Five. A good, solid number -- isn't it? -- with so many ties to our daily lives. Five fingers. Five toes. Five golden rings. Five minutes of Charmed is five minutes too many. Five Alive. The Jackson Five. Five corpulent porpoises. Gimme Five. Five episodes of Wolf Lake. Five...what? Oh, yeah, this show got cancelled. Well, it's on "hiatus," but I think we all know how such things usually go. It's the Hiatus of the Damned. Right about now, Tim Matheson is blowing his paycheck on scented candles, two nubile strippers with a chain fetish and a Harley -- all before rolling back over to The West Wing, giving Aaron Sorkin a framed copy of a Wolf Lake script, and autographing it, "Dear Aaron: Let's never, ever fight. Ever. Love, The Veep."
So for the last time -- at least until CBS sells the rights to the UPN, or perhaps the Czech Republic -- CBS has graciously supplied many of the same damn "previously" clips that aired before the last two episodes, plus a handful of things from last time. Basically, we know Lou is looking for Ruby, whose powerful father is holding her captive, and Tyler the Hot But Evil Villain wants to marry her in a purely political move. Sophia wonders if she's a wolf, and gets curious about the double life she might have a chance to lead. Her father doesn't want her to lead that life. Oh, no! What will she do?
Miranda, the sultry and overrated lounge singer, saunters around the bar dressed in a short, tight skirt and a tummy-baring tank top. She starts grooving and twirling to the Latin-flavored background music. Arthur Murray vomits all over the inside of his coffin. Tyler ogles her hungrily. His friend doesn't understand Ty's interest, and is unable to conjure thick enough beer goggles to turn Miranda into a luscious meal. Tyler insists it just takes a little creativity. "Granted, she's basically dead from the neck up, but from the neck down? World-class," he grins. I hope that's how they wrote up the audition notice, so that Brandy Heidrick could stare at her dead face in the mirror, throw her hands up in the air and shout, "It's like they wrote the part for me!" How reassuring when everyone on your show has decided you're basically hideous, but with redeeming knees -- oh, and tits. Tyler figures the scenery doesn't matter. "Why look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire?" he growls. Fabulous. A man in a wheelchair -- a Meat Loaf sort with a long ponytail -- watches this unfold. Tyler strolls around to Miranda's gyrating body, stands behind her, and slides his hands down her thighs, basically making sure the whole bar is watching her crotch. He rubs her just long enough for me to feel unclean. Miranda rejects his offer to nail. Yet somehow, her body has now turned around, pinned against his and lowering itself slowly onto the pool table. This facilitates banter, and the missionary position. Miranda's legs are basically wrapped around his groin. If he sneezed hard, they'd be having sex. No one else in the bar seems to mind two people pseudo-porking on the pool table. They're just happy to be there. Tyler glides a hand down Miranda's shoulder and across her left boob. Scott Bairstow's all, "Enjoy it while it lasts, because we just told the whole country you're a fugly troll." Wheelchair Man winces. He has boobs, too, but they don't get nearly as much attention. Miranda prods Tyler's chest with a cue when she rejects him, but given that she's still cleaving to his groin, I'm pretty sure it counts as a mixed message. Tyler notes that she must need to be chased before she "flip[s] open like a cheap suitcase." Smiling, Miranda clocks him in the jaw. Tyler lands hard on the floor, a small, bright red gouge appearing on the apple of his left cheek. Wheelchair Man wants him to cut the crap, because they're closing soon. "I dropped three hundred dollars in here tonight, Brucie," Tyler snarls. "I say when we close." Miranda wiggles over to Tyler and smirks, "You should put some alcohol on that," then dumps her drink over his head. Tyler is annoyed, and blue-balled. "Good night, Power Rangers," Miranda purrs. "It's been a slice." I'm going to miss this show! But whenever I'm blue and lonely for it, I'll just roll around in a sewer and suddenly it'll be like Wolf Lake never left me.
Sophia sits alone on her balcony, tapping away at her G4 laptop for faster, better, and more stylish computing -- you won't even notice your complete lack of social life! Oh, but I'd give it all up, too, for a G4; it's evident that Apple needs to sponsor my recaps. Donner catches her and wonders why she's still awake at 2 AM. Sophia exposits that it's the fourth night in a row she's tossed and turned without ever being able to fall asleep. "I want to jump out of my skin," she complains. Donner suggests that she visit a doctor, but Sophia moans that Dr. ItDoesn'tMatter always treats her like a child. "I'm not a kid anymore. When is he gonna realize that?" she gripes good-naturedly. "I'm a disturbed teenager." Donner isn't listening, because he doesn't care unless she has a plan for knocking Jed Bartlet out of office. "It came!" he crows, waving a letter in the air. "The one that I've been waiting...the one that you've been waiting for!" Sophia is too nervous to open the letter from the University of Florence, so Donner does the honors and scans the contents while a queasy Sophia watches anxiously. "We got in!" he shouts. All that sex, followed by sixteen years of pretending to care, finally paid off! He can ship his kid off to Italy! It works all the time on other shows. The kids never come back. Sophia is delighted with her success, throwing her arms around Donner's shoulders. He's elated, but she looks a bit awkward about the whole thing, hug included. He reaffirms his pride in her achievement, and she toddles off to read about Florence while Donner takes a phone call.
The Hospital of Our Lady of the Divine Grocery-Store Basement. The doctor tells Lou that Miranda's got multiple contusions and teeth marks on her arm and shoulder, with lacerations on her back. But he won't admit she was raped, dismissing her as a messed-up druggie who's constantly in and out of the hospital for reasons real and imagined. She blew a 0.24 -- and then took a breathalyzer. "Rape is a relative term," Dr. Asshole assholes. "Not to me," scowls Lou, defender of the Ruby sex.
Miranda grapples with a nurse who's preventing her from smoking. Lou appears when the nurse leaves, watching as Miranda successfully sparks up a cigarette. "Are you gonna lecture me, too?" she says jumpily. "Tell me you're hipper than that." Lou asks how she feels. "Like I just won the lottery," she sasses, but at about two thousand words per second. She's shaking and quivering and spitting out lines like they're career poison. Which, of course, they are. She fends off all of Lou's attempts at concern, then balks when the nurse returns to photograph her wounds. "We take photos of all our assault victims," the nurse says dully. Miranda refuses to fall into that category, grabbing her stuff and bolting, but not before grabbing whatever medications she can snag from the M.D.
Miranda limps home without her shoes, still clad in her hospital gown and apparently unconcerned that most such garments don't close in the back. Lou follows, forever unaware of the proper time to quit. He tells her that she doesn't need to be brave. "I'm never brave," she spits. "And I may not always know what I'm doing, but I do tonight." Lou anxiously begs her to let them examine her with a proper rape kit to facilitate catching the culprit, but Miranda again fends him off. "You're new in town, so let me just clear some things up," she says, stopping and facing Lou. "Things like justice... [and] equal rights -- those are all for folks on the Hill. Down here, justice is not only blind, she's deaf, dumb, has a flabby ass and walks around on one leg." Which means she's in bed with Tyler right now. Donner pulls up in his swanky SUV and sprints over to Miranda, worried. "I'm all right," she demurs. "Nothing three or four tons of makeup can't cure." Wrapping his jacket around her shoulders -- which is more than Lou offered -- Donner gently loads Miranda into the car so he can drive her home. I'm sure Lou would've given her a lift if his Fisher-Price "Look At Me, Mom, I'm Three!" Motorcycle could fit more than just one person. As Donner looks worried, Lou complains that they'll never have a suspect if they don't have an official victim.
Bruce parks his wheelchair on the diner floor and croons "New York, New York" into a shot-glass-qua-microphone. Lou barges in and eavesdrops on a few bars until Bruce opens his eyes, aware he's been busted. "I'd trade it all for perfect pitch," he says, aiming for charming yet sounding drunk. He says indulging his fantasies like this is the biggest perk of being a manager. Lou introduces himself, but it's completely unnecessary because he's the only outsider who's set foot in Wolf Lake since the '60s, when that whole free love/orgy thing went horribly, horribly awry. "You're the guy who's looking for my brother's daughter," Bruce says, so that we know exactly where he fits into this warped, shallow town gene pool. He commends Lou on persevering in the hunt for Ruby. "I've made an informal study of weakness," Bruce self-pities. "Take me, for example. Who'd blame me if I hung it up?" Basically, he blathers that he's triumphed over adversity, blah blah blah gets all the good parking spotscakes. Lou cuts to the chase, asking whether Miranda hung out there on That Fateful Night and, if so, whether Bruce noticed something unusual. "Everything about Miranda is unusual," Bruce muses. Lou wants to know who Miranda was with that night. "Miranda's not with anybody," Bruce explains. "Everybody's with Miranda. She's one of those 'people of the world.'" Or, she's a slut, in layman's terms -- no pun intended. Bruce wants to wax poetic, though, because he wants to get another acting job. "[She's] a jump-start on a frosty night, [or] the flame that makes all the shadows dance," Bruce sighs. In the interest of confidentiality, Lou doesn't want to reveal anything about Miranda's not-yet-official case, so instead he just announces that Miranda got raped that night. "That bastard," mutters Bruce. "Who?" Lou asks. "Tyler Creed," Bruce answers.
Clyde the Bodyguard brings Ruby to her parents' house, at which point Willard dispatches Clyde permanently. Apparently, Clyde hasn't been allowed to return to his family throughout his whole gig guarding Ruby, which is completely stupid, but whatever. Picking out the stupid in this show is a bit like trying to find a needle inside a giant bucket of even bigger needles. Ruby sullenly enters the house, strolling into the living room without so much as a query about her father's health. "Changing of the guard?" she sneers. Willard begs her to humor him and purge her tone of contempt, but she isn't letting him off that easy. If he frees her, she says, "[she'll] speak to [him] on bended knee and in rhyming couplets." Except that would make them seem like lovers, and that's gross even in wolf country. Willard casually tells her she's free. Savvy Ruby knows strings are attached somewhere; Willard plays it cool, but does admit that she must exercise good judgment, because he can't protect her if she bolts back to Lou's bed. Ruby glares. "Once he sees you, he won't settle for anything less than the truth," Willard points out. "And around here, that doesn't exactly increase your life expectancy." Ruby seethes that he's essentially trading her literal prison for a figurative one, but Willard prefers to think of it as protecting her best interests. Naturally, Ruby balks at this, because she's aware that he and Tyler reached some kind of arrangement regarding a betrothal. "I won't do it," she pouts, storming toward the staircase. "You never would do anything you didn't want to," Willard says sadly, choking up. "Even as a little girl." Well, that's just a shame. Usually a steady diet of coercion does eat away at the mind, but poor, misguided Ruby doesn't break so easily. In the background, we hear the voices of kids playing and giggling and calling out to each other, which is obviously a memory of Ruby's, because she throws back her head and dons a pained expression. The emotion in her father's voice causes her to meet his gaze, at which point he pleads with her to consider the consequences before acting. Ruby simply stares, unwilling to look down and notice the atrocious coat she's wearing with a fur collar made from...oh, probably one of her ancestors.
Sophia serves up some elk jerky, eggs, and sausages -- no joke -- to a diner patron, then asks Sherman what he might want. It irks her that he sits at the counter for prolonged periods without actually doing anything useful, like tip her. She thinks Sherman is waiting for something to happen; he claims, in his inimitably sarcastic way, that his presence in a chair is preventing another hungry person from ingesting demon cholesterol. Sherman compliments Sophia on her acceptance to the Florence program. "Birthplace of Galileo," he notes. "Malodorous little man. Chronically constipated." Graham Greene has to have some really bad gambling debts, or something. This is just embarrassing for him. Sophia can't believe her news has swept the town already, but she's not terribly surprised to learn that it's because her father has sung it from the rooftops. As she smiles and swings around the counter, carrying two plates, something strange happens to her. Flushing a bit, feeling woozy, Sophia begins to crumple, dropping the plates and swaying. We see flashes of the forest, lightning, running wolves, trees, lupine eyes. She takes off her glasses and sees in snippets of WolfCam. She sees herself in a white shirt and red pants, which removes a lot of the drama from tomorrow morning's closet tantrum. In that outfit, she stands in the forest, staring at the sky. The whole thing is done with swishing noises and fast-motion, then slow-motion camerawork. In hyperspeed, Sophia dons her glasses and lets Sherman pick her up from the diner floor. I don't even care what sassy thing he says to her.
A diamond ring glitters under natural light. Tyler and a pretty female jeweler confer at a dark restaurant table, but Lou charges in and interrupts the moment. In fact, he says as much. "Am I interrupting a quintessential moment?" he asks. I'm sure that's fine usage, but something about it sounds completely wrong. I know what meaning they're going for, but I still feel like the word "intimate" belongs there instead of "quintessential." Maybe the writers work on dares to stay awake. I do enjoy the fact that Lou has caught Tyler buying an engagement ring that's clearly for Ruby. After a half-assed introduction, to Maureen the Jeweler, Ty says he didn't jump Miranda, but implies that he could charge her for assault because she punched him. "See, that kind of attitude just sets me off -- kick-starts this knee-jerk macho-cop roust mode," Lou snarls. And how, precisely, is that different from his regular attitude? Perhaps he's not typically a rousting man, preferring a gentle prod or, on weekends, a fomentation. "What is with me and the police?" Ty asks charmingly, beaming at Maureen. "What am I putting out there?" He jokes about getting his aura tweaked, which elicits a flirtatious smile from Maureen. Impishly, he asks Lou to opine about the diamond's cut and quality. "Expensive stuff," Lou observes. "She must be a special girl." Tyler smirks. "Isn't that what we're all looking for?" Hah! Tyler rules. Scott Bairstow is excellent with slime. As Lou trots out idiotically, Tyler waves goofily as a farewell.
Sherman and Sophia sit quietly in a diner booth. "Isn't there supposed to be, like, some sort of warning before everything goes totally Star Wars?" she winces. Sherman says that sensation is the warning. The whole experience has her completely confused as to what to do. "Depends," Sherman shrugs. "[On] the strength of your other universe." Sophia is scared of just how awesome her non-menopausal hot flash felt, then half-kids that Sherman really could pipe up with something reassuring. "It'll do wonders for your hair," he offers. She groans. On a serious note, Sherman promises Sophia that her inner strength will exceed all her expectations. This vexes her.
In her attic, Ruby rummages through old photos and pulls out a white satin dress. She dons it. Vivian creeps in behind her and informs us all that it's Ruby's mother's dress. "A lovely person she was," Vivian oozes. "Quiet and private and kind. And no one would argue if I added 'schizophrenic.'" Ruby whirls, fuming, and spits that Vivian has tried to poison her with that notion since she was nine years old. "Nothing like a wedding to bring out the best in everybody," Vivian says nonsensically. Ruby defiantly insists that she isn't getting married, but Vivian clearly thinks that she'll cave. "Your father will be very disappointed," Vivian says. "He's been very disappointed before," Ruby retorts, but she stops short of any deeply personal barb, which crushes me because I'd love to see what the writers could come up with about Sharon Lawrence and her buggy eyes. Vivian doesn't appreciate Ruby's animosity, given that she supported letting the girl stay in Seattle -- although, she only did so because she felt certain Ruby would come scampering back. Ruby tries to deny it, but Vivian spits that she absolutely would have left Seattle eventually because her life there was based on a lie. "I know you," insists Vivian. "Part of you is already bored keeping your secret, resisting your nature." Vivian reaches out to caress Ruby's cheek, but the stepdaughter jerks her face away. "We are clan, Ruby, and like it or not, we're incomplete without each other," Vivian intones. As Viv leaves, Ruby's blue eye-shadow stresses out and seriously considers reporting Ruby to the MAC police. Or applying a severe sMACkdown on her ass.
Donner and Lou question Miranda about the night of the assault. Donner won't let her smoke. Lou wants her to cough up any little detail at all about the rape, but she persists with the silent treatment. Grabbing the hand mirror from That Fateful Night, which shattered when she dropped it, Miranda sees herself and flashes back to the rape -- specifically, the point at which she ripped off her doorhandle. Miranda is pissed, because there isn't an IKEA near her at which to buy a trendy Swedish replacement knob. Lou insists she's hiding something, and requests that Donner let him interrogate Miranda alone. "Go easy on her," Donner frets.
As soon as Donner's gone, Miranda lights up, and Lou lets her. "So much for the ordinance," she snipes, referring to Donner's thin excuse for not letting her smoke. "Just so you know, I can't pay the fine, but I can do the time." Lou wears the world-weary gaze of a man who's arm-wrestled Evil and knows how much the bastard likes to cheat by tickling his opponents under the table, or by growing his fingernails really long. He begins by noting he's given the upcoming lecture a thousand times, and is happy to go once again. "There's a son of a bitch out there who's gonna do this again," he intones. "And if you don't help us, you're helping him. You say there's no justice in this town, Miranda -- well, let's change that." Miranda winces, because she was way high on Vicodin that night and said a lot of things about Justice and Justice's smelly mama. But then she laughs at how lame the speech was, so Lou sputters something about how it was the condensed version. "I'm sorry," she apologizes, biting back the mirth. "You're sweet, you are." Sighing suddenly, Miranda agrees to talk.
Sophia goes out into the forest, wearing the red pants and white shirt seen once before in her non-menopausal hot flash. Whoa, Soph, those jeans are made of cotton, not skin. People talk, you know. They might start calling you a tight-ass if you don't go up a size. Mozart's lost composition, the Life Change of the Hairy Non-Dog Hellions symphony accompanies Sophia's trip into the woods. Trees swirl overhead. She feels the ground, listens, smiles. Her movements are slow. Wolves growl and snarl in the background, then pant and howl. Standing alone, she looks up at the sky from the center of a clearing -- just as she did in the hot flash. As her heartbeat gets louder and louder, she notices a passel of wolves gathering around her, staring at her without menace. We hear whispers that are indistinguishable, but the closed-captioners claim we're hearing the same dialogue she and Sherman swapped in the diner. The, they claim the wolves whisper, "No, stay! Don't go." Whatever. Basically, she's communing with nature, tweaking her inner-wolf and thanking God she switched to Mane & Tail shampoo a year ago.
Perched smugly at his desk, Lou tells Donner that Miranda "gave up a lot." Well, we have already established that she's the town ho, but it's nice that the deputy sheriff is "investigating" just to be sure. Oh, but I guess he's referring to a confession. He plays a tape. On it, Miranda makes him swear not to freak out at what she's about to reveal. And then, the money shot. "It...was...a...WOLF," she says slowly. Donner looks startled, but not for the reasons Lou thinks. "Everybody said she was a head-case that needs to be shipped to Toontown," Lou says. That's an insult to cartoons. Lou promises to drop the case forever unless Donner can clarify any of this madness. "She's a head-case who can sing her ass off," Donner says, as though resigned to her insanity. Donner needs a hearing aid. "I'll put that in my report," Lou sasses, leaving. Donner looks nervous. He knows things. Special things. Secretive things. And he's afraid of all the dirty puns one could make about Miranda being a head-case.
So, Donner decides to chat with Miranda privately. He pulls a completely unconvincing "Let's assume it's not totally outside the realm of possibility" act, or something to that effect, which has all the efficacy of a thirteen-year-old asking for information about condoms because he has an anonymous friend who might want to have sex. Donner wants a description of the wolf rapist, right down to fur and eye color. "In most precincts, just 'wolf' would be enough to narrow it down," she mutters. My take on all this is that Miranda has a vague idea about shapeshifting and how it relates to Wolf Lake, but hasn't actually seen proof beyond the fishy cemetery and such. Otherwise, she wouldn't have said anything at all to Lou about a wolf rapist, for fear of retribution from the shapeshifters out to protect their secrets. How they've remained secrets, though, I don't know. It's pretty unrealistic. Oh, wait, it's more than that -- it's wolf-people. Miranda tells Donner she doesn't envy him his job, and gets up to leave the office. Miranda, we now learn, is wearing a napkin for a dress. She must've read Hornball Etiquette IV and paid special attention to the chapter about not covering up one's privates. "There's two kinds of people in this town," she tells Donner dramatically. "I still don't know which kind you are."
Bruce has acquired a karaoke machine, and belts out his Sinatra song with a vengeance. No, really, I think he's angry and trying to kill it. Tyler enters behind him, chiming in on the "vagabond shoes" line. Bruce is startled, but thinks it's a friendly collaboration and lets Tyler wheel him gracefully across the hardwood floor as they sing and pseudo-dance. Scott Bairstow shouldn't sing. He's losing points rapidly. The Irish judge, in particular, docked him nine-tenths of a point for not doing shots of whiskey first. (And yes, avid Heathen haters, I'm faintly Irish -- so I tease because I am.) Tyler leans in and whispers, "You did it, Brucie. You sniveling, bottom-feeding gimp." Bruce is surprised. "You ran her down and took her, and you got to feel like a real man for, what, five whole minutes?" Tyler sneers. Bruce claims innocence, but Tyler exposits that he and his buddies returned after the bar closed and saw his wheelchair and crutches poorly hidden in the alley. "So?" Bruce says defiantly. Tyler paces around to face Bruce, then grabs him and throws him against the wall, growling that he refuses to take the fall for this crime. "You'd better talk to your big brother [and] get him to make this all go away," he threatens. Bruce spits that Ty is really desperate; Ty basically implies he's willing to kill Bruce if it becomes necessary. Whatever. Do it.
Willard and Bruce clink flasks. Bruce blathers about how dangerous Tyler can be, and Willard pleasantly agrees that disrespecting Bruce is an indirect way of disrespecting Willard himself. "What would you have me do?" Willard quizzes his brother. "I don't know," Bruce hedges. "Whatever you think is appropriate." Willard nods and dismisses Bruce, smilingly promising that Tyler won't bother him again. Bruce thanks Willard for this, then decides to be an asswad and keep talking when he could've been home free. It figures that this show's only wheelchair-bound character turns out to be evil and stupid -- just the way real wheelchair users are. "This place is still scary to me," Bruce muses, wheeling around Willard's study. "It's off-limits." He mimics his mother telling him to stay away, then bitterly recalls that Willard was the chosen son, while all Bruce got to do was sew and sing show tunes with their mother. Willard looks totally bored, so he decides to end the scene by hugging Bruce. As they embrace, Willard jovially says, "Bruce, tell the truth. Did you hurt this girl?" Bruce denies it, but Willard presses him to be honest; Bruce demurs that he's not a bad guy, really, despite what a screw-up he is. "You want my help with Tyler Creed, don't you? And you know I'd never use my power against my own family," Willard says, tactfully ignoring the way he imprisoned his daughter. "Don't insult my intelligence." Bruce slowly turns and admits he didn't mean to hurt Miranda. He just went out for a run after imbibing a bit too much booze. "Hey, stuff happens," he shrugs apologetically. It's true, too. While running, men often trip and end up inadvertently ramming their penises into whatever female orifice happens to break their fall. Willard's mouth smiles, but his eyes don't, and his entire expression turns morose when Bruce disappears from view.
Lou finishes filling up his car and drives away. Ruby watches, hidden, crying a single tear that slips from the middle of her left eye and trickles down her cheek like so many drops of Visine.
At the Donner house, Luke and Sophia are sitting on the couch. He insists that she won't ever return to Wolf Lake, despite her proclamation that it's just a six-week summer program. "Nope," Luke sighs exaggeratedly. "How can this compare with Italy? You'll be a sophisticated world traveler. How is anyone going to impress you?" Grinning flirtatiously, Sophia leans toward him and wonders aloud exactly who might be interested in wowing her. "You'll see," he says. Getting up off the couch, Luke goes off on a rant about the letters she'll write home begging Donner to let her live in Italy forever. Sophia wonders whether Luke ever dreams about a life beyond Wolf Lake. "Why should I?" he asks, staring out the window. "Can't do it. I can't leave this town." Sophia loathes that mere thought, but Luke swears that since preschool, it's been drilled into him that Hill people can't put themselves or the clan at risk by straying too far from town. "If we were meant to explore, we would've been given safer blood," he murmurs. Sophia sighs, then stiffens when she hears her father's car, knowing she'll get busted for seeing Luke. "That's at least a block away," Luke says. "We'll have to talk about that sometime." He glides out the door, leaving Sophia to peek out the window and reflect upon what other juicy perks might come from having enhanced hearing.
As Bruce approaches his car, he hears a low growl nearby. Freaking out, Bruce drops his cane and frantically shoves himself inside the car. He's quite facile with switching between a wheelchair and a cane. I'm sure it's all just a scam so he can park closest to the grocery store. A wolf leaps onto the roof of the car, then lands on the hood and growls and spits at ugly Bruce, who'd better be wearing Depends. Bruce revs the engine and peels off down the street, shaking the wolf off the car -- but not out of his soul! Wait, that doesn't really mean anything. Dammit. I'm pretty sure this Hiatus of the Damned is coming just in time to save my sanity.
Lou escorts another misguided conspiracy theorist out of the sheriff's office. Bruce plows through the door, panting and peeking over his shoulder in terror. "I raped Miranda!" he screams. "I raped her! You gotta lock me up now." Lou isn't one to argue with cop stuff, so he slams big Bruce into prison and vows to Shawshank him 'til the cow comes home. When Ruby does finally return, though, he'll be much more lenient.
"You can't do this," Bruce sputters. "I got rights!" He's inside the wee jail cell, begging to see Lou but instead staring down Donner and Willard, who've tag-teamed on his inert ass and look primed to kick him clear past the full moon in a nod to E.T. Quietly, Willard thanks Donner for contacting him. "I know it was hard for you," he says. Sadly, Donner hands Willard the cell keys and exits. That whooping noise you hear? Is Tim Matheson being done with this show forever. Bruce shouts for help. "Shut up, Bruce," the world says, including Willard. As he unlocks the cell and moves toward his brother, Bruce insists that it's too late, because by now Lou has called the state troopers and they're en route to send him to the slammer. A bigger slammer. A Denny's Grand Slammer. "I'm gonna be dining cafeteria-style in a state correctional facility," he grins. Bruce, apparently, hasn't seen Oz. He gleefully notes that in prison, the name Willard Cates will mean nothing, and he'll be free of the family influence. "Human justice won't be your refuge," Willard says, handing Bruce back his flask. Bruce greedily takes it. Bruce is toast. Stupid ponytailed toast on wheels. "I might get eight years for this," Bruce says hopefully. "Sure beats our law." He guzzles alcohol and maligns the wolf code, saying that the death penalty for an "error of judgment with an ungulate," especially one who's already a whore, sounds overly harsh. If there's one thing I've learned in this whole mess, it's that maligning the wolf code can only end badly. Okay, so maybe I haven't really learned that at all, but it did sound reasonable. Bruce crows that, finally, he got dealt a manageable hand, and Willard has to suck it up. Willard scornfully tells his brother that the wheelchair has always been his excuse for self-pity and misbehavior. "Well, I'm gonna outlive you, Cancer Boy," Bruce cackles. "Ain't that a mother-nudger." Oh my God. Will someone please stop giving pen and paper to the psychiatric patients? Thanks. Willard patiently insists that he won't let Bruce escape to prison and endanger the clan, and begs his brother to do the right thing. Bruce bah-humbugs that and keeps chugging from his flask. "Finish it," Willard whispers. "It'll be quicker that way." And, sure enough, Bruce begins to choke, gasping for air and making a big ol' ruckus. Willard just pretty much watches this. He likes to watch. He cultivated that during years of undesired abstinence, when Viv was out boffing anything that moved on all fours. Bruce threateningly throws himself against Willard, but he's too weak, and sinks to the floor in a decrepit, dying heap. "I should've been a better brother to you," Willard says, apologizing to the corpse without a hint of emotion.
Ruby bursts into Lou's room, frantically seeking him. She looks stupid. With her frilly dress and messy up-do, she resembles a country-girl flapper who went on one all-night hayride too many. From behind the closed bathroom door, we hear a flushing toilet. Sucking in an anticipatory breath, Ruby waits. The door opens. Tyler walks out, grinning. "I don't know what it is, but I always get a big kick out of pissing in another man's bowl," he says. Ruby tenses as Tyler creeps toward her. "I found you before," he snarls. "I can find you again." As Ruby's skin crawls, Tyler tells her he wants to formalize their little bargain. Tossing her a ring box, Tyler calls out, "Consider yourself proposed to." He leaves as Ruby glowers. I feel like they don't trust Mia Kirschner with lines, given that all she does is stare and look wet-eyed and trembly.
Willard rifles through his brother's personal lockbox, while Sherman watches. More watching. This whole town is full of voyeurs. Bruce kept a microphone, a book of dirty limericks, toenail clippers, and a box of mechanical-pencil refills. "Not much of a legacy," sighs Willard, but Sherman is already nose-deep into dirty poems. He cracks that he hopes Bruce left a will, or else the mad scramble for the clippers could get violent. Willard has a hard time coming to grips with what he did that day, and what he's done throughout his life. "That's the way you live," Sherman shrugs. That's very helpful, yes, Sherman. Thank you so much, because this scene really needed you. Willard decides that a good long run will clear his head. Sherman warns him about rabies. "I'll take my chances," Willard says. Why am I recapping this like the details matter? The show is over.
Donner lugs a telescope into the living room, plus a roll of wrapping paper topped with a bow. He laments that his rough day didn't leave time for him to properly package Sophia's present, and hands her the telescope. It's lovely, and she's delighted. Excitedly, Donner takes it outside to set it up on the balcony. "This should impress those professors from Florence, when you show up with your own gear," he beams. Sophia looks away, her expression simply screaming that she's going to burst his bubble mercilessly. He catches her. Sophia blathers that she promised Syrus Wertzl that she'd return to her regular job as a summer camp arts-and-crafts counselor. This is so lame of Sophia. She's smarter than this, but all of a sudden, Luke wets his fangs and hints that he wants her, and Sophia's giving up a real life in favor of a tiny town with creepy people and a forest. Grow up, Sophia. You officially suck. Donner tries to fight her, but Sophia insists she doesn't want to spend her final summer away from all her friends -- all none of them, unless Mr. Wertzl counts -- and finally staunchly insists, "I'm not going." She flounces outside, leaving Donner to stew over his criminally insane child.
Sitting in the bar, Miranda absently pecks away at the piano. Lou finishes a drink, then strolls out, shooting one last worried glance her way. As she plays, Miranda wrinkles up her face and tries to look like she's weeping. She manages to make her mascara run, but other than that, she just seems to be suppressing a sneeze. Miranda suddenly looks really old, too. Maybe her tear ducts are shriveled.
Willard nervously stares at the woods. White-knuckling his cane for a second, Willard then lets it drop to the ground, strolling purposefully toward the forest. His coat drapes across a stump in a pretty flutter of cloth. WolfWillard runs through the forest, speeding, gliding. He leaps over a murky knoll and darts off-screen, at which time we hear the snap of an iron trap's jaws. Willard screams. We see his naked human arm caught in the snare. When he hears footsteps, his head jerks up nervously. A black glove and a long pistol sneaks into the shot; Willard snorts, then smiles. "Thank God," he says.
A gunshot reverberates through the forest.
time: something else will be shoved into this time slot. Thanks for reading the recaps, and trying to give Wolf Lake something resembling an audience.