Six Feet Under: The Liar and the Whore

July 30, 2019 9:53 PM - Season 2, Episode 11

A resident of the nursing home where Vanessa works makes the mistake of irritating her roommate beyond endurance with her constant complaining, and Vanessa and her co-worker make the mistake of assuming the woman died of congestive heart failure, which costs Vanessa her job. Ruth pays Nikolai's debt for him. David and Nate receive word that Fisher & Sons is being sued. Nate and Brenda go to pre-marital counselling with Rabbi Ari, Nate comes clean to Brenda about Lisa and her pregnancy, and Brenda gathers more material for her erotic novella. Keith and David face off with Keith's father, who wants Taylor to come live with him and Keith's mother. Claire and Parker get high on mushrooms and sew.

There does not appear to be an obituary available for this week's cold open death, Edith Kirky (1929-2002).

posted by orange swan (3 comments total)

Why was it up to two nurses to decide the cause of death? I thought that sort of thing was always determined by a doctor.

Good on Rico for knowing something was up with one glance at the body, though. That's pretty amazing.

Ruth is making the mistake of trying too hard to make a relationship work by being overly generous and doing too much for her partner, and that's never a good idea. If your partner isn't fully on board with being with you, you can't fix that by doing more than your share of the rowing. Ruth didn't even try to negotiate Nikolai's debt down, or to get a receipt.

Also, how is all of the 500K her husband left Ruth gone already? She lost over 20K at the track, she invested some of it in Fisher and Sons when Nate and David needed some work done on the house (can't remember how much, but it was well under 100K as far as I can recall), she picked up the medical tab for Nikolai's two broken legs (and it was never specified how much that was, but he didn't spend even one night in the hospital), and now she has spent 87K paying Nikolai's debt. That 500K can't all be gone.

How did Kroehner even know about Catherine Collins and her viewing of her husband's mangled corpse? Are they following up with all of Fisher & Sons' clients and interviewing them to find out if there's any potential for a lawsuit? That's a pretty strenuous level of effort. I still don't get why buying Fisher & Sons is so important to them. I'm really not buying the whole Kroehner plotline. David was brutal with Catherine Collins, but he was right. She's not an immoral person, just a messed up one, and he got through to her.

So now Nate's cards are on the table, and Brenda knows about both the AVM and Nate's one incident of cheating, and the baby... though Nate doesn't know about Brenda's compulsive, non-stop cheating. Brenda-like, Brenda doesn't do anything constructive, like, say, go back to that sexual addiction counsellor. No, she calls Billy (like he'd be any help), smokes a joint, and bangs two random stoners. Then she goes back to Nate and tells him he's the least fucked up thing in her life and so she wants to marry him. That is NOT a good reason to get married, Brenda. But this shitshow of an engagement goes on for the time being.

After all she's been through, Taylor gets to be a wishbone between her uncle and her grandfather. She was never even asked what she'd prefer in terms of custody. I know she's only nine, but her feelings still matter. David was quite right to urge Keith to stand up to his father rather than knuckling under and accepting that he knew best, and though Keith basically physically threatening his dad wasn't the healthiest thing, it at least made it clear to Papa Charles that he's not going to be able to intimidate his armoured tank of a son anymore. (Though I did not appreciate Keith telling his mother to stay out of it when she tried to say something.) It was better for Taylor not to have to switch schools in the middle of the year, and she's better off with Keith and David than with Keith's parents. It's also what Karla wants for her daughter.

David calls Keith's mother Lucille and his father Mr. Charles. You know it's because he's been invited and told to do that, respectively.

It was kind of fun to watch amoral Parker and sardonic Claire become a couple of eager, earnest young girls while tripping on 'shrooms. Claire generally does become a marshmallow when she's high and it's hilarious. Those culottes though... dear God. I have never forgotten them, but they were even worse than I remembered. They had freaking bells on them. I can't believe Ruth actually wore them to work. The woman is so desperate for affection from her children.
posted by orange swan at 4:50 PM on July 31, 2019 [1 favorite]

how is all of the 500K her husband left Ruth gone already?

That's a puzzler. Ruth managed some of her husband's books - that's how she presented herself as an employee to Nikolai as a bookkeeper. On the other hand, I think everyone discounts how freaked Ruth is at her widowhood. She doesn't make sense even to herself.

How did Kroehner even know about Catherine Collins and her viewing of her husband's mangled corpse?
It's been many years but there was TONS of gossip between funeral homes when I worked at them a few decades ago. I can't imagine how much swifter word spreads now.
posted by goofyfoot at 7:57 PM on July 31, 2019

Kroenher unsuccessfully tried to lure Catherine Colins away from the Fishers as a client- so they would have had both a motive and the contact details to try a speculative follow up call to her.

I love how the full sartorial glory of Ruth’s new culottes is only revealed gradually.
posted by rongorongo at 3:13 PM on April 11, 2022