Important disclaimer!!! This recap may disappoint some readers who are expecting the usual mix of observation, humour and sarcasm – the recapper apologises for this possible disappointment. It was just really hard to find the humour in it, you know?

This week’s random act is another let down, but makes sense really I guess. It would’ve made Lara seem like such a bitch if she’d have got off with someone in the same episode that Dana dies. So what we have is Lara at some kind of mud/massage place in Paris (I can’t believe she actually went). Some French girl is talking to her and it’s not made clear if this is a total stranger or someone Lara knows and is thinking about dating. Basically, they see a woman walking past who has had a breast removed, and the girl asks if Lara has a problem with it. It all makes Lara think about Dana and before her ‘line’ can reach this girl, it retracts and she gets up to go and call Dana. But she ends up leaving a message on her answering machine because she’s in the hospital. And it’s really eerie seeing her empty bed and all the mail stacked up at the door and hearing Lara’s voice saying she misses her and she wants to come home. So next week will be Lara again, but I’m totally confused now as it seems to be up to present day now…I guess this is the least important thing anyway…the point is that I’m sad and crying and I haven’t even seen the opening credits yet. Crap.

And I can’t even be bothered to try to enjoy the intro this week. It’s too cheery when I just feel sad.

At the hospital, and it’s just obvious that Dana’s gonna die, because there’s a kind of strange white light in the corner of the screen which keeps flashing up with the time. It basically happens throughout the episode and is effective, but it gives the game away about what’s gonna happen. You would never say “2.35pm. That was the exact time that my friend improved slightly in the hospital”. It isn’t good. Anyway…Dana is lying in bed with her little bobble hat on, looking very sick. Alice is there and she def seems to have been there for days, ever since Dana got rushed in I think. She looks a bit of a mess, but lovely in that Alice way. Tina is visiting, bringing Dana M&Ms and being all cheery. But she is also concerned about “how do I look? Am I too dressed up?” Okay. What’s this about? Once she’s gone Alice whispers to Dana “you’re right; bisexuality is gross. I see it now.” Two things about this. Firstly, Alice makes Dana laugh and I can tell Dana is laughing even though she barely moves; that’s good acting. Secondly…so Tina has told Alice about Henry? WTF?
We see Tina walking out of the hospital and…mystery solved. It seems like her and Henry are a couple now! She gets into his car, he has the kids, they kiss in public. Hello? What happened to not wanting to hurt Bette and her not being on the floor for 2 years?

Bette is still at the retreat, but we are watching her walk away. That cute bald woman watches her leave and I wonder what on earth happened to that whole storyline? I’m sure that Bette was supposed to have some attraction to someone and I assume it’s her as she’s been in it loads. Why would they cut all of that out unless it was to make us blame everything on Tina? Anyway, as Bette walks away she whoops with relief and I like that. I smile dimly. I think that’s probably as good as it’s gonna get this episode so I’m gonna savour it for a second and watch that bit back again. Yep, still smiling dimly.

Carmen and Shane have a chat as Carmen downloads tunes for Dana’s ipod. This is a bit cheerier…it’s like show and tell…Carmen shot a gun once, so did Shane…Carmen cheated on Shane after the Cherie Jaffe thing…fuck. Shane looks devastated. Don’t cry Shane. If there’s one thing I cannot cope with on this show it’s when Shane cries. It’s just too much.
Max and Jenny turn up at someplace where Tim is. He seems to be back in town with his new swimteam and Jenny obviously wants to see him. So she drags Max along. Why? Unless she wants to provoke Tim I can think of no other reason. She’s still a bit of a shit-stirrer isn’t she? Anyway, Max looks all threatened and lacking in muscle when he sees Tim, who looks even buffer than last time we saw him. Tim greets Jenny quite warmly and seems pleased to see her. Then he greets his new wife Becky (who is v.pregnant) and Randy. Then Randy greets Jenny etc. It’s like a Season 1 reunion. Happy days. Tim and Randy wander off to check on their girls, leaving Max to inappropriately stroke Becky’s pregnant belly. I hate it when people do that – it winds me up just seeing people do it to other people. I think if I were pregnant and someone did that to me I would have to blame it on the hormones and smack them round the face. Jenny just looks a bit stunned that Becky is so pregnant. She’s obviously thinking the same as me – he didn’t waste much time did he?
Helena paces up and down outside some office and then watches as Dylan and Danny arrive with their lawyer. Helena looks really stressed out and her lawyer reassures her that he will make it as painless as possible. At the last minute good old Peggy Peabody arrives and I cheer out loud. Peggy just rocks in my opinion, the only problem being that she isn’t a lesbian. But she rocks anyway. Helena looks annoyed though as it seems she’s there to protect her company rather than protect her daughter.

Max and Tim bond as Max tells Tim he used to swim. Tim seems impressed for two seconds, until Max slips up and tells him the time he used to do, which Tim thinks is crap, so Jenny says the reason – Max is transitioning, was talking about the women’s swim team yadda yaddah. Max storms off because Jenny said that, but that’s a bit stupid because he dropped himself in it by mentioning the swimming. Maybe he’s pissed off that Jenny is trying to take over his experience again. Tim just laughs and walks away, leaving it up to Becky to make arrangements with Jenny about going to lunch. Becky wants to know why Tim laughed. Tim tells her that next time they see Jenny she may be with a German Shepherd. Wah! Only if it was gender confused or had some kind of murky past, Tim. He thinks her having a girlfriend who’s a boyfriend is typical Jenny bullshit. I think maybe he has a point, but he also seems to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder. What’s that about Tim?

Jenny gets to the car but Max won’t unlock the door. He’s just that mad! He’s Mad Max! It’s the testosterone you know. Becky seems nice and is concerned about Max but Tim is a bit snarky and wants lunch over and done with. I don’t blame you really Tim.

Alice is helping the nurse to give Dana a wash. The nurse is encouraging her to get out and take a walk today…everything will be fine…Dana’s not going anywhere etc. Uh oh. Famous last words. Don’t go for a walk Alice. Stay in the room! Never leave! Alice then puts cream and lipsalve on Dana. Basically, she’s really taking care of her and she is talking to her as if she knows exactly how Dana would respond. And then Dana whispers “I love you” and Alice says “I love you too” and kisses her on the bobble hat. Weep.

Kit is at the Planet worrying about the fact that she hasn’t seen Angus all day. There’s not much more to say about it really except that some guy complains about his burger and she tells the waitress to tell him to go the burger joint down the street. God, even Kit is stressed for no damn reason. Is anybody gonna be happy/not annoying in the episode?

Carmen goes into the house and finds Shane on the sofa drowning out the bad news by watching bad TV. Shane wants to know what the girl’s name was. Carmen didn’t really know her. Shane wants to know if she fucked her more than once, but Carmen says “who says I fucked her?” Emphasis on the I and the her. She’s just determined to punish Shane isn’t she?
Bette is still whooping and grunting as she gets to a bus shelter. The sounds are quite reminiscent of the ones Tina made when she was giving birth to Angelica. She meets a guy who’s also waiting for the bus and I’m sensing there’s gonna be some kind of bus stop therapy happening here. She tells this guy where she’s been and what she’s been doing and of course she is going to get more from talking to him than any other kind of therapy or spiritual searching she’s ever done. He asks if she is splitting up with someone and she says yes. So at least we know that she’s accepted it. But when she talks about Angelica she beams with pride and we know that it’s going to be losing Angelica to Henry rather than losing Tina to Henry that is going to hurt the most.

Alice is at the hospital gift shop stocking up on junk food. And she looks tired and sad and that’s it for this scene.

Back in the meeting, D&D’s lawyer spells out how strong their case against Helena is; repeated phone calls, past cases of sexual harassment and restraining orders against Helena (all settled out of court), violation of the child custody orders. And then comes the videotape. Helena looks surprised to see it, as if it hasn’t occurred to her that Dylan would use it. She’s fucked basically. It’s all against her, but Dylan does look really uncomfortable and doesn’t want to meet Helena’s eye.
Back at the gift shop, Alice buys a dancing and singing toy flower – one of those things they sell in hospital gift shops because someone thinks they will cheer up people who are sick. Yet it’s quite creepy and you just know that patients everywhere are crying in the middle of the night because the damn thing has switched itself on and won’t shut up, but it’s across the room and they can’t get out of bed to turn the bastard off.

Shane tries to drink more beer and Carmen is concerned that she’s planning on getting drunk at 2 in the afternoon. “You seem upset” she says. Shane replies “that’s you projecting Carmen”. Ouch.

Tina and Henry arrive at some kind of straight couple lunch place. It’s not the Planet. I don’t understand this world I’m seeing. They greet a couple who I assume are Henry’s friends. This is really disturbing me – that Tina is suddenly in such a couple with Henry. Couldn’t she at least have waited until Bette got home and they’d talked and sorted stuff out? Jeez.
Kit lets herself into Angus’ apartment and proceeds to search for him. Considering it’s only one room, she doesn’t need to look for long, yet she still looks for him underneath a pillow. I know he’s skinny but he isn’t that skinny Kit. Well, he isn’t there, and she gazes at herself in the mirror as if she’s wondering what’s wrong with her to make her man disappear for 2 hours. I think she’s having a bad menopause day.

Some old woman arrives at the bus shelter, and suddenly I’m bored of all this. I liked the young guy, wise beyond his years, but this woman is like some kind of ‘hire a wise old woman for the day’ old woman. White hair, an irritating chuckle and a propensity to over enunciate everything. Very quickly they have all bonded and she knows about Bette’s silent retreat nightmare so she suggests they all scream together. I like hearing Bette scream, but it grates me when the woman does that annoying thing people do, putting ‘a’ when it’s not necessary: “a one, a two, a three.” Now we have a one annoying old woman ruining all future Bette scenes in this episode.

Alice has ventured outside and stares up at the sun (you should never look directly into the sun Alice – it will make your eyeballs catch on fire) and has a kind of seeing the light/seeing God moment. But of course it’s not God, it’s the next best thing. It’s the Ton Ton!

Ironically, they’ve all gone to a hot dog stand for lunch. Tim and Max wait for their hotdogs and poor old Max is trying to bond with Tim by asking him about working out etc. He wants so badly to be accepted as a guy that he says the things he thinks a guy would say e.g. “if I didn’t work out I think I’d break someone’s face, you know.” Tim looks less than impressed. Unimpressed even. And he just ignores Max’s comment completely. Then we have a freaky Jenny moment where Jenny watches Becky coming out of the café and for a second Becky’s face has changed to Jenny’s. Basically, we’re supposed to get that Jenny is imagining herself as Tim’s pregnant wife. But it’s just creepy and too much like Season 2 Jenny, and we never wanna go back there again.

They’re all still watching the video of Dylan and Helena, and now Dylan is staring at Helena with a look of either pure lust/love or pure hatred, I can’t tell which. But I guess there’s a thin line between love and hate. Peggy steps up and starts to fire both cylinders. She has clearly figured out what’s really happening and that the video was actually “a rather moist sexual game”. Danny steps in and shows his true colours – he’s trying to stay calm but shows how much he resents the Peabody Foundation, which is backed up by the lawyer who says that D&D have applied and been turned down for a grant from the Foundation 5 times.

Carmen goes to see Shane in the bedroom. She apologises for what she did. It was stupid and not like her and she wants to start again with a clean slate. Shane thinks, and then asks Carmen if she feels better now. But she says it in quite a vicious way and we’re not sure if she is going to forgive her or not. Carmen doesn’t think so and gets up to leave but Shane grabs her and they start kissing. It kinds of reminds me of when Carmen and Jenny starting slapping each other, but there’s no slapping and they seem to both start getting into it.

Tonya talks at Alice, who just sits in the sun and listens. Tonya thinks she threw something special away with Dana. She also tells her that she’s trying to have a baby because she wants someone who will always be with her. Alice looks sceptical, but Tonya says there are worse reasons to do it, and I have to agree. I think it’s because I met Meredith at the convention and she was so lovely, but suddenly I love Tonya and I think she would make a great mum. But I do think she would be one of those pushy stage mums. But wouldn’t that be funny to watch? In fact, I hope that next season they bring Tonya back, with her baby, just for the comedy value.

Tim, Becky, Jenny and Max eat their food. Max tells them all that Jenny is getting published and that Tim will be in it. Tim looks really surprised and Jenny calls him on it but he gets really defensive. Then it starts getting tense. Max tries to change the subject bless him, but Tim and to a lesser extent Jenny are not prepared to let it go. Tim criticises her ability to commit to anything and then Jenny reams off all the bad shit that has happened to her. Tim says he didn’t want any of that, Jenny says she doesn’t believe him. Tim says she shouldn’t act like the victim in this, and then Jenny mentions the revenge fuck on the night Tim left. And lunch ends abruptly on that rather awkward note.

Annoying old woman talks about how she copes with anger – she drinks cold water until her insides feel numb. The guy copes by driving until he’s calm enough to go home. Bette has to think about what she does, but eventually comes up with burying herself in a task – surrounding herself with so much stuff that the world can’t touch her. The old woman says she shouldn’t blame herself for everything. Nobody does much in life alone, except die. How a true.

Back at the restaurant and Henry’s friends are really cringey about the children and about Tina and Henry. Yuck. Tina looks really weird in this environment. I just find it all so disturbing – isn’t this something you do when you’ve been dating for a while? They fucked each other about 2 days ago. Then some old couple come up and complement them on their children. This woman assumes that Angelica is adopted and Tina looks really upset by this, probably because it has just occurred to her that nobody will ever think that Angelica is her baby unless she’s with a black man. Maybe this is a wake-up call to her – being with a guy will not necessarily make her life any easier than when she was with Bette. Then the friend talks about basketball and some guy called Jimbo and I can’t stand the heterosexuality of it all anymore.

Angus finally gets home to find a groove worn into his carpet and a fuming Kit sitting on the bed. She’s freaked out at how crazy she’s got over worrying about Angus. But he points out that that’s love – clearly a new feeling for Kit.

Shane and Carmen are in bed, which is good. There’s a moment where it slows down and Shane says “look at me”, and when it gets going again it becomes clearer that this is make-up sex rather than break-up sex.

Back at the bus shelter, all three of them sit in silence and enjoy the peace and quiet. Bette has finally found some inner peace. Good for her.

The lawyer suggests that Peggy sign the papers and settle, as Helena’s history means they are likely to lose the case in court. But Peggy is not happy that they have preyed on her daughter and she says “and now I’m going to punish them”. Yeehah! D&D and their lawyer come back in and they’re told that there will be no settlement. It seems that they are demanding a very high level of financial support for their film, including lots of promotion and lots of screens. Peggy says “this is a documentary, not Finding fucking Nemo”. They get up to leave but before they do, Helena grabs the papers, pen in hand, and demands that Dylan tells her she never wants to see her again and that she was never in love with her. So Dylan does, well she says the first thing but she doesn’t say she never loved her. Mmm, interesting. So Helena signs the papers, presumably because she can’t bear it to go on any longer, and they leave. Danny looking overjoyed, Dylan looking sick. Helena looks heartbroken and overall it’s been superb acting by RS and AH I must say.

Finally a bus arrives at the bus stop. I don’t know where it’s going, seeing as all three of them seem to be going to different places and yet they all get on the same bus. Anyway, they spout words of wisdom to each other as they sit down and I’m just praying that at least one lesbian nun will pop up on the bus to lighten up this episode.

Henry waits for Tina to come back from the toilet and tells her that he has no problem with her life or the way she’s lived it. Damn him for being so sweet. I want to hate him. But then they kiss again, in the middle of this public place, and I do hate them both again.

Jenny and Max are driving, talking about the disaster that was lunch. Then Max puts his big men’s feet in his mouth by saying that Tim’s not that bad of a guy and Jenny is stunned that he is not on her side. Max is more concerned with asking if Jenny misses being with a man. Max seems envious of Tim’s life – wife, kids, good job, house in suburbia, but Jenny has no interest in living that kind of life. Oh dear, these two just have nothing in common do they?

Tonya leaves Alice to go and get pregnant, but then turns and asks Alice why she’s even at the hospital, but Alice just says she’s visiting a friend. She doesn’t tell Tonya about Dana, but she does say she’ll tell Dana to call her. And then Tonya opens up and says how she was jealous of Alice and she always knew that Dana loved Alice more than her. Just seeing the Ton Ton has made me happy, but Alice is clearly expecting Dana to get better, so the sadness of that balances it out.
And then it happens…we see Dana in the bed and the camera slowly pans down over all the machines and over her body and back up to the machines. We hear the machine beeping normally, but then go flat and the nurses calling for help. We then keep hearing the voices of the medical team, as we cut to the gang and what they’re doing. Shane and Carmen are in bed, clearly having got their mojo back (though why do we have the eerie phantom voices again “I’m gonna come” and “I cheated on you”?). Then cut to Tina holding Angelica close to her at lunch, looking sad and confused. Then to Helena and Peggy sat at the table, Helena sad and Peggy holding her hand. Then to Kit and Angus lying on the bed all loved up and snuggly. Then to Jenny placing her hand on Max’s arm as they drive. Then back to Carmen and Shane still fucking. Then to Bette on the bus, as the clock that has been ticking away all episode stops at 2:35:41pm and we see that Bette has sensed what’s happened. We hear the words “she’s gone” and Bette closes her eyes and we hear a breath of air.

Then we see Alice walking back to the room, arriving in time to notice more people leaving the room than should be, so she peers in and locks eyes with the lovely nurse, and she knows, and the realisation sinks in as some doctor tells her that there was nothing more they could do. She sinks to the floor in the corridor, sobbing. As she drops the flower it starts playing “you are my sunshine, my only sunshine”. The End of Dana. God, that episode hurt like hell to recap.

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