 |
Directed by: Ed Bianchi
Written by: Steve Hawk
Synopsis
Cass wakes up in her hotel room and peers over the side of the bed to find John, prostrate but wide awake, on the floor. She complains that she won't be able to pay for their room now that Linc has fired her, adding that she has no idea what she'll do for work now that she can't trade on sex. John, in his typically obscure way, advises her to pick up her video camera.
Cissy, lying in bed with Mitch, leaps to pick up the ringing phone and berates the caller: "Shut up. Whatever you want, you're not getting it." The sound of tires squawking sends Cissy to the front door just in time to see Shaun's porn-star mother, Tina, tear off in her red Mustang. Shaun hears it too, but when he comes to investigate, Cissy hustles him away to the surf shop, fearing that Tina may send a lawyer to the house to reclaim her son.
After stashing Shaun at the shop, Cissy hammers on Kai's trailer, throwing a screaming fit: "That porno-slut who made Shaun with my scumbag son ..." The scumbag son himself, lingering after a night in Kai's bed, listens wide-eyed to the exchange. "The less you say, the less you'll have to take back," Kai warns him before heading up to the shop to find Shaun smoking pot from a soda can, which she snatches from his hands.
As Cass and John leave their hotel, they cross paths with Linc, who throws a few barbs Cass's way while she picks up the Porsche. As the pair drive off, Tina pulls up in her Mustang, and Linc pretends not to know who she is. Starting off with small-talk, Linc follows up with an offer to pay her for sex. But, once they get back to his room, chest pains and shallow breathing prevent him from performing. After she dresses his forehead with a damp washcloth, the two introduce themselves. Conversation inevitably leads to Butchie ... and Shaun. "Whatever I can do to help," Linc tells her.
Holding to the vendetta he swore after John healed miraculously under his touch, Vietnam Joe ambles into the V.F.W. bar with questions for the bartender and a pistol on his hip. "Why would you want to make my story the punch line of your joke," Joe demands. Railing on about his guilt – his platoon had been wiped out while he lingered behind to remove blisters from his feet – Joe slowly realizes he never shared this story with the bartender. "Infantry man's feet's as important as his weapon," the bartender assures him, trying to unburden the burnt-out soldier. Joe turns and leaves. Later, fishing on the pier, he acknowledges the miracle he participated in and seems to finally cast off the shame he's carried for decades.
Cissy walks in on Mitch practicing yoga, but when he forbids her to smoke in his clubhouse and tells her his levitation has been witnessed, she loses what little cool she has left: "You jerk! I wish that instead of floating you could fly 500 miles an hour into a f**king brick wall ... Get out then." She returns to the house to smoke as Mitch packs a bag and drives off in his station wagon. Once he's gone, Cissy rummages through a closet, pulling down a shoebox and taking a revolver from inside.
Cass and John have set to work with her camera, shooting footage of a street fair complete with Hare Krishnas, eco-warriors and masked wrestlers. John mingles with the crowd, but when he jumps into the ring with the wrestlers, Cass prepares for the worst. After a few light-hearted moves, however, John gives each contender a hug and holds their hands in the air like a ref declaring double victory. Later, at their hotel, Cass tells John she wants to see him levitate. Resting his hand on her cheek, John tells her, "The camera's up in the air."
At the Snug Harbor, Tina catches up with Butchie, and as much as he tries to vilify her for abandoning Shaun, he knows he doesn't exactly hold the moral high ground himself. After a few minutes of avoiding her eyes, Butchie agrees to talk to Cissy – not that he thinks it'll help matters much. When he shows up at the house, Cissy tells him, "If it were your business, tell me what good could possibly come from letting him meet her." Butchie tells his mother he thinks Tina might kill herself if she doesn't see Shaun, but this doesn't carry much weight with Cissy, who contemplates suicide on a near-daily basis.
Freddy faces a different delicate situation, trying to keep his night-time ramblings secret despite his new roommate. He chooses a more direct solution: "Ask a girl, Marie, on bandying about my sleep-talk," he tells Palaka. "She's got five or six resting places on the Big Island, dig her up and ask." His henchman gets the picture, but he's surprised to hear Freddy's next decision. The heroin guru has chosen to give up his business in Hawaii, which he knows his competitor will see as a threat. "Then he'll come try to kill me," Freddy reasons.
At a diner, Butchie delivers the bad news to Tina, who gives him a message for Cissy: "If it's 'cause I'm no good, that's one thing, but if it's 'cause I left Shaunie at the door, I didn't leave him 'cause I didn't care." She recounts that day to Butchie, how she hid across the street to make sure Shaun was safe, knowing her career would destroy them both if she took him with her. "Was I supposed to mail him to your Dumpster in Cabo," she asks. Butchie considers this and takes Tina to his mother's house.
Kai, also on her way to the house, sees Butchie and Tina sitting in the Mustang as she approaches, and when she hops over the back fence, Cissy reaches for her gun. Realizing it's Kai, she stashes the weapon in a hanging basket in the kitchen. Right before Butchie and Tina knock on the door, Kai notices the gun, taking it and ordering Cissy to sit down and smoke a cigarette. Cowed by this, Cissy doesn't put up much of a fight when Tina comes in to see Shaun, who's pretending to sleep in his bedroom. "Do not wake him up," Cissy tells her, about as much vitriol as she can muster. After sneaking a peek at her son, Tina thanks her and leaves with Butchie. Following an awkward moment with Tina at the Mustang's door, Butchie approaches Kai, but she hurries off before he can catch up. Once she gets back to her trailer, she pulls Cissy's gun and shoots the clock radio, which responds by blaring the song she had played for Butchie the night before.
Discuss this episode in the John From Cincinnati Bulletin Board.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"His Visit: Day Four"
