In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
News of Zoe's disappearance turns the rest of the lottery winners into even bigger morons than they already were. Nina and Peter decide to buy a big new house in a gated community for "security," and then Peter goes on a "fishing" trip (with, entirely coincidentally, Zoe's lawyer friend Dave) to try and scare up some venture capital for his new bicycle biz, only to find himself in a time warp of poker and poontang. Frankie's dad Eric flirts with Sunny. Addie "surprises" Frankie with a new apartment in New York City, but Frankie's not good-surprised. Damien, for some reason, lets his parents talk him into moving back home, but after Frankie crosses her legs at him and Damien's dad blames him for getting their house robbed, he ends up back in the hotel suite and in the arms of Galina. Cameron agrees to have a baby with Beth, and they're all happy, and then of course Cameron shows up at Nina's house to put the moves on her, again, some more. Fortunately, she kicks him out. Sean and Tally track Jeremy down in Buffalo, but he's a dead end and they have no idea what to do . Frankie decides to leave New York and go back home to her dad's house in the middle of the night, but Eric was too busy sexing somebody to get the message and is surprised when someone walks into his darkened house. No Kimberly this week. Unless she's the person that Eric shot. Yep, it's a cliffhanger. Such as it is. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
It is with light heart that I inform you that this is to be Television Without Pity's last recap of Windfall. As far as I'm concerned, the only downside to this is that I had finally broken myself of the habit of typing Nina's name as "Nine" all the damn time. Let's put this ugly-ass baby to bed. And put a pillow over its face.
It sounds like word about Zoe's disappearance has gotten out, because Addie (at home) is on the phone with Maggie (currently leaving a day spa), morbidly chattering away that bad luck often befalls lottery winners. "They say if you've been missing for 48 hours," Addie says, "you're dead." "Have you been on the internet again?" Maggie asks, like the writers don't know all that much about this new-fangled technology we're currently soaking in. Which, considering what I've been posting on it the past month, is probably just as well.
Also burning up the phone lines are Peter and Cameron. Peter gossips that Zoe's now officially a missing person, and Cameron has found out from the cops that Sean was even using a fake name. Not that I'm going to start calling Sean something else at this point. Beth's changing the baby in the background, and Peter hears the kid let out a squeal. "Is that the baby?" he asks, because with Cameron one is never really sure. Cameron waxes boring about the effect of money on their lives, and Peter tells him there's good in it. Cameron watches his wife kiss the baby, and says he sees that too. Sorry, too bored to come up with a joke here.
Peter goes out to the yard, where Nina's playing/doing yardwork with the kids. Apparently, in reaction to the Zoe thing, he's set up a "security meeting" and called all the other winners. Nina comments on the neighbor who's putting up security cameras and an ugly-ass cement wall around his property. Peter scoffs that the neighbor has always been a conspiracy freak and mocks his paranoia. And then he suggests a gated community. Well, as long as Peter hasn't gone overboard.
Sean and Tally have been pulled over for speeding. Genius move, Sean, going twenty miles over the limit when you're the prime suspect in a kidnapping. While the cop goes back to his car to do whatever the hell it is they do back there for a half hour every goddamn time they pull you over, Tally throws a bunch of stress at Sean on how to act so as not to alarm the cop, remarking that for all the cop knows, Sean has a gun. Sean insists that he doesn't, then notices the freaky way Tally's cradling her bag in her lap. And also the giant comic-book balloon floating in space above it, with an arrow pointing at it and the word "GUN" in big black letters. He grabs it away from her, and quickly finds the weapon she's got stashed in there. He demands to know what it's for, and Tally says that she wants to make sure that she and Zoe get out alive. "I don't care what he offers you." Sean reminds her that it's his money. "My question is, what would you do to get that back?" Instead of an answer, we get the credits. Wow, so Sean's not only a kidnapping suspect, he also got pulled over for speeding while leaving town with the victim's sister in the passenger seat and a gun in the vehicle. I don't know what's going to happen to him now, but if this show is even remotely realistic, he's not getting to Buffalo any time soon.
Peter, Nina, and the kids are touring some palatial home that would probably cost them their entire winnings if this show took place in a world where people have to pay taxes. Why do all the characters keep acting like $19 million is all but impossible to spend in one lifetime? The realtor talks up the place with its nine bathrooms and seven beds (seems like an odd ratio to me, unless the bathrooms aren't unisex), then leaves them to go talk to another couple. Peter and Nina quietly yammer to each other that they feel like they don't belong, but Peter says that people do live like this: "Why not us?" Sure, go for it. The time you live there could be the best four months of your lives. Just then the kids come running back in, kvelling about the backyard pool and the "built-in trampoline" (which, damn, talk about a bad idea) and saying that they picked out their room. Their "room?" They don't really get it, do they? Just wait until they move in and one of them is always waiting impatiently for one bathroom while the other eight stand empty.
Later, outside, Peter is talking to some white-haired potential future neighbor lady, when Zoe's lawyer buddy Dave, of all fucking people, wanders up and introduces himself. Apparently he lives down the street. Isn't that convenient? Peter looks familiar to Dave, but Peter tries to play it cool and doesn't mention being a lottery winner. He says that he's involved in a "cycling venture," and Dave mentions some other neighbor named Sy Fisk who's looking for someplace to invest his ridiculous fortune. Nina wanders up, and Peter introduces them, and Dave asks whether they made an offer on the house. "I think we're about to," Peter says, putting an arm around Nina.
Back at Nina and Peter's current house, all the lottery winners are gathered out on the lawn again. Doesn't anybody ever just go right in there? Or is their house like a restaurant where nobody can sit down until the entire party has arrived? Sunny, who I think is wearing the same outfit she wore last week, crosses the street and walks up onto the lawn like she belongs there. Aside from her, there's a squad car parked as well, which, as Damien clunkily exposits to Frankie, is because "They're going to brief us on how to protect ourselves." Did he think Frankie was maybe expecting a bicycle safety presentation? Damien asks Frankie out, and she says yes, like he was really putting himself out there. Frankie asks about Galina, and what she does when he's not around. "She just talks to the TV," Damien says. "It's cute...mostly," he adds uncertainly. It's unclear whether the not-cute moments are not-cute because they're irritating, or because she's watching porn in her underwear and thereby overshooting cute. Speaking of which, do I take it that she and Damien never did it? Oh, right -- not caring. Sorry.
Addie meets Maggie on the lawn, noticing that she drove up in a battered SUV instead of her old Mercedes. Addie comments on the carjacking-savvy move, but Maggie says that she's just swapping with a cousin who's trying to impress some girl. You know, every time Maggie turns up doing something for a family member, my stereotype-meter starts pinging, softly but noticeably. I won't miss that, I can tell you.
Inside the house, Addie spots her soon-to-be-if-not-already-ex-husband Eric, and bitches about his "acting like a winner" as she watches him leer at a passing Sunny. She exposits that Eric has filed an appeal in their divorce, in case we care, which we don't, and when she sees Frankie go up and hug her dad, she whines to Maggie about it. "Just when I think she has seen her dad for who she is...one day she is really going to get hurt by him." Shut up, Addie. You're beating him to it. Unless he does something drastic to catch up, of course. Maggie notices the news crew disembarking from the public-access van outside and remarks that she's "officially over being a news story." Addie totally agrees. And then she asks if Maggie has any lipstick. Haw! Oh, hee he hah hah! Whew, that was a good one.
Meanwhile, Peter and Nina talk about how the kids are in the back yard, just as Peter notices the reporter giving the cameraman a boost over the gate to the back. Peter runs up and pulls the cameraman down onto the ground. Ooh, bad-ass. No, wait, I meant bad and ass. Peter won't feel like such a big man when the cameraman sues him for $21 million.
A bit later, a police officer is briefing the winners in Nina and Peter's living room. This happened to be one of the few thirty-second snippets of the episode that my wife Trash happened to catch, and she said that the cop's acting was so bad that she kept expecting him to say something like, "The first question you all need to ask yourselves is: is it...hot in here?" Boom-chik-boom-chik-boom-chik.... But instead, the cop says that Zoe's still missing, and when the winner known as Burly Longhair asks about Sean, the cop says, "Mr. Falzone was questioned and released." Everyone thought Sean's name was Mathers, but now that the cop has dropped this little tidbit, he's done sharing about the case. He starts talking about other stuff, but then he fades down, drowned out by the "sensitive" music that starts up as Damien's parents walk in. Damien spots them as his dad tries to pretend the stick up his ass is only a mighty oak and not a giant sequoia. Sunny and Eric stand to each other and exchange a smile. The baby in Beth's lap starts fussing, and Cameron takes him, calling him James. Whoa, we have a name! I bet Gedrick totally ad-libbed it, though. Nina looks at Cameron longingly, because she never knew before now that he can actually pick up a small human without killing it.
Later, Sunny and Eric are "flirting" over mimosas and talking like they've never met before. I guess Eric didn't go to many of the lottery parties. From a doorway, Addie watches and bitches to Maggie. "She's twelve," she says. "And he's still married. And a parasite." Maggie tells Addie to let it happen. "It's a parasite convention." And that'll do it for Maggie. Which is totally unfair, because they finally found something for her to do besides hang out with her family and look for boyfriends, and that's telling Addie to shut up. We shall miss her later this hour. Meanwhile, Eric and Sunny are having this scintillating exchange:
Eric: You have beautiful eyes. Really.
Sunny: Come on.
Eric: I mean that.
Sunny: Okay.
Eric: Yeah.
Sunny: Really.
Hepburn and Tracy live!
Out on the lawn, Cameron tells Peter that he's still thinking about the business. Peter says he's already talked to some investors, so he's got it covered. Apropos of nothing but the line, Cameron tells Peter that they've been friends for a long time. "I'm not the one that needs reminding of that, Cameron," Peter zings, and heads back into the house, leaving Cameron standing there with a WTF expression that's totally going to freeze there one of these days.
Eric's still working on Sunny, who's telling him that she made the mimosas: "I always try to bring something. That's who I am. I'm a giver." See, that's ironic, because -- oh, fuck it. Eric asks for her phone number, but she leaves him hanging, at least until the mini-scene ends.
Out on the sidewalk, Damien's walking with his parents as his dad harangues him about security at the hotel. Really, he's just warming up to ask Damien to come home. For some reason, when he does, Damien doesn't laugh in his face. Dad, thinking that he has an advantage, tries to assert some power, telling Damien that the car's got to go. Damien refuses, but softens and offers to use it only on the weekends. What the hell is he doing? I don't care how far down the hall the ice machine is, Damien's better off out of that house. Dad mentions school, which Damien also shoots down, so Dad suggests a GED instead. "You have your whole life to be an adult," Mom says. Damien asks what to do about Galina, but reading their faces, he concedes, "I guess bunk beds aren't really an option." Whatever that means. He says that he'll think about it. Or maybe he's hoping that if he gives them a little more time, their already lame offer will get worse.
So how do you suppose Sean and Tally are faring after running afoul of the law? Do you suppose that they're languishing in some upstate New York jailhouse, waiting for Dave to come to the rescue once again? He's going to do some fast talking to get them out of this jam, right?
Oh, for fuck's sake, they made it to Buffalo. I give up. Sean's at the home of an old girlfriend who also happens to be Jeremy's sister, Jill. Once again, the show has actually done a good job of casting actors who really do look like siblings. Oh, wait, Nina and Cameron don't count. Never mind. Sean asks where Jeremy is, but Jill claims not to know. Tally gets out of the car now, and Sean introduces her. "Just let us inside," he tells Jill. "You don't want the neighbors hearing this." Yes, they might fall asleep and impale themselves on their gardening shears.
Inside the house, Jill lets Sean leave a grimy fingerprint on her ginormous new TV as he suspiciously asks where it came from, given her tollbooth salary. Ask about her haircut while you're at it, Sean. She's still playing dumb, so Sean decides to do a little tough talking. He says that Jeremy took Zoe, and left her blood on the floor of her apartment. Tally cringes as Sean continues that "Jeremy's got her down in some hole somewhere and he's torturing her until he's got as much as he can out of her. And then he's done, and so is she." Jill finally confesses that Jeremy showed up a few days ago and comes by once in a while, usually in the middle of the night. Sean asks if they can wait at Jill's house for him, and for some reason she agrees because she wants some bad shit going down in her home at two in the morning. Usually you have to have a baby for that.
Frankie's back home and on the phone with Damien, bailing on their date. Apparently her mom has insisted that they're going to New York City together. Damien complains a bit, but when he comes across a trail of girly underwear in Galina's room he can't get off the phone soon enough. The call over, Frankie goes into Addie's bedroom, where her mom is busy packing and saying that "New York just might be the right move for us." She thinks that they stand out too much at home, but in New York they'll blend in with all the other millionaires. Especially the ones who talk to themselves all day in the subway station. Frankie looks alarmed at the idea, but Addie tells her to relax. "Let's see if you like New York first." Frankie doesn't look reassured.
Meanwhile, Damien has followed the trail of skivvies to Galina, with whom he's again broaching the subject of moving out. It's a little tough for him, though, because he's kind of distracted by the fact that she's standing there in her underwear. She in turn is confused by Damien's mind-changing. "I want to go home," Damien whines. Galina is as flummoxed by this development as I am, wondering what happened to his thirst for freedom. Damien stutters and finally says, "I'm seventeen." She gets up close to him and says that where she comes from, that's considered a man. "I used to think you would like it there," she says, and kisses him on the cheek. She thanks him for a nice time, and saunters out. I only wish he'd asked her what happens when you hit eighteen so that she could turn back and say, "In Russia, eighteen hits you."
Over at Nina and Peter's, Nina is confused about why he's going off to some fishing trip in Baja with some dude he just met, like Dave is going to fill Peter full of roofies or something. She's also worried about Peter being gone while their new house is in escrow, but Peter just keeps sorting through his tackle box and says that's what realtors are for. Nina wonders why Peter didn't even admit to being a lottery winner, and Peter claims it's because he needs his potential investors to think that he has both luck and brains. He's going to need a lot more of the first one to convince anyone of the second. And from out of nowhere Peter grumps, "Especially now that our old friend Cameron can't be counted on." Nina wonders what just happened there. Peter bitches, "You know how he is. He likes to keep his options open. That way when the best thing comes along, you're not disappointed 'cause he never promised you anything. Hell, you should know that better than anybody." Dick move. Peter apologizes. "We never used to fight like this," Nina says, and Peter responds that he never asked for anything before. "That came out wrong," he stutters into Nina's flat glare. "I though I had everything I needed," he "clarifies." Nina tells him that came out worse. Peter gets up and leaves the room to pack. Okay, good talk!
Stock footage of Times Square tells us that we're in New York, and Addie's showing Frankie where they're staying. It's some fancy loft, and Frankie asks, "Is this like a hotel? Why is it all furnished?" Does Frankie usually stay in hotels where you have to bring your own furniture? That sounds kind of inconvenient. She wanders around looking at all the fancy art and crap, and then her eye is caught by a framed photo of herself and Addie. "What am I doing here?" she demands. Ooh, a double meaning! I was beginning to forget what those sounded like. Addie's answer: "Surprise!" She bought the place. Frankie's flat-out pissed when she thinks they're moving there, even when Addie tells her that it's just a "pied-a-terre. A second home in the city." "Well, it's a third for me, if anyone's counting," Frankie huffs. Addie has the nerve to act all hurt that Frankie isn't thanking her, or impressed that she can just casually drop the phrase "pied-a-terre." Frankie relents a bit and whinily asks why they had to come today if Addie already owns it, since she had plans for the evening. Instead of answering Frankie, Addie answers her ringing cell phone, and speaks flirtatiously to someone named "Marco," who's inviting them to dinner at Elaine's. Addie asks if she's up for Italian. "Food or boyfriend?" Frankie asks. "Who's Marco?" Addie walks off, telling Marco, "Everything's fine. She's just being a teenager, that's all." That makes two of them.
Speaking of being a teenager, Damien's cell phone rings while he's watching TV. It's Frankie, whining about her day. She drops the name of the building (the Welton), the boyfriend (Marco, in case you had to grab a nap during the paragraph break), and "some woman named Elaine," but says she's not going there even when Damien tells her it's a famous restaurant. "Which means I'm stuck here alone." Okay, now she's just pouting. Frankie asks if Damien can talk, but he says that he "has to be someplace" and they'll talk later.
Of course, no one except Frankie is surprised when Damien turns up at her door that very evening. She happily invites him in and asks how he got there, like we didn't all hear her say the name of the building. "You took a whole plane trip just to see me?" Frankie asks. "Well, half wouldn't have been any fun," Damien mistakenly responds. And apparently my theory about the show being set in upstate New York is in the shitter. That would have been a short plane ride indeed. He makes sure his little move isn't too stalkery, and says, "Here we are. Nyorck Nyorck." I don't think I've heard it pronounced quite that way before. He asks if she knows anywhere to go, and since she doesn't, they decide to just stay in and make out.
Nina's doing a solo walkthrough in her new house, while on the cell phone with someone who's calling to cancel the inspection that's apparently scheduled for that day. Which doesn't explain how she got in, but whatever. She calls Beth and Cameron and gets their voicemail. As she starts to apologize for not coming over with a carload of used baby stuff (which, whatever; M. Small isn't even two and you wouldn't believe how much crap we've already passed along), she turns on the kitchen sink and quickly sees water flooding out of the cabinet below, like the drain isn't even hooked up. "Oh, God, I broke the mansion," Nina tells the machine, and hangs up in a panic.
Meanwhile, Nina's husband is lounging poolside in what's supposed to be Baja. You can tell by the mural of the ocean in the background. Peter's with Dave and a couple of other guys, and Dave brings up Peter's bike factory idea and asks how it's going. Peter rambles for a while, trying to sound like he knows what he's talking about while also trying to look like he's not checking out the bikini babes swarming around the area. He admits that it's "a chunk of change," but Dave's not worried, because he's since found out that Peter's a lottery winner. "In the business world, it's called due diligence," he condescends. Peter's embarrassed, but Dave tells him not to worry about it and says that Peter's got a good idea. Peter hopes so, since he hasn't told Nina how much he's sinking into this thing. Which is just stupid of him. One of the bikini babes then sits down to Dave, and another one materializes behind Peter. Dave says something about a card game going on in the building behind them. Groping the chick to him, Dave says, "We trade out hands as the need arises." And somehow, I don't know how, he manages to make that phrase sound so completely filthy you can't believe it didn't get bleeped. Which, good for LaPaglia. I mean, I can understand why they shoehorned Dave into this plotline where he has no business being, because Dave is one of the less soporific characters on this show. I just wish they hadn't turned him into an even bigger prick. Kind of wrecks it, you know? Peter says that he's going to call his wife instead and get to bed early so they can go fishing in the morning. Dave laughs at the poor dumb square and leers that fishing time is over, and they even have a guy who meets them at the airport with a cooler full of fish, "if the wife needs convincing." Dave tells Peter that this is his big chance to get his hands on some of Sy Fisk's money, but Peter's still doubtful. "What's the big deal?" says Dave. "You're lying to your wife already." And then he herds Peter back towards that aforementioned card game. Wow, who knew that over a decade later, Dylan McKay would still be dealing with peer pressure?
Fortunately, Cameron just happened to be in their new neighborhood when he checked his voicemail, so he was able to stop by and turn off Nina's water, although he advises her to hire a plumber. My advice would be to let the seller worry about that shit, since it's not actually Nina's house yet. After Nina mentions that Peter's out of town, the subject moves to the kid in Cameron's house, which Nina has heard may become permanent. Somehow, for some reason, in case anybody cares. "I'm just trying to do the right thing, Nina. For everybody." Well, don't hurt yourself, dude. He tells Nina it's a nice house and that he hopes they'll be happy there. And he's out. What a hero.
In New York City, Damien is making out with Frankie on the living room couch. He tries to talk his way into her pants, but she's not ready. As in still a virgin. Damien doesn't say that he is too, but he does try Galina's line that in Europe, they'd be considered adults. Which kind of bums them both out, and Damien decides that since he's not getting any, he might as well go. It's almost that abrupt, too. I always kind of had the impression that it's rude to leave just because sex isn't forthcoming, but we should give Damien a break. Perhaps he's remembering the old song and thinking, Man, if I can't make it here, I can't make it anywhere.
Sean and Tally are crashed out in Jill's living room when the lady of the house comes down in a lacy black nightgown to talk to her ex. Sean's awake, but says that Tally has been asleep for a while. Jill invites Sean up to her room, but Sean says that he's with someone. Jill realizes that it's the woman Sean's looking for. Wow, with those powers of deduction, he should bring her into the investigation. It would double the brainpower at work now. "I used to wonder what it would take to get inside of you," Jill says. "I guess somebody found out." And then we see that Tally is awake after all. Must have been the thrilling dialogue.
Cameron comes home after dark to find his wife in the tub. She starts to say that the baby's asleep and everything's under control, like now that she's dropped the Ice Queen act all the child care is her responsibility because she's a girl. But Cameron acts all magnanimous about letting her stay under her network-friendly blanket of bubbles, saying, "I'm on duty." Big of him when the kid's sleeping. She asks about his day, and he "modestly"says, "I did good." Beth thinks that he means in class, but of course he means he did good in not helping Nina christen all seven of her bedrooms and half the bathrooms. Instead of correcting Beth, he parks himself on a stool to the tub, and asks whether she's happy. But all he's doing is confusing her, until he says, "Let's do it. Let's have a baby." Poor gullible shlub that she is, she actually looks thrilled. Which, I can tell you, one week into having a new baby in your house, and someone brings up a second one? She would now be drowning herself.
Daytime. Damien leaves his Viper parked on the street in front of his parents' house. It's loaded up with all the boxes it can carry, which is to say about three. But when Damien reaches the front door, he finds the glass broken, the place ransacked, and his dad on the phone yelling at the police. Even so, Damien doesn't figure out what's up, probably just so he can say, "What's going on? I saw our forks outside." Dad gets off the phone as Mom says that they've been robbed. Dad blames Damien for parking a hundred-thousand dollar car outside. "It's there now," Damien says angrily, "because you asked me to come home. And like an idiot, I'm here because I thought you gave a crap about me." You can say that again. Especially the "idiot" part. Say that several times, in fact. He "rages" at them a bit more, and it makes me sad that even though Jon Foster is one of the less sucky actors on this show, they really shouldn't make him yell at people because he just doesn't have the voice for it. One more example of how Windfall ruins everything.
Beth comes home from a run to find Cameron doing that clean-up thing you do right after the kid's gone to sleep and the living room is too messy to even collapse in. Not that my wife or I would know anything about that. Beth tells him that he should get out of the house, like he doesn't have a job. When he says that he was planning to cook for them, she tells him to just pick something up. So Cameron's out of there. Let's hope that he does something nice for her in return.
Jeremy lets himself into Jill's pitchblack house, and the second he turns on the light, Sean's there to sock him in the puss (again) and throw him up against the wall. Did Jill let them stay two nights, then? Because I think a whole day has gone by back home. I know several have gone by in my living room since this episode came on. Sean demands to know where Zoe is, but Jeremy denies any knowledge. "Nice to see you too," he adds. Tally's up now, and Jill comes down fully dressed in the middle of the night for some reason, yelling that she thought Sean wasn't going to hurt Jeremy. Whatever, stupid lady. Sean tosses Jeremy's keys to Tally and drags a flailing Jeremy out to the front yard, the women close behind them. Sean forces Jeremy into the back of Jeremy's car, even as Jill's yelling at him to let her brother go. Sean yells at her, "You want the cops here? He's got a warrant, he'll go straight to jail. Is that what you want?" Because Jill is stupid, she just groans and huffs back into the house. Sean orders Tally behind the wheel, and they're off. Funny thing about the actor who plays Jeremy: as soon as I saw him, back in the pilot, I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. And then some cursory research revealed that it's because I've recapped him before. Twice. See how this show is just leaching the IQ points right out of my...you know, squishy thing?PreviousNext
Cameron's sitting at a traffic light with a bag full of Chinese takeout on the seat to him. The light turns green, and we can chalk up one more obnoxious act to Cameron's growing list: he just sits there until the car behind him honks. Cameron pulls a "U"-ey. Stupid traffic light. Whenever Cameron has time to think, bad things inevitably happen.
And wouldn't you know, it, thing we see is Cameron parked outside of Nina's house all stalkery, watching her close the drapes. When he goes up and knocks on the door and she answers, his opening line is, "Don't ask me what I'm doing here, 'cause the truth is I don't know." Could that be more Cameron? How many times do you think he rehearsed that shit in his head? To her credit, Nina looks totally over his bullshit and tells him to go. Cameron agrees that he should, but instead of leaving, he paces the porch and says, "I don't wanna hurt anyone. I don't wanna hurt your family, I don't wanna hurt Peter my best friend." Nina mentions his wife, and he suddenly remembers that he loves her too. "I was doing so well pushing ahead away from you," he says, "and now here I am." Not that well, clearly. Nina's actually pretty pissed at him. "I was over you," she says, her voice breaking. I would think she'd be even more over him now. But instead she admits to him that she keeps wondering, "Does he still love me? And if not then why not? And where did it go?" And does that place have an extradition treaty? Cameron says that his feelings for her aren't going away, but he doesn't want to hurt her family. Nina's eyes fill with tears as she asks if he's talking about an affair. "We could be together whenever," Cameron shrugs charmingly. Nina drags him across the porch and all but throws him off it, which I'm all for. The only problem is that she's not doing it because she's pissed, but because she's actually tempted. Idiot. Cameron kisses her on the hand that's grabbed his shirt, and leaves, so that his wife can finally get some cold Chinese takeout in her belly.
Damien comes back to the hotel suite to find Galina poring over a lease document. Apparently the place she found to move into is demanding a five-thousand-dollar security deposit on a nine-hundred-dollar-per-month apartment, which Damien describes as "crazy." Galina admits her mistake, but says that Damien can't help: "You pack, I pack, we go." Damien tries to call a halt, even as she's taking her ever-rotating wardrobe out of her closet. Galina points out, "Room over. You move home." Damien says that didn't really work out. Good thing he didn't already check them out of the room, no? Galina puts her clothes on the bed and asks, "And New York? With Freddie?" She realizes that Damien is upset, aside from everything else. Damien: "I just...don't know where I'm supposed to be. Or even how I'm supposed to be. Or what I'm supposed to want. Or expect of people that I'm not even like any more." "I like you," Galina says. Damien tries to clear up what he means, but she just repeats her statement and starts kissing him. Damn, this kid's lips get a lot of action. I bet I could have gotten way more dates in high school if I'd had twenty million dollars too, though.
Speaking of "Freddie," she's writing a note to her mom, who apparently still hasn't gotten back from her date with Marco. At the same time, she's calling her dad, but she gets his answering machine. She tells him that she's coming home, and that he doesn't have to wait up, as long as the key's under the mat. As the shot cuts to Frankie's voice coming out of his answering machine, the point is clearly not what's under the mat, but what's under Eric. Or who, as the case clearly is. At any rate, he doesn't hear the call.
Cameron comes home to find Beth asleep in bed with the baby. Damn, how long was he gone, anyway? Rather than waking them up, he goes out to sleep on the couch. He's all about doing the right thing, Cameron is. I bet in the morning he'll even go out to the car and scrape congealed Kung Pao off his seats for her breakfast.
Nina's throwing away a bunch of old letters and stuff, but she doesn't get very far before fetching up against a couple of old pictures of Cameron, one of which also shows her with him. She smiles a little, but looks up guiltily when Peter comes in, carrying his fishing pole and the obligatory mini-cooler. It's a tossup as to which of them is acting more distant and guilty, and which of them tells the other less. Not that either of them notices the other acting strange, even when Peter just kisses Nina on the cheek. I refuse to make a comment here about Peter smelling like fish.
Jarring tone shift! Sean is getting tired of asking Jeremy where Zoe is, so he tells Tally to pull over. Jeremy scoffs that Sean's witnesses (Lisa and Kurt, who Jeremy also apparently knows, and who are apparently meth addicts or something) are going to fold if Sean brings in the cops. Sean tells Tally to pull over anyway. I don't see any cops around.
Frankie's just arriving home, at the Westlake Airport. So, Ohio, then? Whatever, not that I care. She gets into a cab, looking sad.
Once Tally's got Jeremy's car stopped in some field somewhere, Sean forces him out of the car at gunpoint and leads him into the glare of the headlights. "Sean, don't," Tally tells him. Sean does anyway. What was his plan before Tally's gun turned up?
Frankie tries her dad on her cell phone. For some reason, Eric's house has a 612 area code. If Frankie really did fly into Ohio, she has a long cab ride to Minneapolis ahead of her.
Sean has Jeremy on his knees and is standing behind him with the gun. Jeremy is still denying everything, but Sean wants to know how Jeremy was able to afford to buy his sister that new TV.
Eric starts awake, and whoever's in bed with him -- whose face we don't see -- asks whether someone's there. Eric says that he forgot to bring the key in from outside. "That's so stupid with all the break-ins," he berates himself, getting a gun out of the nightstand drawer. Don't beat yourself up, Eric. You're about to do something even stupider.
Jeremy tells Sean that he got the money for the TV from Zoe's friend (and now Peter's fishing buddy, and probably week Maggie's boyfriend and Frankie's social studies teacher and Beth's mechanic) Dave, and complains that there's hardly any left. "The guy made me buy my own plane ticket out. You know how expensive that is last minute?" Jeremy bitches. Sean cocks the gun and presses it against Jeremy's shoulder. "You're lying," he hisses.
Eric is still fumbling in the nightstand, probably loading the gun. Out in the hallway, the answering machine is blinking with its one message as a figure in a long coat moves through the house. "Stay in bed," Eric tells his partner. The silhouette in his house keeps walking. We can't see its face, but its hair is roughly as long and as big as Frankie's.
I hope all these short paragraphs aren't generating a feeling of suspense. It would be really unfaithful to the show if they were.
Jeremy continues to insist that he doesn't have Zoe: "If I did, do you think I'd be driving around to drug stores, buying frigging cold medicine for Lisa and Kurt's meth lab?" I don't know what he's doing hanging out with Lisa and Kurt in the first place, considering they sold him up the river to give Sean an alibi. Tally runs around to look in the trunk of Jeremy's car. "I hear one more lie come out of your mouth--" Sean threatens. Tally sees something large and wrapped in plastic in Jeremy's trunk.
A revolver goes off in close-up. We're supposed to think it's the gun in Sean's hand, even though that's an automatic.
Tally screams Sean's name.
Pan up from the smoking gun. It's the one Eric's holding -- and he looks horrified. Ooh, stylish! Except not.
The one in Sean's hand is still cold, as we can see from the fact that Jeremy's head continues to be intact. Looks like it's going to stay that way, too, because Tally has found a trunk full of over-the-counter cold medicine. "Look at all this crap," she says. "He's making meth." Jeremy takes this opportunity to flee into the woods, pausing only to toss an "I told you so" over his shoulder. Tally wants to know what they're going to do now to find Zoe. Sean has no idea. It won't be until week that he realizes that Zoe intentionally ditched his scruffy ass.
Eric stands there, watching the shot-up intruder try to crawl away down the hall. "Oh, my God," the woman from his bed says. Eric claims that the gun just went off. Yeah, that'll happen when you pull the trigger. The shooting victim collapses on the floor, and blood starts spilling out from under the body.
Which is an apt metaphor, really. Thanks to all who read and posted, Mr. Kwan for his stellar editing work, and Wing Chun for putting a bullet in this show for me. See you on Rock Star.