THIS WEEK'S EPITAPHS:

• Claire Fisher: she talked, she watched, but she didn't come.
• Rico, while you're in disgrace with fortune and Vanessa's eyes, we won't beweep your outcast state — unless gleeful cackling counts as beweeping.
• It is not the length of life, but the depth of life that matters. George is still in the kiddie pool.
• Alas, poor Joe: he knew you, Brenda. Actually, he hadn't a clue.

The theme song — I just have to ask: am I the only one who tries to whistle/hum/sing this theme song? I try, and then I think, "well, I'm making it sound more like the Pac Man music."

Claire's bed — That's right: this episode is not opening with a death vignette. Instead, we're thisclose to Edie and Claire, whose faces are thisclose, but it's not exactly the happy glowy thing you might have been hoping for:

Claire: "I did."
Edie: "No."
Claire: "I swear. I was like majorly, intensely worked up. Like never before."
Edie: "Trust me, that's so not it."
Claire: "Quit looking at me like I'm the new zoo baby. I did come."
Edie: "Honey, there's no way. I was there, remember? There was no funny face, no funny noises. You didn't melt into a smoking little puddle of Claire... yet."
Claire: "This sucks. What is wrong with me?"
Edie: "Nothing. We're just getting started. You wait and see, I'll make you scream."
Claire: "I hope so."

Wait, did I say it wasn't happy and glowy? Because it kinda is. Mostly because Mena Suvari has got the bedroom eyes goin' on. Well, that and the fact that my favorite show just started, and it started with two girls in bed, and I feel so damn validated, I could melt into a smoking little puddle of me.

The Fisher kitchen — Ruth wants George to go to church with her. He refuses because he's an agnostic and has a million things to do, and is also a selfish prick who has no soul.

David comes in with his burning stomach. Ruth tells him orange juice will only make it worse, and also wonders why he seems to be ready to work on a Sunday. David's kind of twitching, like his body is one giant muscle spasm. He agrees to go to church with Ruth because he's not a selfish prick, and also doesn't really have anything better to do except twitch.

James Dubois Marshall (1923-2004) — A well-dressed man pulls his snazzy old silver Continental into the Fisher & Diaz driveway. He turns off the motor, puts a piece of paper on the dashboard, puts his hat on his head, closes his eyes, and dies.

Now that's the way to go.

Sophie's bed —No, I don't care: there will be no other beds in this episode for me. Just Claire's. Well, and Brenda's. And Brooke Smith's, should she happen to show up. And Patricia Clarkson's and... yeah, you get the idea.

Wait: I do have to say that the other thing that sucks about Rico's storyline is that Sophie is so completely unsympathetic and stereotypical. Could we give the woman some sort of character, please? Some sort of attribute other than repulsiveness?

Church — David has yet another Jake hallucination: this time he pictures Jake beating up the minister, and pictures himself running up and sticking a gun in Jake's mouth, and pulling the trigger. Ruth notices him twitching and freaking out again, so he just says "heartburn." David, David: a mountain of Pepcid won't help you.

The Fisher & Diaz driveway — Nate comes back from a run to find James Dubois Marshall slumped in his car. Nate says the only thing one can say in such a situation: "Goddamnit."

Joe and Brenda's house — Joe's tooting his own horn. No, really: he's playing his French horn and preparing to score the new Jet Li movie. And he's not being nice to Brenda, who's asking if he wants to go away somewhere sometime. Take me, Brenda! I don't have a horn, but I'm plenty horny.

The Fisher kitchen — George and Anita are having a debate about fossils and history. Anita says, "History is not what really happened; history is some stupid warmongering patriarchal idea of what happened" and nobody gives a shit about it. (She says the "nobody gives a shit" part, but you can also read that sentence as "nobody gives a shit about what Anita is saying.") Ruth gives a shit about something else: "I think you've forgotten part of your outfit, Anita." George is laughing at Anita in a yucky leery old guy way.

Nate tells David about the guy in the Lincoln. David gets all businesslike, as if he's glad to have something to think about, but it's hard to lose yourself in your work when your work is so damn... intense.

Speaking of intense, Edie and Claire walk in.

Anita: "Oh, look who's here: Gertrude and Alice."
Edie: "Oh, look at her: were we supposed to dress '80s and nobody called?"
Claire: "Take a break, ladies."
Ruth: "Claire, the coach house would be a better place for your girlfriends to gather."

Oh, Ruth, if you only knew what kinds of girlfriends have been doing what kind of gathering.

The basement — Nate, David, and Rico try to figure out how Mr. Marshall managed to drive himself to his own funeral. Maybe he was just that cool.

David calls Keith and continues to twitch. Keith says David doesn't sound like himself and wants to know the truth, but David says he's fine.

Rico: "He's not fine."
Nate: "Ya think?"

Art school — The Scooby Art Gang discuss their plans for confrontational art. Edie wonders where Russell is; Anita says, "He's asleep. I fucked him into unconsciousness." Hey, Anita: when I said that thing in the last recap, about you chaining Russell to the bed, I was kidding.

Edie is braiding Claire's hair. Dammit, that's adorable. Then they start to finish each other's sentences and Anita calls them "conjoined twins." Jealous much, fossil girl? But Claire and Edie look a little sheepish about the sentence-finishing. Even if they're not really gay, they're so gay, you know?

Rico's house — Vanessa finally lets loose:

Vanessa: "How could you? All that time, come home to us after screwing her."
Rico: "I never screwed her! Never until last night."
Vanessa: "Your marriage is on the rocks and that's what you do?"
Rico: "You kicked me out into the street. Yes, I went to her, yes, I had sex with her — it's all your fault."
Vanessa: "You break your vows, you fuck that whore, and you blame me? You coward, you bastard, you son of a bitch. You make me sick."

Again! Do it again!

The bereavery — James Marshall's family — hey, I think the daughter is on West Wing now, isn't she? — talk about how cool James was and that they knew he'd just plan to die someday. The service has all been planned too, and they just need the keys to the car. These people should write a book on how to live, die, and do everything in between.

The Fisher residence — Ruth is jealous and George can't even tell. Pig.

Celeste's tour — Javier sorta tries to put the moves on Keith. The words "big dick" are thrown around and it's all very eye-rolly. What's with this guy?

The basement at Fisher & Diaz — Rico sleeps on a slab. Unfortunately, he's still breathing.

Nate's room — Brenda calls Nate and gives him the scoop about Joe — well sort of. She says she and Joe are "okay," which is so not true. She tells Nate to come over to see the house, but he can't because he's taking Maya to Travel Town. Brenda asks if she can go along.

Brenda: "No ulterior motives: I just wanna ride the rails."
Nate: "Brenda, we always have ulterior motives."

But Brenda says please, and Nate says yes, because everyone wants to be ridden by Brenda — I mean, wants to ride a train with Brenda.

The Fisher yard — George is pruning/hacking the hell out of a tree.

Vanessa's house — Vanessa looks at the credit card bills and wonders "what kind of man spends this much money on a chick without getting laid?" She calls her sister, who thinks Vanessa sounds better. Vanessa says "yeah, I'm done crying." Yes!

Griffith Park — Nate, Brenda, and Maya ride the little train, and damn if they don't look like the perfect family to me.

Claire's place — Claire has candles and flowers and music playing. Her mom stops by and asks, "what's all this?" but Claire says it's nothing. Mmm hmm.

Ruth says she thinks Anita should be contributing financially because she (Anita, not Ruth) has been prancing around the house in her underwear. Ruth leaves with a sigh, and Claire goes back to choosing the perfect CD to set the mood.

Celeste's limousine — Hey, Celeste, did you hear that news report about limousines possibly being used in terrorist attacks? You might want to check under the car.

Keith gives Celeste a burger and some sympathy. I don't even know what Celeste is ranting about, because I seem to lose my hearing when she speaks.

A street — Vanessa and her sister wait for Sophie to get home. When she does, they immediately get out of the car — holy shit, Vanessa's sister has a baseball bat! They confront Sophie, who says it's not her problem that Vanessa doesn't know how to dress and can't keep a man. Hang on, let me get my baseball bat too.

So they all get in a fight and call each other lots of names, and I'm sure that I should not be enjoying it. A cranky neighbor lady opens her door and screams at them all to get out or she'll call the cops. Sophie goes inside. Vanessa takes the baseball bat and smashes the hell out of Sophie's car, and then says simply, "We gotta go pick up the boys from school." It looks incredibly cathartic, and I don't blame Vanessa for any of it, but I might have to give up my fantasies of meeting her in a dark alley.

George's latest display of idiocy — Ruth wants to know what George has done.

George: "I cut back the crape myrtle."
Ruth: "This is not a crape myrtle. It's the tree Nathaniel planted for Claire on her 10th birthday. Can't you tell a crape myrtle from a Bradford flowering pear?"
George: "Well, whatever it is, it looked diseased. I've read about powdery mildew and it's no joke."
Ruth: "That tree is not, nor has it ever been, diseased. It never gets powdery mildew because I always keep the soil dry and aerated. My god, you've killed it."
George: "I have not. Ask anyone. You have to trim vegetation in order to stimulate new growth."
Ruth: "You're a geologist. You know rocks. This is a living thing. You chop off the branches and you make wounds."
George: "Ruth, please don't anthropomorphize trees."
Ruth: "Wounds, George. That's what they're called. And these wounds will not heal. They'll be invaded by rot and it will move into the core wood. You've butchered the most beautiful tree in my yard."
George: "I think it'll come back bigger and better than ever. And if it doesn't, we can always get another one."
Ruth: "You could have told me what you were going to do."

Ruth hugs the tree a little, and then leaves, because there's nothing sadder than a wounded tree, except perhaps a wounded woman.

David and Keith's house — David is lying on the couch, curled up, flipping channels, looking miserable. The phone rings. It's that Sarge guy that David and Keith had a threesome with after playing paintball last season or whenever. Um, what? Do we really need to revisit that?

Claire's place — Claire pops her cork — er, I mean the cork on the wine bottle — just as Edie walks in. Claire makes a little "ta-da" move to show Edie that the place is all done up for her.

Edie: "You're so damn cute. [coughs]"
Claire: "It's too much fragrance?"
Edie: "Yeah, maybe a little."
Claire: "Fuck! I bought these votives, they were supposed to be unscented; instead they're like sandalwood lavender vanilla musk..."
Edie: "Come here. Stop it."

[smooch]

Claire: "I don't know why, I mean, we already kinda had sex. I feel like I'm at like a middle school cotillion."
Edie: "Well, you're not. You're all grown up and beautiful..."
Claire: "Don't laugh at me."
Edie: "I'm not. Not at all."
Claire: "I don't know what to do to make this go right tonight."
Edie: "It's already going right. Except you have to change this vagina music like immediately."
Claire: "Okay."

David's latest twitch — David and Sarge smoke some weed and get it on. Hmm, if Claire was playing vagina music, what do we call this easy-listening-soft-jazz crap that David's playing?

Claire's place —The camera switches from Sarge and David on the couch to Claire and Edie on the bed, and it's all really, really gay.

But not quite: Edie starts to make her way down, but then pauses.

Claire: "What?"
Edie: "Are you feeling anything resembling excitement right now?"
Claire: "Of course! I love kissing you: your face has these subtle curves and angles. "

[smooch]
[smooch]

Claire: "Am I doing something wrong?"
Edie: "No. There's just so much more we could be doing."
Claire: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Edie: "Let's make it like a dance. Where I touch you... which is nice, right?"
Claire: "Yeah."
Edie: "And then you touch me..."

[pant]
[moan]
[pant]

Claire: "Okay, this isn't happening. Sorry, it's not. I took one of David's ativan; I thought it would help."
Edie: "Claire..."

[sigh]
[sigh]
[sigh]

Claire: "You really wanna get off, huh?"
Edie: "Yeah, kinda. I mean, it'd be nice."
Claire: "Well, go ahead."
Edie: "Claire Fisher!"
Claire: "I want to watch."
Edie: "All right, yeah. Watch me. I'll come for you."

[inhale]
[moan]
[inhale]
[mmm]
[stare]

[grin] [smile] [giggle] [clear throat]

David goes down — And doesn't see Jake. That's good. But I still don't like Sarge.

Joe and Brenda's house — Joe is being so icy. It doesn't help when Brenda tells him that she went to Travel Town with Nate and Maya. Even when she tries to hint to Joe that she's not tired, he doesn't look very into it. Poor guy. I know you can't trust her, Joe, but it's Brenda! Take the opportunity.

David on top — David tries to fuck out all the pain.

Rico's phone — Sophie whines to Rico about Vanessa's aggression. Then she calls Rico a "dum-dum," which cracks me up.

Claire's bed — Edie sleeps peacefully while Claire looks confused. I think this has less to do with Claire's sexuality than it does with Edie's satiety.

Celeste's hotel room — Celeste and Keith decide that since everybody else is sleeping with the nearest warm body, they might as well join in. They don't put it in so many words, of course — instead they use these words:

Celeste: "I don't get fucked in the ass."
Keith: "That makes one of us."

David and Keith's place — Sarge tries to leave, but David wants him to stay and cuddle. David freaks out and ends up kind of attacking Sarge, so Sarge tackles him and tells him to face facts: "David, do I call a hospital? Get some help, will ya? You're losing it."

The basement at Fisher & Diaz — Ruth finds Rico sleeping on a slab. At first Ruth is nice and sympathetic, but then Rico says he's cheated on Vanessa, so Ruth slaps him and calls him "Federico" like he's 6. Again! Do it again!

Ruth: "What's wrong with you men? Always turning your back on what you have. Always sniffing around for something new."
Rico: "Me? You've had three boyfriends since Mr. F, and that's not including the affair with the hairdresser."

See, Rico? I'll recap you when you're funny. Just stop being an asshole.

Rico does admit that he made a mistake and says he wants to take it back, but I think that baseball bat has already sailed.

Keith's phone — David finally admits that he needs Keith. Keith says he'll be there as soon as he can.

The funeral — These people really do know how to live and die. They sing "Oh Happy Day" and the place is rockin'. I think maybe at my funeral I want people to sing "Girlfriend in a Coma." What? Too morbid? It is a funeral, after all.

Claire's bed — They need to talk.

Edie: "I think I figured us out."
Claire: "Me too."
Edie: "You first."
Claire: "I think you are the coolest and most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life and I admire you so fucking much."
Edie: "Well, of course."
Claire: "And you are totally hot. I mean, I feel that, I really do, and I'm like, so pulled to you. But when I look at this whole thing objectively..."
Edie: "The attraction is aesthetic."
Claire: "Well, yeah. It's creative, and artistic —"
Edie: "— and intellectual and physical —"
Claire: "Yes! But not necessarily sexual."
Edie: "You're not into fucking women."
Claire: "I thought I was."
Edie: "Shit."
Claire: "Shit. But after seeing your orgasm, I really, really want one. Fuck!"

Shit. Fuck!

Brenda's house — Brenda and Nate put Maya down for a nap so they can talk about safe things. Yeah, right. When in her life has Brenda ever been safe?

The Fisher kitchen — George tries to go out for a couple of hours, but Ruth does not approve: "Marriage is not a gas station, George. You can't just pull in and fill up whenever you remember you have a wife."

Ewww.

George says something about something being unfair and inaccurate and insists he's always treated Ruth as a partner and a friend. And other things get said, and Ruth is right and George is wrong, but I'm too bored with these two. George says Ruth is smothering him and that he did warn her, and then finally leaves even though he doesn't want a divorce. Yawn.

Claire's place — David and Claire share their stories of last night.

David: "I have to get control of myself."
Claire: "No, David, if you were any more controlled you'd be a sculpture."

[pause]

Claire: "You know what? Last night I had a humiliating homosexual experience of my own."
David: "Seriously? What happened?"
Claire: "Not much. I never even went down on her."
David: "You can stop there."
Claire: "I just couldn't go through with it. It pisses me off. It would be so much easier to be gay."
David: "Oh, no."
Claire: "Yeah, you have a really defined subculture."
David: "Overrated."
Claire: "And we're both women. I'd have some idea of what she was thinking and feeling."
David: "Not necessarily."
Claire: "Well, I wouldn't have to deal with unfamiliar sex organs."
David: "They're all unfamiliar unless they're yours."

Yep, I think that just about says it all.

But just in case you need a few more words: who cares whether Claire is straight or gay, or just artistic, creative, intellectual and physical? It was fun while it lasted, and a nicely done story arc overall. Probably Claire just really needs to have an orgasm, and then she can ask those questions for real. And get some sleep.

Somewhere on the tour — Keith tells his boss he has to leave the tour. His boss says he knows it's not Keith's fault, but then Keith realizes the boss doesn't know what's going on with David — the boss just knows that Celeste has fired Keith because of their little encounter. Oh, please, does that mean she won't be on the show anymore? Bye bye, Dawnie.

Brenda's couch — Brenda and Nate have apparently moved on from talking about safe things to making out. Just in time, Joe arrives. Brenda, you know I love you, but this is kinda unfair, don't you think?

Nate and Maya leave, and then Joe says lots of mean things while I try not to stare at Brenda's cleavage. Brenda insists she was honest with him in the beginning about her issues, but Joe says Brenda's addicted to betrayal, not sex. And then he says she's a person without character, integrity, loyalty, and respect. Joe, it's time for you to go.

So he does, and his little horn too, and Brenda looks rueful but okay. At least I hope so. I still have my baseball bat handy.

The Fisher kitchen — Something's burning in the oven. George finds a note on the wall.

Celeste's latest tirade — Dammit, she's still on the show! Go away!

The Fisher couch — David, Claire, George, and Nate watch The Simpsons. Is this perfect or what? Nate asks where Ruth is, except of course he calls her Mom.. George shows him the note Ruth left, which says, "Going away. Don't contact the authorities. I'll be in touch when I'm ready. Dinner's in the oven."

Ruth has finally gone out to find herself! I know exactly where I'd look: it starts with "Kathy" and ends with "Bates."

Nate just sits down on the couch with Maya and sighs. Cue "Oh Happy Day" and the credits.

NEXT WEEK ON SIX FEET UNDER: George and Rico are even more pathetic than Nate is; Bettina and Ruth go on a road trip; Brenda needs to know what Nate feels; Edie doesn't want to see Claire; Brenda gets stoned; Keith confesses.