Hopefully *Marin*'s love will keep him alive...

Hello fellow Treehuggers!

I was thrilled to be asked to blog this episode because the script was one of my favorites and it was a total adventure to film! It was our first pair of back-to-back night shoots. That’s when our day begins as the sun goes down and ends as it comes up. With lunch at midnight. In the middle of the woods, no less. Like summer camp, only colder, without the outhouses, and they make you stay up all night. If you think back to those all-nighters you pulled to study for a test or write a paper, and the rollercoaster of giddy/sleepy/giddy/sleepy with a small bout of weeping around 3 am…well, that was us. Minus the weeping.

We were shooting a sequence in which all of Elmo turns out for a movie night under the stars, New York City style. Marin’s idea, natch. So we spent two evenings in this beautiful little clearing in the middle of the woods under the stars. We were cheered on by our fearless leader, Jenny Bicks, and our excellent and spirited director, Bob Berlinger, who would entertain us during camera set-ups to keep our minds off the mosquitoes and the chill and the fact that it was four in the morning. The cast was spread out on picnic blankets and between shots, Marie, our ever-attentive, on-set wardrobe supervisor, would come around with parkas and Indiana Jones-style, mosquito netting hats for all of us to don. We looked like a dozen lost biologists on an Arctic picnic. Whenever I felt sleepy or insect-devoured, I would simply turn around and sneak a peek at Mario Cantone, who plays Terri, sitting alone on his picnic blanket, looking like an indignant Park Ranger, and it would cheer me right up.

Anyway, enough about the woods, on to the story! Er, well, the bits of it I can divulge – the rest you’ll have to tune in to see. And well worth it, I say!

There’s a lot of navigating boundaries in this episode. Friendship boundaries and relationship boundaries. What’s the division between meddling and caring? When are you a busy-body and when are you a friend? How much say can you have in another person’s life? Chief Celia and Buzz deal with the New Patrick that Patrick himself is still discovering. They delicately walk the line between honoring his new life and trying to connect him to his old one.

Annie is navigating a whole new set of relationships, as she is suddenly no longer a fiancé or a daughter-in-law to be. What happens to those bonds that were forged when your life was entwined with someone else’s? Do they disappear simply because the person you once had in common has?

And the boundary between caring and meddling is tested when Cash’s closely guarded secret is finally revealed and Marin steps in to help. Yes folks, that stone he threw a few episodes back…his fleeting appearance at the hospital…questions will be answered tonight. And we’ll see how quickly that answer spreads in a close-knit town like Elmo.

Sara and Eric begin exploring new territory when a plan is hatched to help him save money. One involving close quarters and an impressive amount of discipline.

Relationship boundaries are also tested when Jane’s attempt to give Plow Guy a fashion adjustment spirals out of control. An offending, threadbare flannel takes on a life of its own as Jane learns the hard lesson that you can’t dress everybody. I was particularly fond of this storyline as, well…it’s mine, naturally. But also because I, too, have had men near and dear to me who refuse to retire clothing even when it has so many holes one might mistake it for fish netting. Clothing that you toss under the sink to be used as a dishrag, or hide in the recycling bin, or cut into strips to disguise its former self, and yet the next day it manages to show up at the breakfast table, tucked into a pair of corduroys.

Just kidding about the cutting into strips bit. I have never done that.

Through this episode, Jane and I have learned that sometimes you do not need to love the shirt or the pants or the hats of this man, only the man himself. We may not like them, but happily, we don’t have to wear them.


And last, but most certainly not least…Jack. About whom we are all very much in suspense. Marin has been unable to make contact with him out on the Bearing Sea, and news of the crisis has not yet reached shore. He is noticeably absent from the Elmo festivities, and what Marin hears as the episode concludes is one of the biggest cliffhangers of the season.

Stay tuned, tell your friends and thanks for being a Hugger!

Seana

February 27, 2008

what's wrong with Cash?

~~~Nettie, I think he said
"degenerative kidney disease".

has degenerative kidney disease.

Celia and Annie were able to bond at Movie Night.

What's the matter with Cash?

I can donate a kidney or two so that he stays in Elmo?

Ya know Nettie...I was thinkin' about that
at the end of last night's epi...
Which Elmoian might qualify to donate a kidney to Cash???

Jack

...the surprising secret of Jerome's that Annie stumbles upon is that Jerome is Cash's long-lost father, which would put him at the top of the donor list. But if Jenny's going for irony, Jack would be the donor.