Wow, a lot happened. Smaller stuff first: Some dude, "Kai," whom Juliet apparently met in the distant islands she visited, shows up, and they seem quite smitten with each other. I can't say I blame her, at least, and she tells him she wants him to be her first. Sofia's getting impatient for Jeremy to paint her in the nude, but the painter Jeremy's supposed to be emulating is having second thoughts about whoring himself out to a philistine like Jeremy for cash, which is the current plan. Plan B is Jeremy practicing his drawing with Lisa as his model, and they get stoned together in preparation. Under the influence, Lisa pours her heart out to Jeremy about how she thinks she's losing Nick to the Darlings, and he kisses her, but she firmly warns him off. Unfortunately, the pot seeps into a piece of hiddy art and queers a sale, causing Lisa to get fired. Jeremy comes clean to Sofia, and she dumps him. When Lisa tells Nick about getting fired, he offers to make her barefoot and pregnant, but she seems happy about it, at least.
Patrick promises Ellen that he's not seeing Carmelita anymore, an assertion that proves to be false when Carmelita calls Patrick and tells him she thinks someone's been following her and has even been through her apartment. He promises to get some security for her -- Clark. Love him. Clark puts a surveillance camera in her plant; however, later, she hears a scary noise in her place, and the next morning, Clark calls Pat and tells him Carmelita's been kidnapped.
Brian's bishop suspends him for six months all his past indiscretions, among which the bribery of the administrator is the last straw. His boss orders him into counseling and workshops to see if he still feels called to serve the Lord. Letitia, toward whom Brian's calmed down, gives him a pep talk, but he's still having a crisis of faith, so she directs him to Tripp. Tripp tells Brian he's envied Brian's life of the mind, and wonders if Brian really wants to leave behind the world of ideas. But Brian ends up asking Tripp for a job, and Tripp welcomes him with open arms.
Elder summons Nick, who asks him about his intentions regarding the Darlings, but Elder tells Nick he bears them no ill will before asking Nick to get copies of the Darlings' financial records for the last five years, and then Elder drops the bomb about himself and Karen. Nick is pretty unimpressed and makes little secret of it, and then he goes running to Tripp, who thinks this is an opportunity to feed Elder false information. When Nick's gone, however, Tripp makes a call to an unknown person asking to find out what Elder is up to. Karen is still seeing Elder, and at his request, she blows off the family's annual "Nutcracker Celebration," to Letitia's chagrin. Turns out, however, that Elder wanted Karen over to meet his ex-wife, the Ghanaian princess he mentioned last week, who approves of Karen. Karen shows up at the Nutcracker, seemingly thoroughly freaked out about something that happened at the dinner. In the end, Nick hands over the records, but tells Elder to stay away from Karen. But the big news? The unknown person on the phone was Karen -- she and Tripp planned the whole thing. Unfortunately, it looks like she might be developing feelings for Elder. WHY, KAREN, WHY?
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Last one before the break! And as I said over on Chuck, congratulations on the full-season order, even if...well, you know.
By the way, when Nick does his opening spiel introducing all the Darlings, when he gets to "Jeremy and Juliet, the well-behaved twins," there are only shots of Jeremy. Sometimes they do my work for me.
Sofia and Jeremy are in bed (and her accent is way more muted, just in case you thought it was fully real before), and she's beaming as she basks in the idea that he looks at her with the eyes of a great painter. He whispers some sweet nothings to her, but I have to tell you, I'm not feeling any genuine emotion from him here at all. The way he spoke to Natalie indicated real feelings; this, not so much. Which is fine, I suppose, but it seems like he's going to an undue amount of effort. I guess the point is he's convinced himself that someone likes him for him; the actual someone isn't really relevant, nor is the fact that he's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars maintaining his valet guise. That's our Jeremy. Maybe if he actually gets into space, he'll be able to see the forest for the trees. Anyway, she says she's dying for him to paint her, but he puts her off, and then there's some exposition about how they're screwing five times a day. All right, I suppose the effort isn't completely undue. Some painting-as-metaphor-for-sex follows that's about as subtle as some of the Christmas ad campaigns I'm currently seeing gives way to Jeremy saying he'll start painting Sofia the next day. Good, at least this plotline is going to come to a head. As it were. Sofia rolls up and onto Jeremy...
...and we cut nicely to Ellen rolling off the other side of Patrick. They pantily talk about how they haven't done that in the morning for a while, but I'm distracted by the fascinating sight of Ellen running her hand through Patrick's Black Forest of chest hair. Girl, I just hope you're not wearing Press-Ons. Patrick mentions his leg is still a little sore, which Ellen takes to mean that he's still sore with her, but he tells her that he's just being honest, because that's what they're all about now -- honesty. Well, we already knew that as politicians go, Patrick is the worst liar around, so I'm not going to get agitated that his voice goes up an octave as he tries to tell Ellen that he and Carmelita are over. But you'd think someone who's supposed to be dripping Darling polish wouldn't use the phrase "Between you and I." I know it's the "nucular" age, but still. Anyway, Pat's cell vibrates, and Ellen, who I will note seems really happy here, runs off to take a shower. When Patrick answers, he urgently tells Carmelita to stop calling him (even though he told her he wanted to keep seeing her; don't know what their current arrangement is) but she tells him she thinks she's being followed, as when she got home from "class" the night before, things in her apartment were out of place. Pat, while looking like Ellen's going to round the corner all "Ah HA!" at any second, says he'll be over as soon as he can. Patrick, I hope you locked up all the firearms in the house, at least.
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