Bored to Death episode 8 recap - season finale
It’s rumble time between two magazines on Bored to Death tonight.
GQ editor Richard, book critic Lewis, and a lowly cartoonist are taking on the Edition team. George, Jonathan, and Ames are working out at a downtown boxing gym with a surly trainer named Sal. Between beating on tires with sledgehammers, hitting the heavy bag, and tossing the medicine ball, they’re getting in pretty good shape. They just might kick GQ’s ass, but women keep getting in the way.
Jonathan is falling for Stella, the co-op worker he met last week while tracking down the lesbian black market sperm thieves. They’re getting together to smoke pot but he hasn’t made any moves on her yet. “What are you, in the fifth grade?” Ray asks.
“Yeah, I lost my virginity in the fifth grade,” Sal says.
“What was his name?” Ray asks.
“Father Francis,” Sal says.
George isn’t having any trouble making moves. When his ex-wife Priscilla shows up at his apartment, they’re quickly back under the sheets. She’s not shy about her motive. Richard, her current husband, has a bad heart and might die in the boxing match. “Take a dive,” she says in bed, “for me.” George doesn’t know what to do.
Things finally heat up between Stella and Jonathan. He ditches the work on his current novel to get stoned with her and they end up in the sack. After smoking out of a Volcano vaporizer, Jonathan wistfully says, “It’s like I’ve been instantly and beautifully lobotomized.” The lobotomizing effect is confirmed when Stella says, “I’m really glad you could hang out tonight. There was this pollen in the air tonight that smelled like kissing. Do you know that smell?”
“Yeah, I love that smell,” Jonathan says.
On the night of the big fight, they’ve broken all the “no women” and “no booze” rules that Sal gave them. Jonathan is past his book deadline. George is smitten with Priscilla. The GQ team, on the other hand, is pumped up and ready to fight.
Up first, though, is Ray and the lowly GQ cartoonist. Ray looks like the confident fighter, but he gets taken out with a single punch to the gut.
Jonathan is up next, fighting the smart ass book critic who hates his writing. It’s a tough fight but Jonathan eventually takes him out while yelling, “The New York Times said my prose was lucid!”
George and Richard are the last fight. It’s a close match that goes into a second round. George has the reach and upper hand on Richard, but he sees Priscilla in the crowd. After a few bobs and weaves, he lets his hands down and gives Richard a clear shot at his head. George hits the mat for a full count.
It looks like things work out for Ray and his wife Leah, who got turned on by all the fighting. Stella and Jonathan will probably work out, too, but she’s got to take a week off from him because of a UTI. George and Priscilla are the mystery of evening, though. Priscilla goes home with her victorious husband Richard, but she whispers a little goodbye to George as they leave. Will they get back together in Season Two? Should we even be worried about this?
George leaves us with a little advice from the boxing ring, “It’s good to stay in the dark about things. It keeps life interesting.”