Wow, Nate is a mess! I think I speak for 99% of us when I say – man, I am so glad Lisa is dead. And I mean that in a respectful way, of course.
Here’s my contribution for most unsettling scene:
Claire sees her unborn son and Lisa tells her it’s OK, she’ll take care of him. :eek:
That just freaked me out.
The most unsettling to me was seeing Nate, Sr. crying in the sunporch. Very poignant.
Bringing Gabe back was a beautiful touch. I cried when he said goodbye to Claire. To see his unfulfilled potential (at least in life–“not the best environment” for him) was sad–and sweet.
When I saw Lisa, I cried again. I “knew” she was gone but having it confirmed was hard. A very real-life feeling.
Yeah, Nate is a mess. A real mess.
Just a really beautiful episode with lots of closure. Nice.
Seeing Lisa in the place where everyone was dead freaked me out. The baby was kinda weird, but it really didn’t freak me because Claire had barely found out she was pregnant before she had the abortion, only a few weeks had passed, and that baby was a older one. It just made it hard for me to believe this was her aborted baby. I know life isn’t realistic in the dream worlds, but it was a bit too unrealistic for me. I know they couldn’t show a bloody fetus, but a 6 month old baby being supposedly Claire’s is a little out there.
Nate is a mess, I was almost hoping he would die. What a jerk. I’m glad he’s OK…or is he? I hate to have to wait until next season.
Gabe is dead, too. That was a shocker.
Arthur - I had totally forgotten about him until he came in. Very strange.
I wonder what Rico is going to do next?
David and Keith - just break up for good already. I like both the characters, but not together. Too much stuff has gone on between them, I don’t think they’ll be able to salvage their relationship.
I hope Ruth will be happy with George, where are they going to live? At the funeral home, or his place?
Yes! Bringing Gabe back was brilliant. – he was playing with his little brother that died from messing around with a handgun.
It was interesting that the afterlife (heaven?) was portrayed as such a beautiful place, since the show is rather dark. Hope that pans out for all of us.
I feel like Ruth’s new husband is a little strange…
What a great season ender! Claire’s visit to the afterlife was strangely prescient (is that the right word?) – I mean, we found out that Gabe was dead, then we found out that Lisa was dead… and just about when Nate was getting the call from the Santa Barbara police department. So Lisa really was dead, which means that Gabe probably really is dead as well.
I’m actually sorry that Lisa is dead…as crazy as she had been at times, towards the latter episodes I was sympathsizing with her and thought she and Nate would make it together. The baby (Claire’s aborted fetus) looked like a newborn to me. Remember, it was Claire’s vision of the afterlife.
Oh my, Nate! He is totally and I mean totally *ucked up! For me, the most unsettling moment was Ruth seeing Nate Sr. on the sun porch crying–my first thought then was that Nate Jr. -had- driven his car over a cliff. 
I liked the Ruth-George wedding! What a happy time, and it looks like David and Keith are going to at least try to work things out (WOO HOO!). Brenda has seemed so together since her return, after being so very out of control herself; now Nate is the one who is out of control. Will Brenda be there for him, and help him?
Guess we’ll have to wait until -next season- (ARGH!) to find out …
How do we know Gabe is dead? Just because that was in Claire’s hallucinatory fantasy? I never thought that the Fisher family actually have frequent visits from ghosts – I just thought they had active imaginations. They each seem to imagine their own version of the late Mr. Fisher – as well as various of the stiffs that come in.
Nice little sequence at the beginning, with the little New Age speech about every good act, even releasing a bird, “resonating throughout humanity” or something like that. In this case, resonating in the form of a random death.
Reminded me of an X-Files episode…
Bringing back a randome character; who happens to be dead.
tarragon918: Interesting how Brenda is the sane one – vice versa in the last season. But then’s there’s her next-door neighbor…what’s up with his hair, though. Weird
Boscibo: I predict that Rico will either kill or sleep with his sister-in-law. I’d go for #1 but I’m not a guy, so there you go.
Baldwin: Yeah, that was odd: we never saw Gabe die, did we?
Very well done. I liked the opening too. I was watching it, first thinking “Oh no, the little girl’s gonna bite it;” then I was thinking “Oh no her dad’s gonna die, and she’s gonna see it.” Then with the nutty guy working on his lines (?), the old guy slopping up the water–it had me wincing at every turn.
But while I liked the opening, I also kind of wonder what the hell point it served. The lady’s family didn’t really serve any purpose, except as a means of showing Nate’s increasing mental instability. I think it would’ve been more dramatic to have shown what happened with Lisa.
And the David/Keith relationship I also think is very well done. Some of y’all keep saying, “Just end it already.” But, sheesh, it doesn’t happen that way in real life. When David told Rico that sometimes he feels like it’s worth it to try and work it out with Keith, but at other times he feels good to be out of the relationship-- I can totally empathize. The writers could keep David and Keith bouncing in and out of a relationship for the entire next season, and I think it would still be believable-- painful to watch, but believable. 
Cromwell plays sweet guys and psychos so well, I can’t tell which of the two he really is yet. I hope it all works out for Ruth.
And finally, I am amazed at how much Ruth and Claire look alike. When Ruth looked out at Nate Sr. crying on the porch, I honestly couldn’t tell if that was Claire or her. The show’s big wigs nailed it when they cast those two as mother and daughter.
All in all, I can’t wait for next season. In the meantime, hopefully Curb Your Enthusiasm will start up again.
Happy
I used to want Lisa to die so bad but it was inevitable so it didn’t really have the punch one would expect from this show. I think that she commited suicide.
I was thrilled to see that Gabe guy come back. I missed him (his looks actually). That was pretty freaky when Lisa was watching Claire’s aborted baby.
Brenda got a hot guy for herself but now Nate (expectedly) comes in. He is totally losing it but it is fun to watch when he screams at everybody. That scene with Ruth was awesome. I predict that he will downward spiral next season.
I don’t like James Cromwell’s character or the fact that he and Ruth got married. I felt bad for Arthur when he took the cake up to his room.
Rico’s sister-in-law is a bitch. Even though I usually hate him, I was kind of happy he had his fun.
Mya was the scene-stealer this episode (except when Nate and Ruth were arguing). David/Keith was pretty sweet too with the “Don’t you know I think you’re beautiful?” cheese but they are a trainwreck when they’re together; why can’t they see that?
Even though it wasn’t an A+, it was still better than anything else on TV and now we have to wait all the way until next season. I don’t want to wait!!!
I think she kinda stole that scene, too. When Nate stormed off, Mya’s watching him, then she snaps her head back to Ruth with that funny little “O” face.
I actually laughed out loud when she did that.
Yeah - my comment was “the kid really knows how to mug for the camera!” 
I really liked David and Keith’s dialogue… I thought it was very well-written, and very sweet. I’m behind on the show - they’ve definitely been up and down, but I have to hope things work out. I’m hopeful Nate’s been over the edge and starts pulling himself together, but this show being what it is, I suppose that’s not terribly realistic. 
I thought it was a great episode. There was so much emotion from everyone and great acting, especially from Peter Krause (I love me some Nate Jr. )
I also thought the scene with Nate Sr. crying on the porch was so sad, especially when he turned away from Ruth. I was really moved.
I knew Lisa was dead, but I still said, “Oh no” when I saw her.
Keith and David, Please break up. You know damn well the little niceties won’t last for long!
Another disturbing scene was when Claire was holding Mya at the wedding and started bawling. Ruth was all smiles and no one was paying attention to her. It was a little disturbing, but I was kinda giggling at the strangeness of the scene.
Well, HBO is going to start replaying all three seasons pretty soon (next weekend, maybe, HBO’s Curb website doesn’t have the details unfortunately). That’s at least 30 weeks. Hopefully, that’ll lead into new shows at the end of that run, though a new season wasn’t mentioned on Bob Costas’ interview program last week. Fingers crossed anyways!
The only plot string left untied last night was Russel. Thought for sure we’d see Russel in the cemetery as well…obviously Gabe was an unexpected surprise. Russel doesn’t seem the type to stop trying to “prove his love”, so I guess we’ll still be seeing him popping in next season.
You don’t console people so much when they’re crying from happiness. At least, that’s what I figured she was doing, and I’m sure the people there would’ve assumed the same.
I didn’t find Nate Sr. crying disturbing, but it was definitely striking.
As a PS: I don’t know why everybody thinks Gabe is dead just because Clare saw him in the cemetery. The writer even had her dad address that (to AVOID the confusion, I thought): “He’s dead?” “Don’t ask me, this is your thing.” Same reason the aborted fetus was several months old and there were monkeys.
I guess I assumed Gabe was six feet under because he seemed to act “at home”, playing with his little brother (the one who accidentally shot himself). And something about the way he said goodbye to Claire…but, who knows?
I just can’t believe I love the show so much that I put up with an entire season watching Lisa…
Blonde
Then maybe it’s just me, but to my ears Claire’s crying didn’t sound happy. She sounded to me like she was totally losing her shit. But it’s probably just like the Fishers to turn a blind eye to it. The wedding was sweet, though, especially Ruth and George dancing together (until the weirdness of Nate Sr. and Arthur) and Claire dancing with Maya.
I’m not going to assume Gabe’s dead until I see a white-out to birth/deathday. It was nice, however, to see him peaceful and taking care of his brother. I wonder what it says about Claire, though, that she saw him that way.
Not unreasonable, since everybody’s either losing their shit or about to lose it. I thought Clare was doing better, though - she seemed happy for her mom, and perhaps at peace (more than she had been, anyway) with the abortion thing. I saw it as a relief/catharsis type of cry, but who knows.
Man, I can’t make predictions on this show. I thought that Lisa would come back when Nate and Brenda were hot and heavy – wrong. I also thought we’d see Russell die in the finale – wrong again. When I saw Claire say “He’s dead?” in the previews for this episode, I thought the most logical candidate was Russell.
I was happy to see Nate turn up on Brenda’s doorstep. I like Brenda, but when she went out with her neighbor I wondered why I should care. Besides, I wanted her and Nate to interact more. On the last episode, when Brenda took Claire to the abortion clinic, I thought that just seemed forced. It seemed contrived just to keep Brenda around.
All in all, I really liked the episode. The season started and ended with major appearances of Nate Sr. I like how they all still look to him for guidance, even though he wasn’t father of the year. Everything tied together quite nicely, and I can’t wait for the next season. (Speaking of which, how long will I have to wait until next season? Six months? A year?)
Odd that they would not use Lisa’s death in the opening 5 minutes…perhaps that will be the beginning of next season…we still don’t know if she was murdered, or if it was suicide, or an accident…so that story isn’t quite dead yet…and if it were not for the fact that they actually put birth and death date at the end of the episode, the skeptic in me would have thought it was a scam death.
Creepiest line to me was Arthur saying “I think I will take this piece of cake to my room and enjoy it there.” (or however he said it.) Doesn’t he seem like he is going to explode with some big secret soon?
And somehow I think Ruth’s wedded bliss might be short-lived. Not quite sure how, but I think the bubble is gonna pop on that happily-ever-after sooner than later.
At any rate, an excellent episode.