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Best episode of the season so far? Or is it just that at this point, the storylines have been going for a little while and start to feel richer etc? Or is it just that this one had relatively little of the Rico/Infinity plot?
Okay, on with the good:
- Nate. I think we have answered Haus' question about Nate now: he's just incredibly fucked-up by Lisa's death still. So much so that even when he tries to have a Maya-free, funeral-free weekend and get back to traditional classic Nate pursuits (smoking weed and jogging - jogging! - dear God, I yelped for joy when I saw him jogging again), he's still so overwhelmed by his grief that he serves as a beacon for a dubious psychic's seeker dog.
I tell you, when he said "But I'd only just started loving her... I wanted to give her what she deserved...", I nearly lost my shit - no, there's just something in my eye, honest...
- Brenda. I'm sure the structure of this was deliberate (not least because they've done it before, with Billy especially): in the episode after the one in which Brenda does something really annoying, have her meet up with her mother to remind you that really, both kids have done incredibly well to survive their upbringing with whatever measure of sanity, stability and likeability they do have. Brenda's mother is the most evil creature ever to walk the earth. She is something you tell children about to frighten them at night. The fact that she is still with Olivier is both horrendous and horrendously perfect - there's a moment when she says something about him never having to worry about money again because she'll keep buying his paintings, and he shoots her a resentful look that made me think: "wow, Olivier really HAS got what he deserved!"
What's scary is how much influence Brenda's mother still has over her daughter: deliberately or not, she effectively plants the idea of wanting children in Brenda's head. As for "Isn't it nice to be with someone who's your intellectual equal?" - way to drive her back to Nate, eh?
- Nate, Brenda & Joe. I am really impressed that this show can simultaneously make me think "okay, I remember why Nate and Brenda work, I'd kinda like to see them get back together" (for the first time this season), and "actually Brenda and Joe seem to work quite well, he's wonderful, isn't he?". I think the only solution is for Joe to get his own spin-off show, full of exiled 6FU characters, like Arthur and Parker the DangerSlut as sidekicks, and The Hott Rabbi as his love interest/top.
- The Bjork of LAC Arts. Too, too accurate. I envy anyone who has never been in a situation in which they or the other party asked for too much instruction. Again, what was nice about this story was the fact that you end up thinking that everyone needs to change a little: Claire needs to be a little less repressed; Edie needs to be a little less know-it-all and "one day you will be as liberated as me"; Jimmy needs to be a little more instinctive.
- Whoever came up with the idea of casting Dawnie as Celeste is a genius. There's loads of really clever subtextual commentary about het male culture, gay male culture and shiny teen pop culture (and all the overlaps) going on here, but I don't really have the time/space/brain power to try to unpick the threads right now... Suffice to say: "five, maybe six times a week..." - hee! |
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