I have nothing but admiration for a show that does a meaningful Christmas episode in the middle of April -- especially when Christmas is the anniversary of the event that kicked off the whole series: the death of Nate Fisher Sr.

It even reminded me that Nate & Brenda met over a quickie in a closet at the airport, and makes her current quest for dangerous sex seem a lot less random.

I loved this week's ep. Just loved it. I actually cried a little during Nate & Brenda's fight, and they're not even my favorite characters. But let's start at the beginning.

This week's death couldn't have been better. A guy in a Santa Claus suit on a motorcycle waves to some kids, doesn't see where he's going, and gets flattened by a truck. Turns out he was a Biker -- capital B on purpose -- and thus the Fisher Funeral Home inherited a full-on, Jack Daniels-soaked biker funeral on Christmas Day. And 3 kids have to forever live with the memory of watching Santa die. Funny! (Sorry, but it is.)

Despite all that, Ruth insisted on a real Christmas dinner. Guests included Nikolai (who's clearly in some sort of trouble with the Russian mafia, since he now has two broken legs and will be staying with the Fishers so Ruth can look after him), Brenda (who Ruth still seems to hate), Keith & Taylor, and Claire's then-boyfriend Kelly. I'm so glad he's gone. He was so boring! I hated his boy-band haircut and he didn't dig Claire's humor at all. Screw him. And now, instead of straight-laced Kelly, we have boring Billy, but he's not boring anymore! I couldn't be happier. Now that he's sane, and struggling with sanity, he's ten times more interesting. A hundred times more interesting. Infinitely more interesting. In fact, now that he's back & e-mailing Claire every day, it's Brenda who's really starting to lose it. I don't really blame her -- a few days with that mother of hers, let alone an entire childhood, would turn anyone into a lunatic.

Claire is obviously going to fall for Billy, which will enrage Nate, make Brenda jealous, and eventually get scary when Billy gets boring again because he's gone off the edge. This is the man who came after his sister with a knife to carve out her tattoo, remember? Apparently only Brenda does, along with me and the rest of the viewers. But isn't he much edgier and scarier now? He's struggling with his own lunacy but quite lucid about it.

Federico's wife is a nightmare, by the way. Yeesh. She really needs to stop yelling at him. And now it's because of her that Ramon stopped by to beat him up. Lovely! Maybe she should try being a little bit nicer to her husband. Rico's going to lose it too, he's heading off to the dark side. Come to the dark side, Luuuke.

And finally, it's lovely to see Keith & David back together again, even with Taylor's "yech" after Keith told David he still had part of his Christmas present to give him, in private. I used to think the guy who played Keith was awful, but he's much better these days. And David's still my favorite, with Claire running a close second.

What a great episode!

I think my favorite line of the evening has to be: "Are you out of your fuckin' homo mind?" This from Federico to Ramon, his cousin who was working on his house, after catching him exactly, precisely, in the act with another guy.

Nate met a hot, soft-spoken female rabbi and flirted with her after spilling his guts about his potentially terminal condition. Brenda contined fantasizing about dangerous sex with strangers while her mom continued to be selfish and horrible. David and Keith are heading back together, even though their date turned into a hospital vigil for Taylor, who had her appendix out. Claire went to Ruth's hippie sister's for the weekend, watched the crazy hippies dance around, and met a boy. It was all very busy.

I do think, however, that the best moments of the show were the silences. There were some lovely quiet moments in there. Ruth's sad dinner alone was among them. Also, although it wasn't really silent, Brenda's face while Nate was all "I love you baby" pushing into her was, well, sad. It was. Even though she's on some kind of weird sexual kick, talking about wanting to strip, and watching a prostitute blow a guy, and fantasizing about a truckdriver. A truckdriver!

And the oddest moment: the cameo by Jeffrey Ross at the Jewish funeral. I worked with him once, a long time ago. What was he doing there? Favor to someone?

And let's not forget this week's death, a tribute to the late Michael Hutchence of INXS. Auto-erotic asphyxiation, they call it. My husband said "good" when the gravestone came up. I guess strangling yourself and HOPING that you'll come too before you choke to death isn't perhaps the smartest of activities.

I am happy to see David & Keith heading back together. The show started with this fantasy of David showing up at Keith's in the rain, crying, saying he loved him, and then it turned out to be Keith's fantasy instead of David's. And Claire's visit to crazy Sarah was pretty funny. "Let me show you to your sleeping nook."

And lastly, I'm glad Ruth's done with the Plan. It was funny at first but I don't know how they could have kept it going. I loved when Robbie was droning on & on about at the table and they just kept the camera on Ruth thinking "Shut up. Shut up. Shut up now. You will stop talking now or I will stab you in the heart with this fork."

I'm not sure where they're heading with this whole Brenda thing, and I hope it isn't all so they can show her stripping. Surely someone that smart would find something more interesting to do.

But I doubt it.

Sorry, I missed a few weeks in there. I watched it, just missed writing up the reviews. Oops.

Last week's was pretty slow despite the welcome appearance of Lili Taylor, and the week before that was, I think, magnificent. At the very end of that episode, Nate told David about his brain disease, and they kept their voices so soft that you couldn't make out what they were saying at all as they sat in the window and David reached out and put his hand on Nate's. I should have reviewed that.

This week was good too. The woman who died at the beginning choked to death, which I didn't like much because they showed a lot of it, but it kind of made sense when you put it together with the rest of the story -- she had no friends or family, no steady job, and had already paid for and planned her own funeral. Nobody came so the Fishers & Federico came. They really need to treat Federico better.

Brenda's experiment with the prosititute was predictable, but it would have been interesting to hear her answer if anyone had asked her "what did you do today?" "I made $100 watching a friend give a guy a blow job." Then she proposed to Nate, after telling her prostitute friend how she wasn't really into him anymore. Nate accepted but didn't tell her he might be dying.

Keith shot a guy, went to David for comfort. David asked if he wanted to pray. Instead Keith lunged for him and they ended up doing it. David woke up the next morning to a phone call from Keith, who had already left, saying that "last night was a big mistake, obviously" -- lovely -- and that he guessed they just couldn't be friends anymore or see each other again. Charming behavior all around. I'm glad David met a new guy and was already imaging their open house invitations. Fun. Good Ben. Bad Keith.

I have nothing to say about Nate's rock & roll fantasy, but I love Claire's school stuff and her weirdo guidance counselor and her jokes about Ruth's gutters needing to be cleaned. I love all The Plan mockery. And the more I watch Frances Conroy as Ruth, the more I think she would have been a great addition to the cast of Twin Peaks. I've been watching the 1st season DVD box set and she fits right in.

So many fine moments in this one. I liked the football guy dying at the beginning -- I mean, you know, anything that reinforces my "sports are stupid" theory makes me happy. You know what else makes me happy? The continuing absence of boring brother Billy. I suspect he'll return at some point but for the moment, he is far, far away.

Brenda and Nate's evening with Trevor and his wife and their hyper kid was pretty funny. I love that she realized what a dumbass he was after spending the evening with him, as well as Nate's comments...."That kid...what a freak. Better save up for therapy NOW." I really wanted Nate to tell Brenda that he might be dying but alas, he did not.

Ruth won over the gay guy at the flower shop, but he asked her to go to his "graduation" from "The Plan", some weird cultish L.A. kind of self-affirmation group. Looks like she's getting sucked in and signs up next week, where she can "speak fiercely from the I". Yeesh.

Claire finally gave up on Gabe, at least for this episode. I suppose she was entitled, after he robbed a convenience store, then stole embalming fluid from her house and laced joints with it, nearly killing a friend of his who smoked them instead of selling them. Gross! I love Claire.

David & Nate spent 20 grand on a "coffin room", then the crazy rich lady from the giant funeral home corporation that was trying to buy them out picked up the bill. I hope they lend money to Federico, now that they're keeping the 20 grand, but I don't know. Poor Federico. His life doesn't look so fun these days. But all of that led to a powerful, beautifully acted & directed scene where Nate finally told his secret to David. In fact, he was spurred on by the dead football player, who he kept ignoring until the guy said, "I just want you to look at me." It was a whole facing death analogy, which is nice in a TV show. Most don't bother. But while Nate was telling David, the camera pulled farther & farther back, and you could hear him talking but couldn't make out what he was saying, and he was crying, and it was just a really brilliant little scene. You'd think I'm all cried out after that 9/11 documentary this past Monday, but I had a little left in me. Who knew?

David was hilarious when they got the coffin room though, he was practically dancing around. "I can't wait until our next funeral!" he said with glee.

And finally....poor Keith. He went to see his niece on her birthday and apparently her mom's got a bit of a drug problem and the kid was left alone all day with some Entemann's cake. So sad. David was funny though, sitting next to her on the couch while she opened her Easy-Bake Oven. My sister had one of those too, even though it was my brother who really wanted it. And I liked all the Keith and David stuff -- especially David flying across the floor on the racketball court. Even though I wasn't big on the actor who plays Keith at the beginning, he's growing on me. They might have a bit of chemistry after all...I think.

Loved it. Even more than last week.

Nate still might be dying. David still doesn't have a boyfriend -- but he does have some kind of VILE but minor sexually transmitted disease. Brenda is still being weird but now she's extra distant just when Nate needs to be near her the most. Ruth brought Nikolai home to dinner, and Nate accidentally got high off the last tab of Ex in the aspirin bottle! And Claire's still falling hard for Gabe, who's only going to crush her once he gets arrested. D'oh! I did like their scene down in the embalming room, when he started to get freaked out about his brother being sewn up in there.

I loved David's date with the guy in the red hat, even though it ended very sadly. I just love David. I find it odd that he's the character I identify with most, but I can't help it. "Red is one of my favorite colors. . .of which I have several" he said on the phone to the red hat guy before meeting him.

So Nate took the acid and sat down to dinner. "Nikolai, you are so beautiful," he said after Nikolia said a very long grace. "That's a very unusual compliment, Nate." I love Nikolai. He's just the guy for this crazy family. Nate was very funny when he was high, rubbing his hands on Brenda's dress and telling everyone how beautiful they were.

Unfortunately I waited too long to review this and it's not all fresh in my mind anymore. I'm getting lazy. I'll do better next week, I swear. In the meantime, I'm just glad that Billy's long gone (I hope) and Federico's getting more airtime. I love him.

The first thing I want to do is take back what I said last week about how nice it is that the show avoids explicit scenes unless there's a good reason not to. And really, trust it to Illeana Douglas to provide some gratuitous booby and butt shots just by showing up. We met her and five minutes later we saw her ass in a thong and her breasts hanging out. Illeana was there to take over for Federico as the embalmer, and had her shirt off about five minutes after she started working. She shared far too much of her personal sexual history, offered lots of unsolicited advice, and quizzed Ruth about her love life until she almost cried. I was glad to see her go and sorry she showed up. I never thought Illeana Douglas was a good actress and I didn't see the point of "temporary kooky embalming lady", it seemed as if she asked if she could be on and they wrote a part for her. I'm just glad it resulted in the return of Federico, I like him.

This wasn't one of my favorite episodes. I did like everyone's reaction to the picture of Nate pissing at the art gallery. It was part of crazy (boring) Billy's photography exhibit, and everybody stopped by to take a look. David and his ex, the handsome cop who's not such a good actor, went after hours and peeked in through the glass until they could see it. Claire brought the Foot Guy there to make him laugh. Ruth and Nikolai went because Brenda invited them to the opening, and Nikolai's reaction was priceless. I love when he laughs at things that she takes seriously, like Hiram and his little solar car. "Look! It is your son. He is pissing against a wall." All in a Russian accent.

The whole photography show was so annoying. Brenda did her usual number on still-kind-of-dumb Nate by making him walk right up to the pissing picture without really looking it so she could see his reaction. And then she got all wronged and wounded when he got angry at Billy for (a) spying on him, (b) taking his picture, and (c) putting it in the show without asking permission. Again, the day that happens to anybody else on the planet is the day a relationship ENDS. She did have a redeeming moment when she yelled at Billy for doing it, but an apology to Nate would have been nice. Instead, he came by to make up. He's hooked on the crazy lady, I guess there's nothing he can do about it. Oh yeah, it was also really nice of her to leave him standing there with her crazy mother, and just take off. I love the way she constantly abandons him to deal with her family and throws all these surprises at him, it's exactly what irritated me about "Meet The Parents", that movie with Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. I think it's your job to protect your boyfriend or girlfriend from your crazy family, don't you? And since Brenda has this Angelina Jolie thing going on with Billy, Nate needs a lot of protection. Yech.

I loved all the scenes with Ruth and Nikolai, and Ruth and annoying Illeana, in fact, those were Illeana's best scenes. Frances Conroy brings out the best in everybody.

And David's current internal good boy/bad boy struggle is interesting and fun to watch, but I don't like that he's going the Ally McBeal route. I'm all for a vivid fantasy life, and I don't even mind musical numbers, as long as they don't take up any "real time", you know, as long as they're fantasies and not actual hallucinations. I hope they haven't replaced the talking dead people gimmick with this one. Boo.

The death at the beginning was a classic, though. A man yammered on & on about some customer, and the more he described the situation, the more annoying he became, until he'd turned into the last person you ever want to run into if you have to return something or get something repaired. So his wife killed him by whacking him in the head with a heavy frying pan, and then sat down calmly to eat her breakfast. Both Nate and David got very nervous at the thought that his wife killed him because he was boring, which was her only explanation when she was arrested. "I'm boring," they each said, with fear in their eyes. The only disappointing thing was that we didn't actually get into the dead guy, the funeral, any of the procedure. I like when they weave each week's death into the storyline.

All in all, not one of their better shows, but it had some nice moments. Claire crying on Nate's shoulder shouldn't have won me over so quickly, but it did. And it looks like the Foot Guy -- Gabe -- has probably gone off to kill himself, or just run away, and in either case it's going to make Claire miserable. Claire has enough misery, but I suppose it's what keeps her interesting. Much more interesting than crazy Billy, or Brenda's stupid family, or, you know, any of Brenda's friends. More Fishers, more dead people, fewer Brenda family members. Brenda can stay, for the moment. I like the actress, though.

This week was a lot better than last week. It wasn't because of the talking but dead Nate Fisher Sr., but seeing him was probably a good sign. Of course he appeared to Ruth while she was on ecstasy and having sex with Ed Begley Jr., but she didn't know the difference and everybody ended up happy.

She took the ex by accident, though, because David had some and accidentally put it in the aspirin bottle. The whole getting-the-ecstacy-to-someone-accidentally story was contrived, but at least nobody got sick and I kind of liked Ruth's hallucination, since it involved her dead husband, and we got a little insight into their relationship, and saw a bit of what she was probably like when she was younger. The music they played when she was sauntering through the forest, tripping like crazy, was perfect. All the music on this show is perfect, in fact.

By the way, I'd like to thank the producers -- or whoever decides -- for not showing explicit sex or violence when it's not necessary. I'm so used to shows that jump at the chance to show tits for any reason, and they just don't seem to do that on this one. The sex scenes are just graphic enough to get the point across. And the gross factor isn't overplayed for shock value, only for humor, which is allowed. They did a perfect job on the scene where the 6 year-old died. It was the Foot Guy's brother, Gabriel. (He's the one who had sex with Claire, got her to suck his toe, and then told everybody at school about it.) We heard the shots, we saw Gabriel go running, and then we just saw his reaction from outside the door, responding in shock & horror to the sight of his dead brother. It reminded me of The Godfather, when Carlos goes after Connie and we hear every horrible sound but can't see a thing. It was horrifying in all the right ways.

Nate spent much of this episode walking around looking like a slob, demanding to be in charge of funeral intake. His descent into stupidity seems to have temporarily halted, though, even if he did flunk his funeral director's test after all. He's not getting significantly smarter yet. Proof? He's still dating Brenda after increasingly dramatic demonstrations of just how wacked out she is. I liked her ploy to test out funeral homes by posing as customers, but when she pretended to be dying of cancer, she crossed over "eccentric" territory into the world of vile behavior. Nate didn't like it much either, but then he went and forgave her during the drive home. Wouldn't that be a "run as fast as you can" sign to just about anybody else? I suppose if you grow up with a funeral home in your house, your weird quotient would be different from most, but please. And boring Billy showed up again, briefly. Brenda's still enjoying the shock value of Billy -- when Nate walked in and started talking to her from the other room, she didn't once mention that Billy was there too. I think I'd like her more if we saw less of her friends & family and she spent more time with the Fishers. I liked her with Claire. But that was at least three shows ago.

Ah, Claire. She and David are definitely my favorite characters. They're starting to bond now, I like when he was all messed up & wasn't his usual composed self, and she told him she liked him better that way. Claire gets great dialogue and between her & Ruth, the quirky factor stays entertaining. And David was pretty funny dancing at the club -- much better at it than Keith, his ex, whose entire dance move was in his arms -- and while I enjoyed his quick drug experimentation while it lasted, I'm glad it's over. I was getting worried there once he started sniffing stuff and taking off his shirt in public. The demise of his new relationship with the square-dance guy wasn't a surprise, but was inevitable in all the right ways. It looks like he'll be seeing Keith again next week -- I just hope Keith's acting has improved. He did a decent job this time, but he only had a few lines.

Nate still doesn't seem to get that David's doing all the gross work now that Federico's gone. When David agreed to a closed casket for the 6 year-old, it was gross watching Nate try to talk the grieving mother into changing her mind. And Nate keeps dressing like a slob, leaving David to be the uptight one. He did finally buy a suit, but I thought it was kind of ugly. I don't know why I keep picking on Nate. I still think he's cute, and I like watching the character stumble around, but man, I can't stop picking on him.

This week kicked off with a very funny death in a limo. Some drunk chick was standing up (through the skyroof) of a limo, cheered on by her equally drunk friends, and got taken out by a cherry picker or something. Didn't seem like a very LIKELY death to me, but it set the story in motion. Her face, as described by someone on the show, looked like it had been "hit by a watermelon with a sledgehammer". And Federico, the Fishers' genius embalmer (and general lackey), was summoned by the rival funeral home (a chain that's trying to take over the Fishers' business) to work his magic. There were some good scenes, especially at the woman's funeral when Federico's wife got a look at the open casket and told him, "It IS your Sistine Chapel."

Ruth had a nice romantic week, she seems to be vacillating between Ed Begley Jr. and the crazy Russian dude who runs the flower shop. I like her little fantasies-of-the-moment, and the Russian guy is funny, especially when he's extolling the virtues of Russian passion.

But I miss the talking dead people now. The show cries out for a gimmick or two, because it's getting all soap opera-like and losing its quirky factor fast. Last week's episode was great but this week just wasn't up to par, despite some really great moments. My favorite: the squaredancing. Nate came up with the bright idea of renting out the "comfort room" for old people's dances. David stopped in to watch them and the young gay instructor grabbed him to demonstrate a new move, the two started pirouetting around, and David's grin was in place for the rest of the show. I love the actor who plays him, Michael C. Hall. I think this is his first TV gig and I don't know why, he manages to convey so much with so little. He went on a date with the dance instructor -- who turned out to be a pretty generic gay dude and not such a great actor -- but his inner glee every time the guy paid him a compliment was nearly bursting out of him. And I was so glad to hear him get pissed off at Nate for his newfound comfort with gay culture.

Nate. Let's talk about Nate. The show opened with a fabulous shot of Nate in his shorts, lying out in the sun, looking handsome and dreamy. But the sad truth is that Nate seems to be getting dumber, despite the glasses they've put on him to make him LOOK smart. He even choked on his funeral director's test -- I still don't know if he passed or not, but he said he choked. His comments are getting dumber, and in fact, I think whoever's writing the dialogue really needs to ditch any attempt at making pop culture references. Nate's "hey, I watch Will & Grace" to David was no less annoying than Claire's "Sandy Bullock" reference. Does anyone outside of Hollywood call Sandra Bullock "Sandy"? And the obligatory "Buffy" reply from her buddy didn't make up for it. Claire's whole "roughing it" experience with the other troubled youths wasn't all that fun until she'd been kicked out for having pot with her and was on her way home. She told her new friend (Karen?) that she'd had her pegged as a goody-goody, and then found out she was a "compulsive liar danger slut". Much more entertaining.

It was cool that David didn't tell on Claire after getting the call that she was being sent home. And when he poured her juice & put it on the table in front of her, I realized it was the first time since the show started that anyone did anything for Claire ever. I mean, she's seventeen and nobody in her family seems to care much about what's going on until she does something REALLY terrible, like when she stole the foot.

The whole scene at Brenda's this week made me stop liking her again. She has boring crazy stupid friends that aren't interesting to watch and make her dull just by association. Why would she hang around some crazy naked Australian drunk? And honestly, if Nate were smart -- which he obviously isn't -- he would have walked right after that torturous dinner with the Aussie and crazy Billy. Crazy Billy is boring too, and the bong hits he gave Nate didn't make him any more fascinating.

Here's hoping things pick up next week. Bring on the talking dead people!

No gruesome death to open the show this time: instead a guy died of Gulf War Syndrome. The whole story about the dead soldier and his brother wasn't particularly fascinating, but was redeemed by the occasional burst of really great dialogue. I loved when his brother said he wasn't into the whole "let's all gather and look at this plastic dead version of our loved one" thing.

They also skipped the usual gimmickry this time, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. Maybe I like it, maybe I don't. They replaced the talking dead people with hallucinations, mainly from Claire's point of view. I wish they'd give her more to do, have her interact with her two brothers a bit. I really like the whole side story of David becoming at deacon at his church. This week he cast the deciding vote to keep a radical progressive young priest from coming to work there, because he wanted the church to stay the way it was and not be caught up in a whirlwind of social change. I loved when the crusty crabby guy on the church committee called David at home when he was in the middle of watching porn. The fake porn movie was really funny, by the way, and when Nate found the tape in the machine later he yelled out to David, "It's okay, I watch porn too!" Speaking of porn, I'm very happy that they're showing sex without being ridiculously explicit. I like dirty stuff as much as anybody but when I see really explicit scenes I always end up thinking about how the actors had to do that in front of a crew and were probably very uncomfortable. But when Nate & Brenda were doing it this time, we only saw their feet. And they were really loud, that's how we knew they were having a great time. Then her deranged brother Billy burst in on them. I find Billy pretty boring, but it was good and creepy when Nate showed up to take Brenda away for the weekend and she couldn't go because Billy was "off his meds" and needed her. But I'm not sure that one scene is worth a whole lot more of Billy.

I did like everything about Ruth's boyfriend coming to dinner for the first time. Ed Begley Jr., who will always be Victor Ehrlich to me even if Bravo did just pull all of its "St. Elsewhere" reruns, plays Hiram Gunderson, former chef, current hairdresser & lover of Ruth. Ruth is most fun when she's justifying her odd behavior to everybody. She makes these great proclamations in the oddest moments, and the whole family ends up stunned. And her job at the flower shop promises to deliver even more.