By Stacey Harrison
Ray is slow to take the hint that Jemma isn’t really interested in a non-financial relationship, calling her several times from the dock before deciding to leave. But the second his cell phone rings, he runs to get a reception, only to have her say they should slow down. Again, he doesn’t take the hint.
Feeling bummed, he decides to take Jessica up on her offer to host him for dinner. Just Ray, his ex-wife and her new husband, his ex-mother-in-law and his two kids smack dab in the middle of adolescent madness. Should go swimmingly, eh? It starts out civil enough, with Ray and Ron even seeming to be on the same side in disapproving of Damon’s new tongue stud. Jessica says it’s a method of self-expression (she read about it on the Internet!), which must also account for his dyed hair and bleached skin. Ron also seems to be suspicious that Jessica and her mom have been shuffling through his papers, since they seem to be out of place more often. That must have been weighing on him when Ray stops in the kitchen while Ron is doing the dishes, and their strained small talk soon leads to Ray asking Ron how a nerd like Ron could steal a girl from a stud like Ray. And that leads to Ray being asked to leave.
Jessica shows up at the tent later to give Ray a piece of her mind, screaming at him that she divorced a boy to marry a man. Ouch.
Ray meets Tanya and sheepishly asks for advice about Jemma, complaining that she’s being “weird.” This, a woman he met when she hired him to fulfill a roadside damsel-in-distress fantasy, then paid him to role-play with her at her therapist’s office. What, he thought it was going to be smooth sailing? Tanya is predictably apoplectic, and they have yet another argument about how Ray doesn’t take her seriously and that they should just scrap the whole thing. This does end up paying off at the end, but these scenes are getting a bit tedious. The most pertinent piece of information is that Tanya has changed the Happiness Consultant ad, this time including a phone number.
Her first call is from an inquisitive woman, pressing her to find out the details of her operation. She soon finds out it’s actually Lenore, who’s back to offer unsolicited (but valuable advice) on how to cultivate clients. Basically, start with your friends. Friends like Horny Patty, the quiet lady at Tanya’s office who Lenore says likes to pleasure herself at her desk. Despite her distaste for Lenore, she follows the advice and puts feelers out for Patty. She tells her about the Happiness Consultant business, but for some reason says it’s Lenore’s. Patty takes the bait and is soon in a cozy room with Ray, telling him about her sad, lonely vacation to Sea World and the zoo. She’s tickled by the idea that she can tell her boring stories and Ray will say they’re entertaining. And that she can say exactly when she wants to do the deed.
After fulfilling Patty’s needs, Ray attends to his own, pouring his heart out to Jemma in a handwritten letter. He takes it to her in front of her office building and gets shot down. Hard. His blubbering is pretty damn sad, but you still feel for the guy. Jemma doesn’t offer an explanation, other than that she is (to quote Wayne Campbell) a psycho hose beast. The best Ray can do to save face is to tear up his letter and tell her that she’ll never know what is in his heart.
Tanya’s having her own bit of heartbreak, as she attempts to seduce Pierce, only to have him raid her fridge, then leave because he, um, promised his dad he’d wake up early and help him repave the driveway. Sure, dude. When Tanya laments that she doesn’t know anything about him, Pierce says she can ask him anything she wants. Tomorrow. Doubt we’ll ever see him again.
In the weirdest sequence in the whole show so far, Ray drowns his sorrows at a bar and runs into an old nemesis from high school. The guy was a senior, with good prospects, until freshman Ray hit a home run off him to win the game. The guy has vowed to get his revenge, and drags Ray out in the rain and begins pitching to him, never getting one past him.
When he gets back to his tent, Ray finds Tanya in there with a wad of cash. From Jemma. Apparently she wanted to break up with someone who really cared, and not offer an explanation, the same way men had been breaking up with her for several years. For that privilege, she parted with $2,000. Ray and Tanya split a couple of beers and while she is very nicely helping him get out of his wet clothes, they almost muddy their relationship waters again. But Tanya stops him short, instead asking him why he never called her after the first time they were together. Was it because, like he said before, that she climaxed too much? Nah. She does it just right, he tells her. This, not long after telling her that she’s the only friend he’s got.