zwolanerd

SUMMARY

Jaye and Aaron are in her trailer atttempting to photograph a reclusive neighbor nicknamed Fat Pat, when they are interrupted by a different neighbor looking for her disability checks. The Muffin Buffalo on Mary Anne Marie Beattle’s apron tells her to “keep them here”, so she pretends she doesn’t have them. The next day, she notices something strange at Mrs. Beattle’s trailer, and finds the oven smoking. Going back to her trailer, she is surprised to find Fat Pat in there, looking at her album titled “Fat Pat”.

Jaye feels bad for hurting Pat’s feelings, so she invites him to her parents’ house for game night, and then to the Barrel, so he can meet new people. He tells Eric that Jaye is obsessed with him because she has books full of photos of him. That night, Pat surprises Jaye by appearing naked in her trailer, where she has to tell him that she is not interested in him romantically. The next day at Wonderfalls, Jaye is made employee of the month because she accidentally saved a baby. Jaye feels uncomfortable with all of this adulation.

Pat decides to eat as many of Mary Anne Marie’s muffins as he can to ease the pain of rejection. However, the fat substitute causes him to have severe gastrointestinal distress. Jaye and Mrs. Beattle go visit Pat in the hospital once he wakes up from his coma. Jaye has given the checks back, and this has enabled Mrs. Beattle to invest more in her business. She asks Pat to be her spokesperson. Jaye is irritated that everyone is thanking her since she doesn’t feel like she has done anything, and she goes to Wonderfalls, where Eric comes to visit her. She clears up the misunderstanding about Pat and they are both happy.

While the overall story for this episode isn’t immensely compelling, I can’t help but feel like this is the first truly great episode, at least in terms of the writing. The dialogue was witty and fantastic. There are dozens of really quotable lines. We also get a better picture of the characters here, even the ones that don’t return in future episodes. Much more showing, less obvious telling through really awkward exposition.

First, I need to mention Mary Anne Marie Beattle. At first glance, just a funny older lady. But some of the lines are just so perfect. In her opening dialogue in Jaye’s trailer, she mentions her hysterectomy and her psychic in the same breath. She is the quintessential over-sharing neighbor, but also sweet and earnest.

I also really liked how Jaye, Aaron, and Sharon are portrayed in this episode. Aaron and Jaye are actually hanging out, and Sharon’s great line (“Are you two not getting along?”). This is what I’ve been waiting for, a demonstration of how this sibling dynamic really plays out. We also get to see a snapshot of what they are like during family events like “game night”, where Sharon’s competitive nature comes out, and Karen becomes obviously embarrassed by that behavior.

Continuing with our “Client” structure, the parallel between Fat Pat and Jaye is that they don’t see the good qualities within themselves. Fat Pat isn’t really fat (at least not anymore), and Jaye isn’t really mean (at least not anymore). Does this also relate to Mary Anne Marie? No, I don’t think so. She’s just awesome. But the beauty of this episode is that I actually had to think about it to recall the parallel. It wasn’t completely over-the-top obvious like the last several episodes have been.

The other major plot line in this episode is Aaron’s struggle to understand what is happening with his sister. In the commentary track for Crime Dog, the creators discuss how they had to let one cast member “in” on the secret to allow Jaye a sounding board (and because the network requested it). However, this storyline is nowhere near contrived. I really like how they chose to make an atheist the other person aware of the muses. Aaron here is having almost the same kind of crisis that Sister Katrina had in Wound Up Penguin, just in the opposite direction. He had made peace with the idea that the world has no meaning and it’s all just random chaos. He finds it much harder to stomach “meaninglessness in a world with meaning”.

Jaye is beginning to refer to the muses for guidance in this episode. She is surprised when the Muffin Buffalo says to “keep them [the checks] here”, but at other times she checks to see if a muse will say something before she acts. Later on, when Fat Pat is in Jaye’s trailer for the first time, Jaye looks directly at the Wax Lion, who says “Nope”, before responding to Ms. Beattle’s question about the checks. And again at the mailboxes, Jaye waits for the Muffin Buffalo to say “Uh-uh” before answering.

The muses also appear to have direct influence on events, or at starting chain reactions. At Wonderfalls, the Barrel Bear says “Untied shoelace. Staple it.” which leads to the events of the baby flying in the air directly into Jaye’s arms, and then the discovery of the grandmother’s ring. Later at the Barrel, the Mounted Bass says “Sore feet. Give the lady a chair,” and the former alcoholic is prevented from ruining his sobriety. A funny scene between Dr. Ron and Aaron has the glued-on Cow Creamer head falling and knocking a bunch of stuff about, causing two magazines to land on the floor and spell “cow talk”.

TRIVIA & REFERENCES:

• Jaye calls Fat Pat a variety of other nicknames, including Portly Chupacapra and Fatsquatch (play on Sasquatch). Both are mythical beasts.
• Aaron references the Judy Blume book “Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret” when he is meeting with Dr. Ron for the first time, when he mentions the Margaret chick that talked to God about her period.
• Mahandra says she is 3% Seneca, which is a group of North American First Nations people that live near Brantford, Ontario, Canada, and in Buffalo, NY.
• Jaye accidently prevents a man from drinking a non-virgin Daquiri, which is a cocktail made with rum. He mentions a going to a “meeting”, probably Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a recovery program for alcoholics.
• Jaye is worried that Ms. Beetle took her allergy pills with Gallo, which is a brand of wine, often considered to be a “cheap” wine.
• Aaron asks Jaye if she is Dr. Doolittle, who is a fictional character that can communicate with animals in their own languages.
• The “tranny” in the wheelchair compares Fat Pat to Jeffrey Dahmer, a quiet man that committed several gruesome murders in the 1980s.
• “Making a sissy” is an expression that means to urinate. Mary Anne Marie says this to Jaye when she comes back into the kitchen area of her trailer.
• Jaye thinks that Mary Anne Marie is being held hostage by Fat Pat, and asks her if she has Stockholm Syndrome and compares her to Patty Hearst, who famously joined the group that kidnapped her in the 1970s.
• Mary Anne Marie says “Sieg Heil” (Hail Victory!) and does the Nazi salute to Jaye when she tries to convince Fat Pat not to gain all of his weight back by eating muffins.
• Jenny Craig is a business focused on helping people lose weight. Its namesake owner sold the company to Nestle in 2006.
• Muffin Buffalo and Mary Anne Marie Beattle show up on another one of Bryan Fuller’s shows, Pushing Daisies, to reprise her character in the episode Comfort Food.

Tags: LWST, Wonderfalls

Written by: Meags