Six Feet Under recap: Can I Come Up Now? (Season Four, Episode Four) (original air date 11 July 2004)

THIS WEEK'S EPITAPHS:

• We celebrate the unleashing of Brenda's dominant demons.
• Let's take a moment to listen to the crickets chirp as Rico continues to dig his own grave.
• Please bow your heads and pray that Claire goes toward the light of lesbianism.

Lawrence Henry Mason (1938-2003) — A car pulls into a rainy parking lot. It's nighttime. A woman gets out of the car and walks into an office building. She puts her umbrella in the stand. I'm so uncouth: I never think to look for umbrella stands in office buildings, or anywhere else, for that matter. I also do not have this woman's work ethic, because on a rainy night I'm just about anywhere but at work.

The woman starts to get into an elevator, but is nearly flattened by the guy coming out of it. He apologizes; she says it was her fault; he says "Nothing is anybody's fault." That would be creepy even in a non-office building on a sunny afternoon.

The woman gets in the elevator, trying to stay calm, but when the guy (who's kinda old and kinda looks like he hasn't seen any kinda light but fluorescent for about a decade or so) tells her she's beautiful, she starts to freak out and can't wait for the elevator doors to close.

On his way out, the old guy takes her umbrella from the stand — a-ha! It's better to be uncultured like me — and walks out the door into the rainy parking lot, where he is hit by a crack of lightning. He and the umbrella smolder in the rain.

David and Keith in bed — The phone rings. David answers it, and then remembers to take his ear plugs out so he can actually hear the person on the phone, who happens to be his ex-fiancée, Jennifer. As she tells him that her father has been hit by lightning, he smacks Keith, who is snoring loudly. Jennifer tells David he sounds funny, so he takes out the mouth guard that he wears at night to keep himself from grinding his teeth. David, the best thing about you is that even if you'd married Jennifer and gone to law school like you'd planned, you'd still be wearing ear plugs and a mouth guard to bed.

Breakfast — Keith and David talk about the "female rite of passage" of falling in love with a gay man. Keith mentions Claire and "what's-his-face" as an example. I don't know if Russell's actually gay, Keith — I think he's more omni. He probably has a fondness for grapefruit or squirrels or something.

Keith also says it's a rite of passage for gay men to sleep with women while "trying to be straight." David thinks that's no longer required; the new generations are more self-aware, or maybe just less willing to use other people as guinea pigs. Keith mentions Claire and what's-his-face again.

Keith talks about his job: he'll be guarding Celeste again. He wonders what to wear; David suggests something rather gay-sounding.

Keith: "David, this is a profession. There's an image to project. That image isn't fuckin' Keith of Finland."
David: "Are you not out on the job?!"
Keith: "No one's ever asked."
David: "You big whore!"
Keith: "What? It's not like I'm only defined by being gay. I'm defined by being a lot of things: being black, being American, being —"
David: "Busted?"

Ha ha! Yes, as you can see, Alan Ball wrote this episode. David gives Keith some more shit, and well he should, because Keith is being a dummy.

The sidewalk outside Fisher & Diaz — Barb (Lisa's sister) and her dorky husband and kids are there to take Maya for the weekend. One of the kids is not dorky: she's that cool Wednesday Addams-ish kid — Michaela. She asks Nate to give David a book about dead people. Maybe Michaela will run away from home so David and Keith can adopt her.

Nate thanks them for taking Maya and offers to help out however he can, so they promptly ask him for 120 bucks. Assholes: either you take the kid for the weekend or you don't, but you don't fucking charge if you do. Barb asks whether Maya likes to swim, which gives Nate a mental image of Lisa serenely stepping into the water. Sob!

Art school — Claire is dissing a photograph of a cat; she says it looks like something in a calendar you'd find in a bargain bin. Oh, Anita took the photograph — Claire, you should be nice to your new friend! She introduced you to Edie, and we're all grateful for (and foolishly hopeful about) that.

The art teacher is played by Brooke Smith, who was the abductee in The Silence of the Lambs, which is one of the best movies ever made (and people who think it's somehow homophobic or transsexual-phobic are just not paying attention). Brooke Smith is a great actress: she's also in Vanya on 42nd Street, Trees Lounge, and Series 7: The Contenders, and now I sound like her agent or something. Meanwhile, Claire is being kind of bratty and showy; she's the center of attention and she likes it. Yeah, it happens to everyone during those "finding yourself" moments — suddenly you're sure that everyone else wants to find you too. Brooke Smith sort of shushes her. Hey, Brooke, have you met Brenda? I'm thinking you two might hit it off. And I'm thinking I'd like to watch.

A woman and her porch — Poor Ruth. Someone's left another package on the stoop, and she knows just what it is.

Inside, George opens the package to reveal a dump truck with shit in it. Nate can't resist: "Kinda gives new meaning to the term dump truck, doesn't it?" Ruth can't believe Arthur is this disturbed.

Keith's job — Celeste, a.k.a. Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (who is just as annoying in this role as she was in that one), is filming a music video. One of Keith's co-workers says something homophobic about the male dancers. Keith, what are you doing? Do you realize that your mouth guard-wearing boyfriend seems much, much stronger than you right now?

Fisher & Diaz — Speaking of David, he's comforting his ex-fiancée, who has brought her new fiancé, who's an asshole.

David listens to Jennifer, and sympathizes, and her asshole fiancé interrupts because he has to get back to work. Whatever.

Keith's job — Keith wants to know what it's like to go on the road with Celeste. The homophobic co-worker tells him that there are lots of horny teenage girls in the audience at Celeste's concerts. Keith expresses no interest, so the guy asks him whether he's married; Keith says no, "but we live together." Ooh, clever use of pronouns, Keith. Then the guy wants to know how many times a week Keith gets his "pole wet," and the answer is "five or six," which is four or five times more than the straight guy gets. Yes, it's good to be gay.

Art class — Claire, Anita, and Russell (who looks so much better without that scruffy beard and ponytail) are watching Sister Wendy. They talk about nature, and human nature, and Claire laughs at Russell's pretentiousness. Speaking of pretentious people, Olivier passes through, laughing with a woman. Anita says to Claire, "I hear you fucked him," which of course Claire denies while Russell just sits and squirms. Anita also wants to know why Claire was so mean about her photograph, "or is that just the new Claire Fisher?" Russell wants to know what was wrong with the old Claire, and so Claire explains that "she just waited around for the world to happen to her."

Apparently the way not to do that is to go flirt with a guy, which is what Claire does, even though we all know she'd rather be flirting with Edie.

The basement at Fisher & Diaz — Rico is on the phone with his ho, a.k.a. Sophia, a.k.a. Infinity the stripper. She wants him to come over, and doesn't want to hear that he thinks it's probably important for him to spend time with his actual wife and actual kids.

Ruth and George interrupt, looking for Arthur's phone number. Is it significant that "Ruth" and "Arthur" are almost anagrams of each other? No, I didn't think so. But if you go to the Internet Anagram Server, you discover that Ruth Fisher is an anagram of "errs fit huh." Well, that must be significant. Also, "Six Feet Under" is an anagram of "Is Exerted Fun," as well as "Defer Sex Unit." Indeed.

George asks Rico about the corpse he's working on. Rico explains what happens to a person who gets struck by lightning; George says the guy is like a "human fulgurite." Rico looks as confused as we all feel.

Ruth is still freaking out about Arthur. George tells her to calm down. She says, "Fine: I'll just resign myself to receiving excrement in the mail for the rest of my days on this earth." Rico still looks confused.

Brenda's bedroom — Joe is officially the luckiest man on this earth. He's tied to the bed and Brenda is calling him a "little shit" and threatening to do all kinds of naughty things to him. Just before I explode with envy and delight at seeing Brenda like this, the doorbell rings. Joe asks Brenda to shut the bedroom door while she goes to answer the other door, but she says no, she wants the whole world to see what a "twisted sister" he is. Joe, you lucky, lucky bastard!

But guess who's at the door? Nate. Great. Brenda tries to make excuses, but then decides that Nate should stay and meet Joe. Well, that's not awkward.

David and Keith's place — Keith is feeling like Sarah Jane from Imitation of Life because he feels "puffed up" at work when people think he's straight. David says this is not strange, considering the culture constantly puffs up men for being straight. Then the phone rings; Keith grabs it from David when he tries to answer it. After Keith hangs up, David changes the outgoing message on the answering machine to "Hi, you've reached David and Keith, but we can't come to the phone right now because we're too gay."

Brenda's apartment — Joe and Brenda are listening attentively while Nate rambles on about parenthood and drinks the beer he brought. Like I said, it's not awkward at all. Nate decides to go. Joe says, "That guy is seriously wounded. They should put one of those lamp shades on his head, you know, like they put on dogs so they don't chew on their stitches." Joe, you're still so damn lucky. He and Brenda smooch on the couch.

A cemetery — Ah, it's the Nate of days gone by: he's getting high and going for a jog. I'm lucky if I can find my shoes when I'm high, let alone actually do something with them. A dog comes along and jogs with Nate for a bit, then barks at him. Nate decides the dog is Lisa. What? Dude, you need to stow the hash pipe for a while.

Celeste's dressing room — The organizer (of whatever this fundraising event is) stops by to chat with Celeste. Some sort of boring petty argument ensues. The only interesting part comes at the end, when some beefy shirtless guys exit Celeste's dressing room, and one of them tosses Keith a second look over his shoulder. Ah, it's the look, as the Queer Eye guys would say.

A psychic's studio — The dog leads Nate to the home of the all-knowing Mana Lisa (I think that's what the sign said; something Lisa, anyway, which is the entire point). Nate thinks the whole thing is a huge ball of crap, but he listens anyway. The psychic tells him Lisa is still alive. Yeah, we know nobody ever really dies on this show, but that's no reason to fuck with Nate's already seriously fucked-up head.

Nate says he wanted to love Lisa the way she deserved to be loved. That sucks.

David's ex-fiancée's father's viewing — Jennifer and her fiancé are bickering. David finds her later in one of the bereaveries (yeah, yeah, they're called "intake rooms," but that's boring). She proceeds to holler at him for breaking her heart and says she hates that he's gay. He says she doesn't hate that he's gay; she hates that he lied to her, and she should hate that. Have I mentioned that I love David and his ear plugs and his mouth guard?

The Fisher residence — Ruth tells George that she talked to a lawyer about Arthur's shitty postal habits. George tells her it wasn't Arthur; it was his son Kyle, to whom he once gave a dump truck exactly like the one in the package. Ruth didn't know about this extra son, and is of course somewhat disturbed by the revelation. George says he was very young when Kyle was born, and Kyle's family didn't think George was worthy of Kyle's mother. Guess what, George? Ruth's family doesn't think you're worthy of her either, and they're right. Take your shit and go.

Brenda's mom's house — Olivier, who could not possibly be more offensive, annoying, or idiotic, is Brenda's mom's latest toy. Brenda and Joe suffer through dinner with the frightening couple, during which Brenda's mom tells Brenda she won't be a good counselor, and warns her not to fuck up her relationship with Joe like she always fucks up her relationships, and also decides that Brenda wants kids. Poor Brenda: she should tie up her mom like she tied up Joe, but without any shred of affection or any intention to make her happy or eventually untie her.

Rico's ho's house — That's it: I'm officially done recapping Rico until he gets his head out of his ass.

Jimmy's place — Claire is making out with Jimmy, the guy from school she was flirting with earlier. He wants to know what she likes; she doesn't want to say, so he gets annoyed and says maybe they should just go to the movie. Claire decides she should just leave. Wow, Jimmy has a really cool place. But yeah, leave, Claire -- go to Edie. Now.

Ruth and George in bed — George is snoring. Ruth wakes him up rather violently and tells him it's time for him to stop keeping things from her. So George says more about Kyle, and by the end of it I'm snoring louder than he was.

Brenda's bed — In Brenda's dream, Nate has one of those cone collars on (like Joe suggested earlier) and is holding a baby. Eeeek.

Nate's bed — In Nate's dream, the phone rings. It's Lisa, calling from the beyond. She tells him that the number three is not important. The dog is there too. Let's see, the number three is not important: so Nate should raise Maya as a single dad? Or he should reject the concept of the Trinity? Or he should try 3 vodka?

The Fisher breakfast table — Ruth wants to go meet George's son Kyle. Nate looks like something Kyle might send by priority mail.

David's ex-fiancée's father's funeral — Jennifer and her fiancé seem to be getting along. Rico's phone rings, but I'm not recapping that.

Afterwards, Jennifer's fiancé confirms that he is the exact opposite of David, in sexuality, intelligence, and social skills.

Edie's place, maybe — Edie, Anita, and Claire are painting a wall and talking about orgasms and cunnilingus. Edie says "girls are better" because they know what to do when they're down there, which is sort of a myth, but one we should probably continue to perpetuate. Claire talks about that guy Phil that she had a fling with last season, and says that when he was down on her he would eventually look at her with "these lobster eyes" that said, "'Can I come up now?'"

Edie asks Claire what makes her come. You do, Edie. She decides that Claire has never had an orgasm, because if she had, she wouldn't be embarrassed about asking for more "tongue time." Hmm. This could be true. Anita is surprised that Claire has never even "rubbed one out," but Claire says she doesn't find masturbation that interesting. Wait: that is so very out of character for her. I'm not buying it. Edie offers to show Claire how to give herself an orgasm right there and then, but Anita says "Hello? Not lesbians."

Claire doesn't think it's possible that she's never had an orgasm. Edie says that if she hasn't, she's seriously missing out. Claire just looks at her, and looks like she might be ready for that lesson after all. Or maybe I'm just projecting my own "lobster eyes" on her, because I would really like to hurry this up a little.

A motel — George and Ruth visit Kyle. Kyle has a cappuccino machine in his room so he doesn't have to leave. Fire one up, Kyle, because I don't know how else I'm gonna stay awake for this scene.

Brenda's bed — Joe is tied up again while Brenda bounces on top of him; she says she "feels so Sharon Stone." Brenda starts talking about kids and about her parents' weird exhibitionist tendencies — geez, Brenda, pay attention to the guy you're bouncing on!

Keith and David's house — David decides he's not going to keep pushing Keith to come out on the job: it's boring and he'd rather not fight. Yeah.

May's homecoming — Nate decides to tell Barb that Lisa might still be alive. Nate, you're so very, very fucked up. Barb tells him to get help if he needs it, and not from a psychic friend. Listen to her, Nate, even if she's not the canine reincarnation of Lisa.

Brenda's apartment — Joe tells Brenda he wants to have kids with her, because even though he never saw himself as having kids, "somehow, since we've met, everything seems..." — and Brenda interrupts him with a kiss. Joe, I actually do like you, and you're so, so lucky!

NEXT WEEK ON SIX FEET UNDER: Ruth suggests that Nate try to meet someone; David and Keith agree on the rules for their time apart; the cool art teacher doesn't think Claire is all she seems; Brenda and Joe are far too happy.

more Six Feet Under recaps