About this time, Cunningham strolls up, a potted hanging plant in each hand. He exchanges morning pleasantries with Freddy, though it's a fairly one-sided exchange. The guess is that the crowd Freddy usually hangs with does not greet him with a hearty "How are you today?" but something more along the lines of "I swear, I'll have the money next week" or "Please don't cut off my thumbs." Anyhow, Freddy is not quite sure how to answer: "How would you be, drowning in lowlifes?" he demands. "I'm sure I'd be gasping for air," Cunningham replies thoughtfully, before handing off a potted plant to Freddy -- it's for the room, you see. Anyhow, Freddy tries to explain that he was on the phone with Hawaii -- this must be that awkward transfer of power Freddy mentioned at the end of last week's episode -- and Cunningham smiles brightly and moves on. "Don't ask if you don't want to know," Freddy snorts, only a little bit hurt, while he angrily sets down the plant. Hey, Freddy -- I want to know. Especially if it saves us another scene with Cass dancing the jitterbug on her hotel bed while guzzling down those $4 bottles of Evian they leave in the room now.

Instead, Dr. Smith rolls up on his sweet ride -- a bicycle. He inquires with Butchie as to the health of John (hanging out with Cass the last time Butchie checked) and Shaun -- good, so far as Butchie knows. "Lot of quick healers in this zip code," the doctor jokes. Palaka, meanwhile, continues scrubbing the pool while muttering things about doctors that don't sound like jokes -- not piercing insights into the state of health care circa 2007, exactly, but you can tell that he's irritated. Perhaps the shock from the wrist that was broken three days ago is finally beginning to set in. Anyhow, Dr. Smith stops by to ask how Palaka's feeling, and the dark mutterings stop. How'd those x-rays turn out, Dr. Smith asks. "Everything's good, you know," Palaka tries to bullshit. "Healing up good, like gangbusters, you know." Dr. Smith wonders which bones turned out to be broken. "Oh," Palaka says, after thinking it over some. "Most, if not all." Dr. Smith notes that it's odd Palaka's not wearing a cast. Hey, I'm going to use deductive reasoning here, doc, and conclude that maybe he didn't go see a doctor like you told him. "My sense would be you should have a cast on that," Dr. Smith says. "Yeah, well, chocolate-vanilla, doc, right?" Palaka says rhetorically. Anyhow, Palaka seems miffed that Dr. Smith didn't attend to him personally -- also, I'm guessing, emergency rooms terrify him. "Push comes to shove, fuck all of ya," Palaka mutters at Dr. Smith, which brings Freddy sprinting from across the parking lot. Nobody insults a trained medical professional under Freddy's watch! As Palaka goes on muttering and scrubbing and moping that nobody cares about him, Cissy speeds into the parking lot in her sports car. This surprises everyone, Butchie most of all, who steps away from a gaping Dickstein to go meet his mother.