It would make Thanksgiving dinners a little awkward," David says. Claire chuckles uncomfortably. Nicely done, David. Keith would be so touched to see the way you both asked her to do it and talked her out of it in practically the same breath.
It must be 2:00, because the staff meeting at the free clinic is just starting. Brenda joins a half-dozen or so other clinic workers in a meeting room that's smaller than her office, and the boss introduces her. She takes a seat on a folding chair and joins the circle. One of the other workers there wants to discuss a "client," and he gives the bullet: "Thirty-two years old, habitual user of crack cocaine and occasional prostitute. The state is seeking custody of her twelve-year-old child after said child complained that her mother tied her to the coffee table, whipped her until she bled, and then sexually molested her with a rolled-up copy of Newsweek, all for the viewing pleasure of her boyfriend." The guy adds that obviously the girl is lying: "There's no way that woman reads Newsweek." Everyone but Brenda chuckles darkly. I sympathize somewhat with her horrified reaction; I'd have trouble working with people who make such obvious jokes myself.
Later, Brenda's back in her huge office, packing up after a draining day of reading files and going to a staff meeting. The boss comes in and asks if she's okay. Brenda says she is, but then adds, "No, I mean, whew." Those files must be in really small print or something. The boss says you have to be in a strong place to work there. "I'm in a strong place," Brenda insists, so unconvincingly that we can see that the boss immediately realizes she'll never see Brenda again.
Speaking of not seeing people again, Rico has schlepped all the way over to Sharon's apartment building, where he's now stalking her answering machine from the security gate. Another tenant comes out, and Rico pleasantly surprises me by not darting into the open door. Instead, he asks the other guy if he's seen Sharon today. The guy hasn't. Whatever. We already know that Sharon has only lived in L.A. for four years, so there's no way one of her fellow tenants would even know who she is. Rico checks his watch, and then pulls out his cell phone to call Vanessa and say he can't take the kids tonight as planned. Vanessa's irritated, but Rico says Sharon's "missing." "What do you mean, she's missing?" Vanessa asks. Rico says she's just disappeared. "Have you started calling the hospitals?" Vanessa says with some concern. Rico says he figures he'd better start doing that. Vanessa tells him not to worry about the kids. "I hope you find her. And I'm sure she's fine." I can't believe she's not angrier. They hang up, and Rico calls directory assistance to get the number to County Hospital. Until now, I didn't think Rico actually believed that Sharon was really in trouble, but now I see that he does. That's the great thing about Rico: five seasons in, he can still be even dumber than you think he is.
Ruth and Maggie are camped out in front of the TV (the one clear image on the screen is that of a passenger jet, an ironic commentary on Ruth's isolated, housebound existence, which is also being underscored by the fact that every scene she's in also has George and, except for Maggie, nobody else, even though the entire rest of the cast and a whole funeral's worth of people are trooping through other parts of the house all episode, and I'm going to close this parenthetical already because look at all the flies I'm letting in), George fast asleep and snoring between them. Ruth comments on the exotic tea Maggie has brought, and gushes enviously about Maggie's "adventures." Maggie downplays it, saying all she ever sees are hotel rooms and the inside of doctors' offices. Ruth asks if Maggie is dating anyone. In the uncomfortable silence, she adds that Maggie must have doctors lined up for her. "Like they're such prizes," Maggie grumbles. "I guess men are the same everywhere," Ruth tells her tea. Rather than letting the downer just hang there, Maggie finally admits that she's been seeing someone, and Ruth begs for details like a drowning woman. Maggie seems pretty noncommittal about the whole thing. "I'm in no hurry to get married," she explains. "Good for you," Ruth says. She offers some advice: "I think you should know exactly what you're getting into before you make that jump. Marriage is hard." Finally acknowledging the elephant in the room after having to be steered into it so many times that her nose has gone all squishy, Maggie says it must be difficult for Ruth. Ruth thanks her for saying so: "Sometimes it's all I need to hear. That someone understands." Maggie has her own advice: "I think if you look hard enough, you'll see that the man you fell in love with is still in there." Oh, come on. All Ruth does anymore is give him hard looks. Ruth makes a "whatever" face at George's sleeping form.
Ma Chenowith is driving along in her car, and for some reason she's wearing a Chewbacca costume without the head part. Her cell phone rings; it's Brenda. "You want me to make those calls for you?" Ma gloats right off the bat. Brenda admits that she does, adding, "I feel awful." "Well, honey, those people are so depressing," Ma says. Brenda says it's not that, but she doesn't say what it actually is, either. Ma basks in her rightness, reminding Brenda that she's still in shock from her miscarriage. Brenda sarcastically thanks her for the diagnosis, and tells her not to forget to bill her $200. "Oh, I won't," Ma cackles, and Brenda hangs up, looking more wrecked than when the call started. Won't her school notice that she just bailed on her first internship after one day? Of reading files?
Billy and Claire are on a double date with a pair of smug artist types who are going on and on about their recent travels. "We just went wherever we wanted until the money ran out," Artist Chick says. And then Artist Guy says the first piece of mail he opened when they got home was a grant check big enough for them to live on for a year while he works on his installation. Billy's clearly envious, as you can tell even before he asks if said installation is "still the...uh...poultry thing?" Artist Guy invites them over to their space to check it out, but confesses that they're still unpacking. And he adds that he found the video from when he and Billy "turned the L.A. River red." Billy actually laughs loudly for the first time, and "modestly" explains to Claire, "It's not as daunting as it sounds; there was, like, an inch of water. But still, it was like this trickle of blood snaking through the city." Artist Guy expresses his amazement that the school talked Billy into being a professor, and manages to pretend to be admiring and yet act totally condescending at the same time. Claire says Billy's "such an amazing teacher." "Those that can't do," Billy "jokes." Artist Chick asks Claire about her "new series." Claire says she just showed them to "[her] gallery owner, who loved them, but he still wants more of [her] old series." This is the first Billy's heard of it, although he doesn't seem too devastated that Claire's hit an artistic obstacle as well. Claire carps, "I guess he just thinks I'm a factory who's gonna keep churning out the same stuff." Or maybe he wants an artist and not a wedding photographer. Just a theory. The conversation turns to what Billy's working on, which he has to admit is nothing: "To be honest, I'm not exactly overflowing with ideas just now." "We all hit dry spots," says Artist Chick. Billy agrees uncomfortably, remembering that dry spot he left up inside Claire the night before.
Cut to Nate and Tom in a bar somewhere, as Tom asks Nate how he's handling his impending forty-ness. "I haven't thought that much about it," Nate says, to Tom's amused disbelief. Tom has a personal question: "You have a harder time now? Like, getting wood?" Oh, God. Nate admits that he does, and it's hard to tell if he's lying to put Tom at ease. Which if he is, is such a mistake, because Tom's got a follow-up: "Do you ever look at girls? Young girls, like, you know, like fourteen, fifteen, and you get that same feeling you got when you were that age and you're so fucking hard it feels like you might break?" Nate says he has a daughter, so he doesn't look at girls that way. "Liar," says Tom, and says he doesn't look at his own thirteen-year-old daughter that way either, "but she's got a friend..." The screenwriter of American Beauty gets ready to sue, but then remembers this is his show and thinks better of it. Nate's kind of horrified. Tom says he would never actually do anything, but "she reminds me of this part of me that I'd forgotten even existed. You know?" Nate doesn't. Nice try, though, Less-ter Burnham. Tom asks if Nate never lies awake thinking he's going to be forty. Nate insists that he lies awake thanking God for letting him live this long. He says he's had a lot of shit go on in his life and he gets that it doesn't last. "And I'm no different than anybody else. Yes, indeed, this will happen to me. It is happening to me, a little bit each day. And that doesn't freak me out. If anything, it's liberating." Tom says it's just going by so fast. Nate asks if Tom would change anything: "Who you're with, or what you do or what kind of person you are, because if you would, do it now." Tom says that's really harsh. Nate says this is all they have. And he's gotta go so he can be home before Maya goes to bed. He takes his leave, agreeing to get together with Tom again sometime. But I don't think he means it any more than Sharon did when she said it to Rico.
Back among the pretentious art folk, Artist Guy suggests a visit to some hot new nightclub, but Billy begs off, saying he's tired and he's got his lesson plan for week to do anyway. "Where's the old Billy I used to know?" Artist Guy provokes. "He's going to the restroom," Billy says, and does. "He feeling okay?" Artist Chick asks Claire. Claire thinks so, but she asks if they don't. Artist Guy sneers, "The Billy Chenowith that I knew wouldn't be going home early; he'd have us out all night doing something completely insane." "Insane" being the operative word, of course. Claire smiles stiffly.
Billy gets to the bathroom and splashes water on his face, and then looks at himself disgustedly in the mirror. Where have you gone, Creepy Jesus? And don't you even have to pee?
Ruth gets into bed to George, who's saying it's nice to have Maggie there. Ruth agrees that it is. "She's one of the few things I did right," George says. "That and marry you." "You're a sweet one when you want to be," Ruth says, not at all sweetly. "It's easy to be sweet when I'm married to you," George lies, and starts to get a little amorous. "Goodnight, George," Ruth says, and turns out her lamp. George sits there sadly on his side of the bed, unhappy at his new inability to blind his wife with lust. Fade to white. Which I've figured out is generally used as a transition to the day. If I forget, I have a handy mnemonic device: Fade to white/Overnight. You can feel free to use that if you want.
So on Day Three of the episode proper, mourners file into the chapel for Sam's funeral. Nate's back in position by the door. David sidles up to him and whispers that Sam's ass had a tattoo reading, "USDA Prime Beef." "It was 1982," Nate says. "Sorry, my crush is officially over," David says. He tells Nate he's got another body waiting downstairs whose death was in no way relevant to the Fishers' lives right now, and thus we know nothing at all about the poor bastard. Nate says he thought Rico was handling that one, but David says that Rico "had an emergency with Sharon." "What kind of emergency?" Nate asks. David just shrugs and shakes his head before taking his leave. Nate turns his attention back to the funeral. Tom takes the lectern and introduces himself, and then tells a story about the time he, Nate, and Sam cut class by jumping out a second-story window. At which time Nate sprained his ankle and Sam gave Tom a concussion by landing on him. Tom tries to make some point about destiny and best friends, but all I can think of is that Nate was right: the amazing thing isn't that Sam got killed, but that any of them lived this long in the first place. Sam probably ran over himself a few times a week and just never died from it until now.
Rico is back at Sharon's apartment complex, and he's acting so worried about his date that he actually prevails upon the landlady to let him into Sharon's apartment. Where he finds Sharon in her pajamas, perfectly fine aside from being seriously pissed off that Rico came into her home. The landlady says that Rico insisted on being let in. Rico says he was worried after Sharon stood him up, ignored his messages, and failed to answer the door. "Look, I'm sorry," Sharon says. "I thought you could, you know, take a hint." Yes, that's our Rico: master hint-taker. Rico looks like he'd take a trap door in the floor right about now. And the landlady doesn't seem like she'd mind one either.
Cut to some schmancy university campus somewhere. Brenda's waiting in an office that's even nicer than the one she had at the free clinic. Anne Ramsay (Jamie's sister Lisa from Mad About You, not the dead one from Throw Momma from the Train) comes in. They exchange introductions. Anne Ramsay briskly says, "I typically award this internship to my most promising student, but apparently somebody pulled some strings somewhere, so it's to go to you." Well, this is off to a great start. Anne Ramsay says they have 17,000 students at this college from all sorts of backgrounds, many of whom end up needing their help: "We deal with everything from eating disorders to depression to stress-related disorders, you name it. It's not a walk in the park." Brenda nods and says, "I think I'll manage," barely managing not to laugh in Anne Ramsay's face after recalling the battle scars she sustained during her terribly grueling ONE DAY OF READING FILES at the free clinic. Shut up, Brenda. Anne Ramsay asks about Brenda's second language, and Brenda says it's French. "Great," says Anne Ramsay sarcastically. "We got a lot of people from France here." Lucky, lucky Brenda, landing an internship where her boss already hates her. Which will save time, I guess.
It's nighttime again already, as Vanessa opens the front door to find Rico there, still looking pretty upset. He apologizes for not calling first, but says he was driving by. Vanessa invites him in. He asks if he can take the kids out for dinner. She says he can't keep changing days on her, and he tells her to forget it. "What happened to Sharon?" she asks. "Did you find her?" How will Vanessa react when she learns that Rico blew off the kids because he was getting blown off his own self? Will she be mad? Mocking? Sympathetic? We may never know, because Rico says, "She died." Vanessa is shocked. "Yeah, yeah, she died," Rico Lovitzes. "She had a heart thing. I found her in her apartment." Vanessa grabs him into a sympathetic hug. She tells him to take the Federiquitos out for pizza to make him feel better. "Do you think you can come too?" Rico asks. Vanessa agrees, and when she leaves the room to go get ready, Rico closes his eyes like he can't believe what he just did. Everyone on the forums was like, "God, why did Rico tell such a stupid lie?" But let's give him the benefit of the doubt here. Sure, Sharon was alive when he found her in her apartment, but that scene ended before we ever saw him leave. So maybe the "heart thing" she died of was actually "Rico ripping it out of her chest and making her eat it while it was still beating."
Claire's smoking and scribbling in a journal when Billy joins her in the living room. He confesses that he doesn't have the energy for his lesson plan right now. "I'm working on a new idea," Claire says with barely suppressed excitement. Billy looks like that's the last thing he wants to hear, but Claire continues: "I want to go back to the collage stuff, but on a much bigger scale. Not just people as fragments glued together, but like the whole world." Billy says that sounds good, because he doesn't have the energy to explain to her why she's talking nonsense. Claire says she wants to "capture the idea that everything we know is just barely being held together." Billy seems to take that like a slap to the face; whether it's because he thinks it's brilliant or because it sounds like she's talking about him is nicely ambiguous. Then he shakes it off and smiles at her, saying it's big. She agrees excitedly, and says she's still trying to figure it out. "I'll let you keep working, then," he says, and leaves her alone. She sits there with a weird smile on her face, not sure what to do about her sexually and artistically frustrated boyfriend. I bet he'd feel better if she told him she tried to sell a bunch of wedding pictures to an art gallery.
Keith asks David whether he's talked to Claire yet. He's surprised to hear that David did yesterday and he's only hearing about it now. Oh, you know how it is, Keith; the resolution of this week's installment of that plot had to wait until the last act. Although David says it was because he wanted to give Claire a chance to change her mind. "She won't do it," David says. "She's strongly against it." Keith says that's weird. David takes the opening and says that what's weird is two men trying to create a child that's a mixture of both of them, which isn't biologically possible. "Let's stop pretending," David says. "All that's important is the child itself." Keith agrees. But he wants David to understand that he wasn't trying to be selfish: "I can't imagine anything greater than to be able to look at our child and see you in him...or see you in her." "Hopefully you still will," David says. I can see why they're assuming that Keith will be the biological father -- the surrogate thing was his idea anyway -- but I think David really missed a great opportunity to mess with Keith by acting like he thinks it's his own little guys who'll be doing the swimming.
Ruth, George, and Maggie are all sitting down at the table for a bowl of ice cream. George appears to be on a downslope; he's looking quietly pensive, if not completely tuned out. Ruth says she wishes Maggie could stay longer. I have no trouble whatsoever believing that. She offers George a choice between chocolate and vanilla, and George mumbles that he'll have Neapolitan. Ruth says they're out, and George starts getting upset: "How could we be out of it? That's what I like. Neapolitan." Maggie suggests a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of vanilla, but George isn't having it. "If there's no strawberry, it's definitely not Neapolitan." And he flings a carton to the floor. Realizing he's being stared at, George apologizes. "It's just...my life is so goddamn pathetic. All I have to look forward to is a fucking bowl of ice cream and I can't even get that!" This time he slams a chair on the floor. I'm beginning to think George doesn't like the kitchen floor very much. He apologizes again, and reiterates, "Oh, my life is shit." "I simply don't know how to deal with this," says Ruth. "It's like having another child." Yeah, it sucks, doesn't it, when you spend your days trying to make your spouse miserable and then you actually succeed? She sits down at the table while George stands and weeps near the doorway. Maggie goes to comfort George, saying he'll have moments like this, but that it'll get better. "Will it really?" Ruth moans. George begs Maggie not to leave, and Ruth adds that she can't take care of George by herself. She starts rocking back and forth tearily: "If you leave tomorrow night, I don't know what I'll do." Maggie, fool that she is, says that maybe she can stay a little longer. Ruth breaks down for real. Maggie goes to her as far as she can without letting go of her father's hand, but neither George nor Ruth makes a move towards the other, which leaves Maggie in limbo between them. Run, Maggie, run!
Time for Billy's pills. In his bathroom, he shakes out his one each of Lithium and Seroquel, and then stands there indecisively for a moment. And then flushes them. He watches them disappear down the toilet. And thus Creepy Jesus arose on the third day. Fade to white.
week: No, not the oranges again! Nooo!