SEASON 3

EPISODE 8: TEARS, BONES AND DESIRE

A yard full of ragamuffin kids, a kitchen full of happily singing women, and one apparently very content man who seems to have all the time on earth to devote to storytelling for the kids. They call him Daddy. Suddenly, Daddy drops off to peaceful eternal sleep.

His People, of course, are a cult, and they do everything you'd hope a cult would do: refuse to practice good hygiene, eschew earthly wealth, and endulge in polygamy. Very weird, to those of us who live "normal" lives.

However, I find nothing, not even the People, can top Ruth Fisher for weirdness. She continues to harbor a mad crush on the intern Arthur for whatever reason I'll never know. She sniffs his clean laundry (God at least I hope it's clean!) and then steals an impetuous kiss from the befuddled lad.

On the other side of the Fisher world, David and Keith are preparing for a rigorous day of Gay Paintball. Keith is gung-ho. David isn't thrilled. I wasn't either. This whole storyline didn't seem to have any reason behind it. That's not like this show. The sequences are, of course, full of action, complete with action-movie music. To try to splice these segments in between the other characters' stories just doesn't work. It all seemed awkward to me. I pegged this as the first weak episode of Season 3. I did get some amusement out of one quote from Keith: "Come on, you fa-la-la mimosa motherfuckers!"

As for the other characters' stories, well we've already witnessed Ruth going after Art full throttle. After she promises the poor naive intern that she will behave herself and that she understands that they cannot pursue a romantic relationship, because that's not what Arthur wants, she finds it impossible to even hug him friendly-like without trying to plant another one on him! Later, speaking with one of Daddy's several wives, Ruth is told that women usually choose their men, not the other way around. And so, Mrs. Fisher decides that Arthur DOES want her. He just doesn't know it. It's up to her to make him see. She "chooses" him. Okay... I still say there's no logical explanation for this coupling. Maybe in love, logic takes the back burner. Still I can only say, Ruth is lonely and Arthur...is just Arthur.

Lisa Fisher, meanwhile, is so obsessed with Nate's romantic past that she and her friend Dana arrange a massage appointment with Brenda. I've said it before, a zillion times, Lisa Get A Life!

Olivier throws his usual tantrums, and later sends his assistant Claire out to Azuza to do some arty business of some kind. Russell really should have gone with his girlfriend...anyone with any kind of sense would know that you leave NO ONE alone with Olivier. No one. That man is a walking boner. While Claire is conversing with Olivier's former student/assistant in Azuza, she gets quite an earful about the sexual habits of her professor/employer.

In a boring side-plot, Rico continues to fret over depressed Vanessa, and gets extremely hot when he finds out that his sons have head lice. My question is: Why get mad at HER because Julio has lice? He's just as responsible as she is to keep an eye on the kids' health, right? Last I heard, Vanessa had a full time job too.

Nate has a brush with weirdness too, as one of the older children of the cult, a young teen girl, bequeaths him a mop-doll and acts as though she has chosen HIM for a mate. {{{{SHUDDER}}}} That figures. A girl with her whole life ahead of her to do whatever she wants, and all she dreams about is who she's gonna make babies with.

After David and Keith and David's choirboy friends have their paintball war, D and K go home, accompanied by a big burly hairy dude named Sarge. Well, you know what happens next. It's a first for David, and probably for Keith too. Keith doesn't have a problem with it, but David's not as comfortable. This leads to some more issues for them to sort through with their counselor.

Upon returning from her pointless drive to do pointless art business for Olivier, Claire immediately detects the most microscopic trace of something wrong in the air about Russell. Any moron could have told Claire that to leave her boyfriend alone with Olivier was to BEG for horrendous trouble. Of course, Russell is a grown man and has the right and ability to do whatever he wants, but if I were Claire, I would have DEMANDED that he come with me, or break up with him THERE.

Lisa returns home from her massage and when Nate asks her where's she's been and what's up, she responds with, "Wouldn't YOU like to know." So, now we see. She's allowed to have secrets. He's not. What a deceitful bitch, truly. I hate her more with every episode. The Nate I so adored in Seasons 1 and 2 is gone, just gone...

This episode was just plain filled with WEIRDness. It was more scattered than any of them so far. I give it a C+.