By Stacey Harrison
Ray takes Jemma (I know, I’ve been spelling it wrong) to see his tent. She seems a bit confused at first, but is soon making out with him by the lantern light. Then they’re doing a lot more. It all feels very real to Ray, not just a business transaction, but the pile of cash on the sleeping bag in the morning says otherwise.
Tanya is soaking her sorrows at a bar, still incredulous at Floyd’s rejection of her nonexistent advances. At her lowest point, a nearby patron notices her Proust tattoo. He then comes over to her and begins sweet-talking her, eventually kissing her full-on. His name is Pierce, which seems perfect.
Ray comes over to Tanya’s to give her a share of the payment from Jemma, only to find Pierce has spent the night. They also have some sort of disagreement, but that seems par for course. Whatever it is, it spurs Ray to the marketplace to try to drum up business. After a few hilariously awkward attempts that end quickly, he tries again only to find it’s Jessica. They have some pleasant small talk, and she invites him over for dinner sometime. Anytime, actually. His spirits are lifted enough to give Jemma a call and persuade her to go out on a real date.
Pierce turns out to be the male equivalent of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, an overly quirky artist-type who seems to exist solely to push Tanya out of her shell. Within hours of meeting her, he has slept with her, worked his way into her life with his brash, outre artistry and pushed her to confront her lifelong fear of her mother in an effort to break her two-year-long writer’s block. They go over to her childhood home, find that Mom isn’t home, and head to Tanya’s room, poring through her old yearbooks and poetry notebooks. After they’re finished dry humping (Tanya’s idea) they hear Mrs. Skagel coming home. What a very nice surprise to see that it’s Rhea Perlman, looking very un-Carla Tortelli as a lifelong academic who has made Tanya’s life hell.
After some painful dressing down, during which Tanya’s mom manages to insult her life and call her old, Pierce makes the helpful insight that the mom is not blocking Tanya’s poetry, she’s the source. Pain helps poets create, and Tanya’s home environment provided plenty of it. He goads her into writing a new poem to debut at one of Mom’s dinner parties that she never invites her to. While at a restaurant, they also run in to Floyd, who’s chatting up a new potential student, when Tanya loses it, telling off Floyd and warning his latest conquest. I love having a guy like Steve Hytner in the show, but they seem to have really done all they can do with Floyd’s character. Unless there’s a sea change afoot, hopefully this will be his last appearance.
Ray, meanwhile, has himself an interesting encounter with his neighbor’s wife. Remember that she’s under the impression that Ray has been leaving suggestive messages for her in her lyric bread. Mrs. Kuntz offers Ray the chance to come to their place and take a hot shower, seeing as his hot water heater is on the fritz. The hubby is out of town, you see, and unable to report him to the city for further violations. Speaking of violations … Ray and the Mrs. come to an arrangement of their own, she’ll help him with the citations, and he’ll provide his services as a lover. Which he does, in a scene that Mr. Skin will probably take notice of by year’s end.
Tanya delivers her poem to the stuffy intellectual crowd and gets a polite reception, only to be soon forgotten when a woman recites her Ugandan villager’s song in Swahili. She’s whining again soon, and Pierce is giving her a pep talk. Maybe he’s good for her, but he doesn’t seem like a permanent part of her life. BTW, took me awhile to notice, but the actor playing Pierce is Joshua Leonard from The Blair Witch Project. Cool!
Ray’s arrangement with Mrs. Kuntz doesn’t quite play out like he thought. He believed she was going to pay him cash, in addition to helping him with his citation trouble, but no dice. So he’s no good at being his own pimp. At least he has Jemma, right? Well, she stands him up on their date, leaving him sitting on a dock, literally missing the boat.