Dancing For Me

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.