To Be (Limp, and Live) Or Not To Be

I consider it my duty to let you know what they're doing on Passions in the waning months of its life -- and if you thought the stuff they've done before was insane, well, hang onto your pants. It seems the latest serial killer in Harmony, who has been murdering her older sister's lovers, recently CASTRATED Julian Crane. And they called in Dr. Eve to sew it back on, and it backfired that she's the only doctor in town because she was hammered but she did it anyway... and REATTACHED IT BACKWARDS.

Now, I'm not sure what that means. But Dr. Eve just told him, "You can be limp and live, or you can have one last erection... AND DIE," so I can vividly imagine what it MIGHT be.

You know what? Let me just transcribe the entire scene I just watched.

JULIAN, a crotchety 50-something, lies in a hospital bed chewing on his blanket in a wide-eyed infantile panic. DR. EVE, his hot physician, stands over the bed while a scantily clad ESME, his bit-of-stuff, watches.

EVE: All right, Julian. I mean it! I don't want you to do or think anything that might arouse you.

JULIAN (trembling): What am I supposed to do? Lapse into a coma?

EVE: Just think pure thoughts.

JULIAN: First time for everything, I suppose.

EVE: Read a book!

JULIAN: Oh, yes. I could begin with Thomas Jefferson's biography, especially the part [growls] where he GETS IT ON with Sally Hemings.

EVE:OK, Julian, then just watch TV.

JULIAN: Yes, there's the Weather Channel and its talk of HEAT lightning and storm SURGES.

[ESME shivers excitedly]

EVE: Meditation, then Julian, okay? Just don't think about sex or women or anything titllilating.

JULIAN: You had to use the word 'TIT'tillating?

[Eve hands him a stack of "safe" magazines]

JULIAN: Global Business, Field and Forest. Why not a National Geographic? Then I could look at pictures of those top-heavy indigenous women dancing themselves into ORGIASTIC ECSTASY.

EVE: There is nothing sexual in either of those magazines.

JULIAN: Or INTERESTING.

EVE: Okay, so you'll have to be dull for a little while longer!

JULIAN: No matter how brief the time before my next surgery, it'll seem like an eternity if I'm relegated to reading this tripe.

EVE: Okay, well then, I guess there's a choice. You can be limp and live, or you can have one last erection and DIE. Doesn't seem like a very difficult decision to me.

JULIAN: WELL PERHAPS NOT FOR YOU.

[JULIAN opens Field and Forest to a page with a large swordfish on it]

JULIAN: God, look how BIG that is... [puts it aside in anguish] Oh, dammit, that's what they used to say about ME.

We then get a fantasy in which he's in his hospital gown, fishing off his bed with a long fishing pole between his legs. Rebecca -- one of his former cavorting pals on the show -- appears dressed as a mermaid and purrs that she loves a man with a big rod, and then Eve and Esme show up dressed as fishermen and we get lines like "Hold her down while I get ready to pierce her with my harpoon!" and "Surf's up. SO TO SPEAK." But, brilliantly, when the fantasy ends the music cue is all, "Waaaaah," like a comical going-limp noise, and Julian frets, "It's going to be harder than I thought not to be... HARD."

Then LATER, he surfs the channels to find stuff that will calm him down and comes upon a war documentary and goes, "That is the biggest cannon I've ever seen. Can you imagine the size of its... PAYLOAD?"

I mean... tell me this show isn't totally brilliant. You can't! It's deranged GLORY.