SEASON 2

EPISODE 4: DRIVING MR. MOSSBACK

In Seattle, WA, an elderly gentleman dies of natural causes, but ends up causing inconvenience for the tour guide on the bus he was riding on.

His family explains that the deceased frequently partook in packaged bus tours after the wife passed on. And that he didn't like to fly. In short, the family doesn't think the body should be flown to LA from Seattle, even though that would be the easiest method of transport. Luckily, Nate volunteers to fly up to his old stomping grounds. He'd like to say hi to old friends and tie up loose ends.

He invites Claire to come with, and she needs a vacation, after all the drama with Gabe and the stress of having been treated like an accessory to a crime over the embalming fluid incident. She'd love to have a couple of days away from school, because she not happy that her counselor, Gary, didn't warn her about the police sniffing around.

Keith's mother Lucille is heading back to her home in San Diego for a bit, to see her husband through his hernia repair, and leaving Taylor in Keith's care.

Ruth is still pestering David and Claire about their lovelives, and still speaking Plan-ish.

Nate can't help but wonder if it was "weird" that he didn't ask Brenda to accompany him to Seattle, instead of Claire. Brenda thinks nothing of it. In fact, she thinks of very little these days when it comes to Nate. She almost seems relieved to have a couple of days to herself.

Upon arriving in Seattle, we meet the very huggy Lisa (Lili Taylor), but her cheerful exterior, her bouncy energy, are but a disguise for a bundle of nerves, neuroses and resentment toward Nate, along with what is obviously a mad love. As she, Nate and Claire eat and converse, Lisa repeatedly touches Nate intimately, and of course, this does not escape Claire's keen eye.

Keith, stuck at work, calls David to ask him if he'll pick up Taylor from school and mind her until he can break away. David, still very much in love with Keith, agrees without a moment's hesitation.

Ruth calls her old friends (including Amelia, who appeared in one or 2 episodes of Season One---what happened to her anyway?) and estranged sister Sarah, hoping to "make repairs to her house".

Brenda gives a shihatsu to a client named Melissa (Kellie Waymire), whose vocation is prostitution. Brenda is immediately intrigued, and curious. Later, she is persuaded by Ma Chenowith to meet her at a health spa. When she gets there, Margaret is hysterical. Bernard's car is there, and there is a hair scrunchi around the gear shift.

Little Taylor smarts off to David about chocolate milk, cookies, and coloring books. Yeah, she's a monster, but it's probably because she's very troubled about her mother's absense. Wait, am I making excuses for her???!!!

Nate and Claire manage somehow to get away from Lisa, and seek a meal that includes meat. Nate ends up having a seizure in the drive-thru. It never fails to drive me absolutely batty that Claire doesn't ask the drive-thru guy for help, instead of rudely sitting there, doing absolutely nothing, except telling the poor employee to shut the fuck up. I don't know, I suppose she couldn't have pulled the van up very far, since they were in the drive-thru with cars in front and in back of them, but argh! it still kind of annoys me.

Brenda is probably thinking of a millions things she could be doing besides what she is doing, listening to Margaret explain her and Bern's rules of their obviously "open" marriage, while they wait for Bern's girlfriend to appear and get into his car. When she does, it enrages Margaret that the woman is young, blonde and hot. Brenda begs her mother not to make a scene, and of course, Margaret makes one heck of a funny scene. "I hope you like herpes!!!" Brenda launches one of her familiar futile verbal attacks, and Margaret, indeed knowing how to push buttons, says something that gets her face slapped but good. It's a pretty intense and entertaining scene.

Back at the Fishers', Taylor discovers she's with the last family on earth that still eats together at a table in the kitchen. She gets some much needed lessons in table etiquette and social tolerance from David and Ruth, but Ruth has taken only 3 bites of food before she gets up to do dishes. Why is Ruth so easily disturbed these days that she excuses herself early from meals?

Her mother having set her off into her own almost forgotten set of neuroses, Brenda fantasizes about the lawyer she met in the restaurant some time back. Nate, meanwhile, is so upset over his seizure that he turns to an old familiar source of comfort when things aren't so great, Lisa.

Next morning, both Nate and Lisa seem to agree that Lisa needs to keep one of Nate's flannel shirts as a memento, so she can sniff them. She can't have Nate, but she can have his scent. Ye Gods, that's creepy.

David is forced to stand up to a somewhat confusing retorect from Ruth about children and their impresionability and being careful and homosexuality and huh??? David's reply to this is harsh, yes, but I had to agree with him.

The title DRIVING MR. MOSSBACK didn't seem to state or convey anything useful, so that would be the only thing I didn't quite like about the episode. This episode, like the ones preceding it in Season 2, is really good, with progressive storylines, so it gets an A or A+.