Tina continues driving -- this time without the interjections of her fanbase, thankfully -- when Butchie finally manages successfully to punch seven digits into his cell phone. Tina answers. "Where the fuck have you been?" Butchie screams. The conversation sort of degenerates from there, with Butchie using a vulgar term for women you really should never use if you hope to keep all of your teeth, as well as a common racial slur against African-Americans that you should also not use in conversation, even if you're recording a rap song. This repeats a couple of times -- Butchie calling Tina, getting agitated, spewing vulgarities to the point where Tina hangs up, and then calling her back to apologize before he apologizes again and then works himself to spewing the same vulgarities. It's sort of funny, but not so much as to mitigate the ugliness of the language. Yeah, I realize that the coarseness of the language is supposed to say something about Butchie's character, but I don't find it particularly inventive or daring -- it's just crude and easy and unchallenging. I guess that makes me a square, but really, I could care less. And my TiVo agrees -- during this scene, the hard drive stuttered and froze with the picture sticking on Butchie mid-slur. You owe me a goddamn TiVo, Milch. Anyhow, the long and the short of it is that Butchie asks Tina to come back to see Shaun, at Cissy's request, and that Tina asks Butchie not to get high, and that it is very uncomfortable watching a predominantly white cast toss off racist words as easily as if they were using adverbs.

(The rest of this episode comes courtesy of technology, a friend who would rather remain anonymous, and a very liberal definition of fair use under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.)

We're in Kai's trailer now, which doesn't answer the burning question: what the hell is Cissy doing there now? This seems to be straining the bounds of the surf-shop-owner/surf-shop-employee relationship. Anyhow, we soon figure out what Cissy's doing there -- she's come to reclaim her firearm, which she finds under Kai's mattress. That gun has now made more appearances in the last two episodes than Bruce Greenwood.

Back at Vietnam Joe's van, Bill has either rethought his lack of a position on enjoying a good spliff, or he's experiencing the mother of all contact highs. At any rate, the barking about his fibromyalgia has ceased. With his binoculars, Joe spies someone matching the description of John's assailant -- Mexican, male, ambulatory -- and hands the binocs over to Bill, who takes a peak and orders John to "confirm the sighting, trooper." John takes the binoculars from Bill...and uses them to stare at Joe. Ah, hilarity. Bill redirects John's gaze to the suspect: "He stab you, yes or no?" Vietnam Joe points out the folly of phrasing any question to John that way and -- as if to illustrate his point -- John agrees: "He stabbed me, yes or no." As Bill and Joe re-evaluate how they're spending their afternoon, John sets down the binoculars as a serious expression comes across his face. "Better she tries to kill me and fails than tries to kill herself," he says. If we're talking about Cissy, John, let me be the first to say: let's not be too hasty here. Nevertheless, John shuts his eyes and passes out -- the first time he's closed his eyes for any length of time in this series, by the way -- and a confused Bill declares that John is unconscious.