The Silence

A middle-aged couple is walking down the sidewalk as the husband bitches about the play they're on their way to see. The wife exposits that the director, her best friend's only son, invited them, so they're basically obligated to be there. As they get their tickets, the husband carps, "Why do people invite anybody to anything?" "I have no idea," is the response. Well, from what I've heard about the L.A. theater scene, it's just about the only way to get an audience to show up.

Cut to later, inside the theater, where we're somewhere in act four of an incredibly earnest production of The Seagull (I think?). The husband starts coughing in his seat. He tries to keep it together, but his wife quickly realizes there's something wrong. She starts unbuttoning his shirt to help him breathe, but his distress becomes louder, to the extent that the actors onstage are starting to get distracted. That's because they're bad actors, as we already saw before hubby started hacking. Pretty soon they're all just standing up there on their marks, staring blankly into the audience. Nobody has risen to help, but it's too late anyway, because the husband is already sitting dead in his seat. "Oh, no, Peter," wails the wife, sotto voce, because raising your voice during a play just isn't done. "What should we do?" asks one of the actors. Well, standing there isn't working out so well. And that's the final curtain for Peter Thomas Burns (1948-2005). Talk about a showstopper. But judging by what we saw of that production, I'd say he did the rest of the audience a favor. time, try to cack during the first act, okay?

Nate's asleep in bed, until he's awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of a phone ringing. Brenda's spot to him is empty, although some set dresser did a nice job of leaving a dent in her pillow where her fucked-up head would have been. Nate gets up and walks down the darkened hallway to Maya's room. Although I've never mentioned it before, Maya has one of those tabletop nightlights with a multicolored, rotating shade. Normally it's cute and soothing, but now that the many-hued light is illuminating the sinister spectacle of her mysteriously empty bed, it makes the abandoned room look like a bit like a portal into a hell dimension. Angel could have saved so much money on special effects if they'd just bought a few of those. Nate proceeds down the hallway and picks up the still-ringing phone in the living room, but nobody's at the other end. And then someone is, but it's just a staticky voice saying something unintelligible, like a telemarketer from beyond the grave. "Who is this?" Nate demands. "Where's my wife? And where's my daughter?" The mumbling just gets louder. It's creepy as fuck, and Nate's starting to panic. He slams down the phone, which immediately starts ringing again.

And Nate wakes up for real, to discover that his real phone is really ringing in real life. Did I forget to mention the eerie musical undertone during that last scene that totally gave it away as a dream sequence? Because it did, but it added enough eeriness to make up for it. And now it's stopped. Before answering the actual phone, Nate makes sure Brenda's still in bed to him (she is). You'll never guess who's calling this late; no, it's not Miss Othmar, Charlie Brown's teacher, it's Maggie, who's calling from her parked car again. I know they don't want to go to the trouble and expense of building a whole "Maggie's Apartment" set, but would it kill them to shoot her talking on the phone in front of a blank wall once in a while so we don't have to sit and wonder if she lives in a late-model sedan? She's crying into the phone, saying she didn't know who else to call. Nate asks Maggie what's going on. "Who is it?" mumbles Brenda groggily. It's just your husband's girlfriend, Brenda. Go back to sleep.

At a more civilized hour, David stands at the kitchen sink, chuckling at the severely defaced sports section from the newspaper. Keith approaches, asking if David's seen it. David quickly crumples it up and stuffs it in the garbage before Keith enters the room, and blames its absence on the paperboy. Still covering for the kids, I see. That's a healthy dynamic. And anyway, a sports fan who can't stand looking at the occasional Sharpie mustache on [insert your favorite Los Angeles-based professional athlete here] is no kind of sports fan. Keith says he's heading out for the day. "I hope you've been noticing how much I've been watching my temper," he adds. "Those boys aren't easy." David says he knows, since Keith reminds him every day. Calling Keith's attention to the sound of innocent, childish laughter from the other room, David says, "He's basically just a sweet little kid." Keith agrees, until the sound of innocent, childish laughter becomes mixed with the sound of naughty, manly grunts and groans. Whoops. Sounds like the kids got into the stash.

Out to the living room, where Anthony and Durrell are sitting in front of the TV in their pajamas and laughing their heads off at -- what else? -- gay porn. And they're not even to the good part of the movie yet, unless gay porn is a whole lot more chaste than I've been led to believe. Keith angrily turns off the TV. "Where did you find those?" he demands. David adds, "Those tapes were in a locked box underneath a pile of old Ralph Lauren sheets underneath our bed." "So then you know where I found them," Durrell cracks. David and Keith exchange a frustrated glance, but it looks like Keith is letting David handle this one. Which he does, wimpily, explaining that from now on, the contents of any locked boxes in the house that Durrell might happen to come across are private. "Fine," Durrell grumps, because nobody ever lets him have any fun. Anthony asks if they can get ready for school, and David shoos them off to get dressed. "That went well," David says hopefully to Keith, who doesn't say anything but looks like he couldn't agree less.

Claire's at her desk at work, and she's actually sprung for a new outfit. Now that the humor potential of the periwinkle suit has been exhausted, they've got her in conservative clothes in the wardrobe palette she usually wears. That's right, it's back to all puke-green, all the time. She concentrates on her monitor while behind her, her coworkers make plans to go to someplace called Doc's after work. And last week, we were led to believe that Nerd Drone is the only one in the office who's indiscriminately using the phrase "Yeah, baby," but since then the habit has spread like a cancer. To my horror and Claire's, Y-bombs are flying all over the place. Nerd Drone invites Claire to join them for drinks. "The bar in the mall?" Claire asks with too-cool-for-school incredulity and contempt. "That's just 'cause it's the closest place, and they have pitchers. Everyone from work goes there," Nerd Drone excuses, embarrassed. Claire has a real nametag on her cube wall now, by the way. Claire apologizes for her rudeness, but she still isn't joining them. Kirsten and Perky Cubemate lean on Claire, largely relying on an argument centered around whether she thinks her shit stinks, but she still declines. "Maybe another time," she says. She's just too punk rock for all this.