Six Feet Under: The Dare

Lisa: "Life is pain. Get used to it."

This episode's theme: ignoring something inside you in hope that it will just go away. David's panic attacks. Nate's grief. Brenda's "normal" relationship with Joe. Ruth's reluctance to acknowledge the difficulties of her relationship with George. Claire's feelings for Edie, too.

Nate, David and Claire singing "I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch" was laugh out loud funny. Maya's face as she watched them singing was even funnier.) But it was also a perfect illustration of the theme, like the papier-mache monsters that Ruth's sister Sarah showed her, created by children to represent the monsters inside of them. Nate didn't understand why the couple in the Opening Death just ignored her tumors. (This from the guy who ignored his AVM until he couldn't ignore it anymore.) For Nate, his feelings about what happened to Lisa were the papier-mache monster inside of him, the petunia in the onion patch.

Ruth went fossil hunting in Cold Water Canyon with George and decided to never ask him another question again. This sort of avoidance is something a lot of us do, even though we know it won't work. Sarah, who was actually doing well for a change, said George reminded her of Nathaniel, a jovial nature masking an intense need for privacy. She said that we all pick the same person over and over again, and then we're not happy with them. (Personally, I'd rather be married to Nathaniel than George.) Bettina and George were fun together, because they were so clearly total opposites. She articulates every thought that comes into her head, and he never tells anyone anything about himself if he can help it. Ruth would be better off with someone like Bettina, frankly. Which was probably why she burst into tears when she saw Bettina for the first time in months.

And then there was Claire. I tend to talk about Claire last. I think that's because she's usually in a different place than the rest of the cast. This time she wasn't. Claire was having difficulty acknowledging what was inside her — that she had feelings for Edie. Claire loved the photo of Edie with her face in shadow, but she didn't want to show it at her crit. And sure enough, when she did, it revealed her true feelings.

Bits:

— The woman in the Opening Death had a monster growing inside of her, and she simply ignored it, hoping it would go away. When she finally acknowledged the problem, it was too late.

— Loved Ruth's fantasy of George as Bluebeard, with six dead wives. Apt.

— Maile from Doggie Day Care talked about searching through peoples' secret, hidden things back when she was a babysitter.

— The "heywood jablome" was a literal mixed message. It raised a lot of fun questions about Javier, who may have been hiding the gay man inside of him with over-the-top homophobia.

— Discarded condom. Blech. Pretty easy to assign symbolism to that one, but did they really need to show us a used condom?

— Anita moved in with Claire, and now she's dating Russell. It's obvious that Anita would like to be Claire. That may also be the basis of Claire's feelings for Edie.

And pieces:

— "Joan Morrison, 1939-2004."

— Apparently, Brenda and Joe bought the house, right before their relationship imploded. Who gets the house now? At least there isn't a baby this time.

— Vanessa confronted Rico about Sophia, and Rico apparently saw it as a good reason to finally start cheating. Rico, Rico, Rico. What would Freud think of that?

— Turns out Celeste loves gay men. That was a transparent acknowledgment that Keith should have told the truth right away. Keith was hiding what was inside. Even Celeste was whining that no one would ever love the "real her."

— It was great to have Kathy Bates and Patricia Clarkson back. More, please.

Quotes:

Nate: "This isn't about Joe. It's about you. I of all people should know."
Brenda: "What is that supposed to mean?"
Nate: "You and Joe move in together. You get scared by the intimacy. You freak out and you have sex outside the relationship. You can't fool me. I used to be Joe."

Bettina: "Wow. I had no idea. George has just told me the entire history of papier-mache. It was fascinating."

Keith: "Javier, I'm gay. I have a boyfriend. I sleep with men, okay? I have a lot of sex, and it's really, really gay."

Vanessa: "Rico's charity has a double D."

Bartender: "Having a hard night?"
David: "Ah, no. I just saw some bad coming attractions."

Ruth: "George gets very caught up sometimes. He's a very focused person."
Bettina: "It's a show about the Elgin Marbles. I mean, how caught up can he be?"

Brenda: "Nothing the therapist or anybody did could get him to stop eating. So she left him and he had a heart attack, and died."
Joe: "Is this your way of telling me I need to cut down on my snacks?"

Nate: "This is giving me a really bad feeling."
Lisa: "Uh-oh. If I were you, I'd check that out. It might be a tumor."

Keith: "I mean, Freud would say that on some level he wanted to blow me, whether he knows it or not."
David: "I don't recall Freud's position on the Heywood Jablome phony phone message."

Three stars,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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