Ruth: "We're supposed to stay together because you don't want to move your rocks?"Finally, the ashes were out of the bag. So to speak. Will Nate be arrested for body-snatching? Will they have to dig up Lisa?
Upcoming stretch in prison or not, at least Nate finally committed to Brenda. He even moved in with her. That was fast. Brenda seemed to feel that, this time, she and Nate were on the same page of their relationship. But then he took her along to Idaho and kept her hidden in his uber-kitschy motel room, which didn't bode well for honesty and transparency.
George welcomed Ruth home with open arms, but telling her he wanted her back so he wouldn't have to move his rocks again wasn't exactly what she was hoping for. (The phrase "moving his rocks" sounded oddly sexual, too.) George was obsessing about environmental apocalypse, and I so can't blame him, but he was also constantly at the point of tears. That can't be good. Is George depressed? Maybe Brenda could treat him. She's actually becoming a good therapist. She was even keeping Bryon's issues confidential.
David, and I so can't blame him, wanted to marry Keith and have kids without jumping through societal hoops as well as a special agency called Rainbow Kids. Expressing his dissatisfaction by getting into a fight in a sushi bar was probably a bad idea. What if the guy sues?
I've always seen Claire's drugging as recreational, but here she was doing it so much that it looked like an escalating drug problem. Claire might also have a Billy problem; she made a sideways pass at him in the metaphorically appropriate dark room. Will Billy turn her down, as he should, since he's her teacher? Is he ethically new and improved, like Brenda?
At least Claire's art appeared to be taking off again, with some creepy collage-y photographs. Maybe that will make the drugs less appealing. We can hope.
Bits:
— In the Opening Death, Suzanne literally kicked her alcoholic husband while he was down. In the irony department, they were attending a wedding and "You Light Up My Life" was playing in the background. And of course, dying of alcohol poisoning in a puddle of his own vomit pointed at Claire's accelerating drugging.
— Claire and Russell created photos of Claire with torn-up pieces of photographs of parts of her face laid upon her real face. It made me think of masks. Claire is still discovering who she is going to be.
— George hit a computer screen that said "Action canceled" right before the reluctant Ruth walked in the door. Ruth didn't want to come back. And again, can't blame her for that.
— The wonderfully kitschy motel room in Idaho was called the Black Forest Inn. And the room number was 13. Black Forest is such a wonderfully evocative phrase. It made me think of Hansel and Gretel, not Idaho. Although Nate was definitely getting figuratively deeper into the woods.
— I may not have mentioned it before, but this series always shows characters in front of windows. That scene with Byron may have been the most window-y of all.
And pieces:
— "Robert Duane Wething, 1958-2004." Alcoholism is horrible (I had an alcoholic parent), but his wife was absolutely over-the-top evil and hateful; she wouldn't even let her kids cry for their father.
— The Scrabble game words were fun. Fop, puny, yeast, nexus, antic, tarot, red, rat, and colitis. Someone in the crew must have spent some time on that.
— George pronounced the word "nuclear" incorrectly. Ruth pronounced it correctly. It's such an important word; mispronouncing it is one of my pet peeves.
— Ruth did set up Kyle and Becky of the inappropriate games with shit, after all, and not only did they seem to click, but George finally clicked with his son, as well. Ruth was right. George was wrong. Nyah nyah n'nyah nyah.
— The Kimmels offered to watch Maya for Nate a couple of hours. They didn't charge him this time.
— Vanessa has either decided to move on, or she wanted to make Rico extremely jealous, or she wanted to make him feel really bad. Probably all three.
Quotes:
Nate: "Death, death, death. I feel like I'm done looking backward, I just want to look forward."
And the Kimmels represent death death death? Come on, Nate. Really.
Marcie: "Fuckin' Jesus, Ma. You're a seven-letter whore."
Ruth: "And it's on the triple word, too."
We finally met Bettina's famous crazy daughter for about a minute.
Keith: "You're in my will. I'm in yours. We basically are married even if the law refuses to recognize it. But then again, I refuse to recognize most of the Bush Administration so I guess it all evens out."
David: "Life's so short. I don't know what fast is any more."
Claire: "How was it? Fun?"
Russell: "I don't know. I might have been raped and I'll only recover the memory under intense hypnosis ten years from now."
Minister: "Lisa is here with us. Right now. Not in this urn, but in all of us."
Claire: "I'm kind of getting addicted to spicy stuff. Like if it doesn't hurt a little bit, it's not really worth eating."
Billy: "I'm familiar with that dynamic."
In fact, that's his love for Brenda, in a nutshell.
Three stars,
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
Goerge W Bush would also mispronounce nuclear that way. It didn't help his image.
ReplyDeleteYou're so right. I'd forgotten that.
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