Brenda: "Okay. Can I just say that I think total honesty is not always the best thing?"This one was about the importance of telling the truth. And the consequences of telling the truth. And about Brenda still not telling the truth.
Nate took Rabbi Ari's lecture about honesty seriously and told Brenda about Lisa. Her face was amazing; she thought she had the big secret. And she retaliated by screwing teenagers off the street – in pairs, yet. I find her behavior appalling, as well as pitiable. How self-destructive can she get before something terrible happens? At the end of the episode, Brenda forgave Nate, but she still didn't tell him the truth. These two cannot get married. It's a train wreck waiting to happen.
Keith wasn't willing to face his own fear of his abusive father, until David forced him to confront it. I was so pleased that David got Keith to stand up for Taylor. David, who seemed wildly well-adjusted after being so screwed up only a short time ago, also managed to talk the widow Collins out of her lawsuit by telling her the truth about herself and about what she would do to his business. Two home runs for David. And he's a great parent. Some people should be parents, and he's one of them.
Nikolai was unable to be honest with Ruth. Ruth paid Nikolai's hospital bills, nursed him for weeks, and she just paid off the Russian mafia for him. She probably saved his life as well as his business, and Nikolai called her a stupid woman. Ruth is too good for Nikolai. Find someone else to love, Ruth. Someone who won't drag you down.
To carry the analogy all the way, Claire finally found the truth about herself with the help of Aunt Sarah's shrooms. Claire has a strong need to be creative, in the artistic sense. It's the only thing that makes her happy. Well, that and getting high.
Bits:
— Ruth gave the Mafia guy $87,000 in a brown paper bag, like it was something obscene. Which it sort of was.
— Brenda's encounter with the two teenage guys was like the plot of a porn movie. She was almost certainly conscious of it, too. She was probably writing it in her head, like she's been writing about all of her other sexual experiments.
— Loved the funky pants with the bells. Lemme see. What did they symbolize? Claire's emotional decision that she had to do something creative with her life. Ruth's determination to wear them despite the fact that they were totally inappropriate and outlandish represented her acceptance of Claire as she was. Plus, their relationship is pretty colorful.
— I also absolutely loved Nate and Brenda looking down at themselves and seeing "Liar" and "Whore" on their tee-shirts.
And pieces:
— "Edith Kirky, 1929-2002."
— In the opening death scene, I again thought one would die when it turned out to be the other one. She did actually say, "I wish the good lord would take me soon." Maybe her motionless, smiling roommate was just granting her wish with the Hot Dog of Death.
— Vanessa lost her job because Rico told the truth. (Rico should be a medical examiner.) Nate told Mitzi the truth about herself, too. And Claire told her mother the truth about how much she loved her.
— Nate is really into Rabbi Ari. Probably because, as she perceptively mentioned, she's completely off limits to him.
— Ruth got Claire a brochure for a college called "LAC-Arts" from Gary the school shrink crush guy, who just broke up with his girlfriend. Claire immediately seemed uncomfortable with him, like one of the many barriers between them had just gone down. It was like Nate and Ari with the forbidden relationship.
— I thought it was interesting that Claire didn't know what the shrooms were.
— Parker should take a hike. Claire doesn't need an influence like Parker any more than she needed Gabe the moo-guy.
Quotes:
Rico: "I don't think something this big just happened to go down the wrong way."
Claire: "That's the whole fucking problem with the world right now. It's that we don't try to be creative with every single thing we do."
Parker: "Martha Stewart does."
Rico: "What was I supposed to do? Hide a murder so you could keep some shitty job?"
Vanessa: "Of course not, Rico. But now I have to go out and I have to find another shitty job."
Brenda: "People make mistakes, Nate. They don't always know why they do the things they do." You think?
Three out of four stars,
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
Brenda is a disgusting whore, I think I might just quit watching this show as much as I like some of the other characters here I really can't stand Brenda.
ReplyDeleteI agree. She is rude and gross.
ReplyDelete