This week’s Baskets episode, titled Yard Sale, made us laugh and cry within 30 minutes.
Esther Roosevelt is officially dead and buried and her children Christine and Jim have wrapped up her Earthly affairs.
But with all deaths in families, there are complications when it comes time to figure out who gets what.
This week, the Baskets’ family history was further examined in the episode where we learned how unfair their father was to Christine, while Jim always reaped the lion’s share.
The heaviness of memaw’s death aside, the Baskets gang rebounded pretty fast, but we saw that Christine had a lot of emotions bottled up inside still.
Dale, aka “Dr. Baskets” was mistaken for “Noodles” as one of Chip’s wackadoo homeless train-riding pals Trinity (Mary Wiseman) spotted a picture of Dale and thought he was Chip.
Great moment when Trish deadpanned as she watched Dale flipping out when this “Raggedy Anne” tried to hug him.
Over at memaw’s, the more sensitive and kinder twin Chip helped his mother Christine with the “estate sale” as her possessions were arranged out on the lawn.
Up drove Dale in his van with who else? Trinity. “Hey Chip, your buddy from the Thunderdome is here,” said Dale who decides to dump Trinity on Chip over at the yard sale.
Meanwhile, Christine and Martha haggling over memaw’s things was priceless. Martha considered purchasing a glass pineapple and a baby Jesus.
Their transaction was interrupted by an eager Jim, Christine’s opportunistic brother, who showed up with Bakersfield’s number one Botoxed realtor, much to Christine’s unsettled confusion.
Amidst this development, Dale’s kids were in full meltdown as his daughter Sarah took off on a motorcycle with the local bad boy Heath, but his wife has still frozen him out in every capacity.
Frustrated by the lack of communication with his wife, Dale peeled out, shouting at Chip: “Good luck with your dustbowl friend!”
Dale gets the best zingers in this show. Sometimes you really forget they are the same person, that’s how immensely talented an actor Zach Galifianakis is.
Martha was made “it” as the keeper of the Yard Sale purse while she found an awesome purple easter bonnet and becomes an ace negotiator until people overwhelm her.
But Jim’s shiftiness with Marissa the realtor worries Christine. She confronted Jim who decided that he wanted to buy the house as we watched him try to steamroller Christine into agreeing with him.
But she was visibly not happy about it and as a result, we see she paid a visit to Herb, the ancient family money man.
In a bid to offer some tough love to Trinity, Chip took her to visit his old boss, Arby’s Insane Clown Posse-obsessed Jody.
Chip officially quit his Arby’s gig, but he convinces Jody that Trinity was a good hire and replacement for him.
Tattoo admiration ensued and a nice cup of liquid cheese was offered, as Trinity warmed to the idea and filled out a job application and potentially snagged a new Juggalo suitor.
Meanwhile, back with Sarah and bad boy Heath, fortuitously she was saved from a possible date rape by her dad Dale, who took Heath on a tour of his van’s back seat filled with branded helmets and condoms.
Accidental gun play followed, and then a tender parting moment with Sarah. A rarity for Dale who personally has had few wins this season.
Dale’s sweet moment was erased as he learned that his assistant Trish was elevated above him, after fobbing off his obligation to attend the board meeting.
He’s seen to be in shock that his lofty “white male status” did not help him here in any capacity.
Our family conniver Jim was eventually confronted by a wizened Christine who learns he got everything from their dad including his Quizno’s franchise seed money, and she got nothing.
Memaw kept track of the family expenditures. The house was fully left to Christine who set him straight about a “classy” Suze Orman, the smallscreen money whiz that Jim felt compelled to run down.
Christine said to Jim: “I’m gonna live my life and thank mom every day for it, because she made it fair, she made it equal!”
A standing ovation for Louie Anderson who played out a tough scene many siblings across the country have faced after a parent’s death. It was a raw, real and touching moment.
Settling accounts at the bank, Christine realized that she was free from her past and her dad’s unfair legacy.
She broke down and sobbed over memaw’s death, but it was a cathartic cry — she really was grieving her loss and equally relieved to be free of her father’s long shadow at the same time.
For my money, Baskets is one of the best series airing on TV right now. Louis C.K., Zach Galifianakis and Jonathan Krisel’s series soars from absurdist situational comedy to realistic and dramatically tinged and very human emotional scenes…sometimes all in the same click.
This looks easy but to be done as well as it is here is a finely honed achievement of writing, conception and acting all working together in unison. Baskets is flat-out brilliant comedy.
And this particular episode Yard Sale deserves a dang Emmy all the way around, as Dale might say. As does everyone in it.
Baskets Yard Sale airs Thursday, March 16 at 10pm on FX