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Directed by: John McNaughton
Written by: Regina Corrado
Synopsis
As Imperial Beach wakes up, John finds himself standing alone in a field. He wanders, and eventually some Mexican gangsters pick him up in their van: "We drop you in I.B., ese?" John climbs into the van, but the driver soon pulls over to shake him down for money. John's imitation routine doesn't amuse the robbers, and when he starts batting their threats back at them, the driver stabs John viciously in the chest and drops him on the side of the road.
At a restaurant in I.B., Dr. Smith meets the hospital's lawyer, who's scrambling to absolve the facility of liability in Shaun's case. Pointing to the photo of Shaun skateboarding in the day's newspaper, the lawyer adds, "Does undercut 'pain and suffering.'" Not amused, Dr. Smith informs the lawyer he'll eliminate the hospital's PR problem by resigning and admitting he misread the tests, which he destroyed after he realized the mistake. The lawyer leaves with his victory, and Dr. Smith heads off to find Butchie, drawn toward the events he can't explain.
On a search of her own, Kai has been looking for John ever since waking up and realizing he disappeared from her trailer. After a trip to Butchie's empty room at the Snug Harbor, Kai heads to work, where Butchie turns up sans John. "Did he freak out about boning you," Butchie asks. Adding that she's curious where John got the idea to bone her when he doesn't know what the word means, Kai recounts John's telling her to "see God" and the superheating of her body piercings. Starting to put the events together, Butchie shares his similar experience with Kai before the two of them set out to search for John at the pier.
Cissy, hoping to sneak past the reporters in her driveway by hiding under a hat and sunglasses, finds Linc at her door. "I haven't got a clue what the new rules are," he says. "But I know all the old ones are cancelled." Cissy tells him that if he really wants to help, he can wash her dishes. As she leaves for work, Linc picks up the soap. Once Cissy settles in at the shop, she spots a journalist pretending to browse through the wet suits and tears into him before throwing him out. Shaun, too, kicks his friends out of the shop, supposedly for making a mess but conspicuously following a pal's comment: "Yost died yesterday."
While Mitch's family deals with the events of the previous day, he wakes up in Cass's hotel room, complaining about pain in his knee. Cass steps into the bathroom to quietly escape his New Age rambling about surfing and chakras, but he calls her back to show that he's begun levitating again. When he leaves to buy herbs to apply to his knee, Cass visits Linc, who tells her she needs to be working harder to draw Mitch away from his family.
After a fruitless – but flirtatious – visit to the pier, Butchie and Kai recruit Bill's help hunting down John. Promising to put word out with his friends in the department, Bill takes control of the search, dividing Imperial Beach into quadrants. Butchie and Kai end up back at the Snug Harbor where his awkward peck on her cheek ends with her jumping into his arms.
During his daily roving, Vietnam Joe finds John covered in blood on the side of the road and rushes him to the hospital. On the way to town, John place's the veteran's hand over his heart, and the wound miraculously heals. At the same moment, Cass – alone in her hotel room – receives a vision of the miracle taking place and leaves for the Snug Harbor.
Joe barrels into the hotel parking lot screaming, "Medic! Medic!" Dr. Smith runs up to examine John, whose closed wound calls for nothing more than a clean shirt and jacket. Joe becomes livid, claiming a hoax: "I guess it's time to identify which warped rear-echelon asshole at the V.F.W. bar I drink at thought something I'd confided about events in-country was worth abusing for the sake of a chuckle!" John calms him with one cryptic sentence, "Tomorrow is another day."
Bill interrupts the romance between Butchie and Kai, telling them John has shown up outside. When they step outside to see him, Cass pulls up to the hotel and leads John into her Porsche. As Bill engages in his usual face-off with Freddy, Butchie leaves with Kai to carry on at her trailer. "Butchie wants to bring down the hammer," John calls as Cass drives him to her hotel. Back in her room, Mitch shows her a book on levitation he bought, and she asks him to leave, offering John's arrival as a reason. "The joker in the deck," Mitch says to John before heading home to his wife.
When Cass tells Linc she sent the surfer packing, he slams the door in her face, threatening to fire her and launching a diatribe through the wall. When he looks into the hallway to assess her reaction, she's gone. Cass arranges her room to give John a place to sleep on the floor. "See God, Cass," he tells her, and when she asks what he means, it sounds like she's talking about a lot more than his words.
Back at his house, Bill rants to Zippy about ending his relationship with the Yost family, but through some unspoken connection with the creature, determines he should make peace with Freddy. Bringing coffee and doughnuts to the Snug Harbor, Bill tells the criminal, "My bird Zippy conveyed to me, despite the obvious dissimilarities between us, we should become friends." Not as miffed as one would expect, Freddy picks through the doughnuts, asking if perhaps the bird meant another Freddy. The arrival of a beautiful blonde in a red Mustang cuts Bill's retort short. "I'm looking for Butchie Yost," she tells the men, ignoring Freddy's attempts to come on to her and leaving when it becomes clear neither can help. The conversation reverts to Zippy, and Freddy offers, "I got a lizard back home, changes shapes." Bill nods, "Chameleon, they're called."
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"His Visit: Day Three"
