Nate: "You don't want to end up in a graveyard."
Lisa: "Nate, the whole world's a graveyard."
Nate has always cared deeply about respecting the last wishes of the dead. I thought the scene where Nate carried out Lisa's wishes and buried her ravaged body in the wild, all by himself, was quite possibly the most emotionally wrenching scene I've ever seen on television.
Lisa "fell into place," the resting place that she wanted, and I think it was cathartic for Nate. It was his final marital act, the last thing he could do for her as a husband. I guess it was cathartic for me, too, because I cried – a lot. Maybe Nate will be able to move on, now.
But maybe not in Brenda's direction. Nate blew Brenda off on the phone and asked her not to come to the funeral, and she started making moves toward Joe the nice cat-feeding guy. And yet, Nate and Brenda did have comfort sex after he showed up at her door. Remarkably quiet sex, too, unlike their previous encounters. And unlike Ruth and George, who woke the house on their wedding night.
Lots of sex in this episode, because David and Keith reconnected, too. I liked that the detente between David and Keith just blossomed into a serious commitment. Keith even stayed over at the Fishers for the first time, and felt like part of the family, like David's husband. I also loved the thoughtful way David ran interference for Nate, starting by taking on the trauma of picking up Lisa's body, and ending with helping Nate spirit Lisa away, so to speak.
Claire was trying to "break her eye open" in an art-related sense, which was symbolic of starting over and doing things differently, something everyone in the cast was trying to do. Which might be why she told Russell about the abortion. Which was obviously a ginormous mistake.
Bits:
— George apparently doesn't have a good relationship with his two grown children, and expressed it by saying that Ruth might meet them at his own funeral. It was an interesting thing to say. Is he dead to them? There's more to George than we know.
— The only food Brenda doesn't like is mushrooms. She said they felt dirty, like they were parts of people. That made me think of Lisa's mangled, half-eaten body.
— When Vanessa asked Angelica to leave, Angelica congratulated Rico as if he'd won a competition.
— Todd and Dana of the camping trip told Nate that they were having a hard time; they'd lost three friends just that month and they weren't even forty yet. And then they said a lot of thoughtless things about Maya never knowing her mother. I mean, really. Tact much?
And pieces:
— "Bruno Baskerville Walsh, 1951-1972." The Opening Death was a long-ago acid trip and I didn't realize until the end that it was his ashes that ended up in Lisa's tomb. It was probably the Fishers' oldest abandoned cremains, a plot thread they introduced a long time ago.
— James Cromwell (George) joined the cast, as well as the family.
— The story picked up right where it left off. Which was better than last season's seven month gap that dumped us into a situation we knew nothing about.
— Lisa drowned. But how? Did she go swimming and get a cramp? Was it suicide? Murder? We still don't know. Sort of like Bruno's death. What was it, really?
— Lisa's family from Idaho were nothing like Lisa. Her sister Barb seemed okay but knuckled under to their mother, a.k.a. the Hydra. Barb talked about Lisa's lack of emotional borders. Which explained a little why Lisa accepted such an odd relationship with Nate for so many years and thrust herself into his life the way she did.
— Rico went to confession; he wanted to be faithful. But apparently, he was still tempted to cheat. Something is still wrong with that marriage.
— No Maya, and it was her mother's funeral. Probably because the twins who played Maya would be significantly older. Will they recast Maya?
— Lauren Ambrose (Claire) looked noticably different. I think she was a lot thinner. Maybe it was makeup, too.
— Gold acting stars for Peter Krause, because he was phenomenal. He's so good that he yanks the emotion right out of me.
Quotes:
Keith: "I feel like I've been eating this cake for twelve months." That felt like an inside joke. Was it really twelve months between the end of season three and the start of season four?
Keith: "What's so strange?"
David: "Oh, I don't know. The thought that I just got blown in the same bed where my mom used to read me The Runaway Bunny and The Five Chinese Brothers."
Claire: "I was, like, completely scandalized."
David: "I never knew the word 'George' could sound so obscene."
Keith: "Good for them."
I was with Keith there. Although I might not have felt that way if she were my mother.
Nate: "Do you think it's okay for her to burn my wife up in an oven and stick her in a drawer when all that Lisa wanted was to be outside somewhere under the stars?"
Claire: "What have you been up to?"
Russell: "Not much. Making bad art. Saying stupid things. Continuing implementation of my master plan to be completely forgotten when I'm gone, and totally forgettable while I'm here."
David: "So did we just... what did we just do? Did we just get married?"
Keith: "No."
David: "It seems kinda like we did."
Keith: "Yeah, well, don't overthink it."
Four stars,
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
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