Ginny appears to translate the school's garbled public announcement system, and give the girls the bad news. The running joke here is glib -- they can't say "dead," too real, so they waste a lot of time making faces, waiting for the shoe to drop for Melanie, and then debating whether or not the faces get the point across -- but more than that it's unfunny and takes forever. It's very first-draft. The kind of thing, God willing, that will a month from now engender a lot of "finally hitting its stride" talk in the webosphere. But I can't help noting that this is the second week in a row that "maybe in a month this will come off better" has been the go-to explanation, which is in itself more worrisome than the things it's talking about. Small issue, I suppose, but it niggles because this is a show about communication, about rapid-fire hilarious dialogue and the sudden intimacies it can create, so a failed joke with that very premise is disappointing.

FANNY

Needs a tent. She's yelling at people on the phone about a tent, is unable to get a tent, and finally deigns to notice Michelle's stubborn insistence on existence.

Fanny: "You'd think there'd be one 24-hour tent company somewhere in the world. If for no other reason, just for novelty's sake."
Michelle: "Why? Why a tent?"
Fanny: "I don't do funerals, they're about death and I don't really believe in death. I do memorials. Overblown Buddhist memorials with incense and candle and lilies and pansies and roses and violets and... Don't you think the feat of returning to the world in a new form deserves a great party? It's going to rain tomorrow, though, so we'll push it to Sunday. Jesus can just share."
Michelle: "He's put up with worse, so..."
Fanny: "Of course we could do Monday in a pinch."
Michelle: "Do you... Want coffee? I think you might be going crazy."
Fanny: "People are going to bring food. Casseroles, lasagna, ham. Someone always brings a ham. What they should really bring is some Valium and a shrink! Gallows humor!"