zwolanerd

SUMMARY
Jaye and Eric are on their first date at the zoo, where the aviary keeper is talking about the hyacinth macaws in her care and about the romantic history of the birds. The Safety Canary is on a sign that reads “NO flash photography” tells Jaye to “take a picture”. She does, and is attacked by the birds. This causes Penelope, the keeper, to get moved to shoveling elephant poo. Jaye is then told to “save the lovebirds”, and so Penelope, Eric, and Jaye go to the zoo late at night to steal the birds.

They bring the birds to the Tyler residence, and Aaron answers the door. They are joined by Mahandra and Sharon. Mahandra has been concerned that Jaye is going to break Eric’s heart, and so she tells Jaye to end the relationship before she gets in too deep. Jaye wants to put this off, so she opens a window and the birds escape. While looking for them, Jaye finally tells Eric that she is just going to break his heart so he should run.

Hearing the story about the macaws spurs Sharon to go to Beth’s to apologize over the fight they had, but the macaws are mating her car. Penelope makes a connection with Rufus, the zoo custodian, after she realizes she’s not as happy as she expected to be. Aaron and Mahandra share a kiss. And when Jaye goes to the Barrel to apologize to Eric, she interrupts him kissing Heidi, his wife.

We get a lot of love stories in this episode, and by all appearances, they end well — except for Jaye and Eric. The birds get it on, Mahandra and Aaron get smoochy, Penelope and Rufus establish a new friendship, and Sharon and Beth reconcile. Of course, we know that something probably went down between Thomas and Beth, as he seemed awful whistle-y on the way back to his car, and Beth was trying to tell Sharon something before they kissed. Even Heidi and Eric seem to have reconnected, but it remains to be seen how this will go, since Eric has made no attempt to contact her the entire series thus far, and has been actively avoiding her.

Jaye’s instructions to “save the lovebirds” seems to be directed at all of these couples. By helping to save the birds (from extinction, no less), she helped Penelope realize that she was using the birds to avoid making real connections with people. This spurs her into thinking that she is doing the same thing, except in her case, she is letting the muses be her excuse. And Sharon is inspired by the story of Lauren and Humphrey, the macaws in question, to let Beth take the reigns of their relationship and not to demand control over it. Even the discussion about Jaye’s man-eater ways pushed Mahandra to accept Aaron’s kiss challenge.

The big reveal is at the end of the episode, when we are led to believe that Jaye got to the Barrel and she and Eric made up, but the camera pulls away to reveal Jaye walking in on Eric and some other woman kissing, who Eric introduces as his wife, Heidi. This obviously does not bode well for the future of their relationship.

We had another new muse in this episode, the Safety Canary, who repeats the line “take a picture” several times. (Little nitpick, but it sounded more like a parrot than a canary.) The Lovesick Ass makes a couple of appearances here, first to tell Jaye to “save the lovebirds” after being dropped off by Thomas the EPS guy, and then later as Jaye’s backseat companion on her way to apologize to Eric. The Mounted Bass at the Barrel also implores Jaye to “save the lovebirds”. When Aaron asks Jaye if the cow creamer told her to mate the birds, she replies drily that the stuffed fish did.

TRIVIA & REFERENCES:

• This was the last role that Kellie Waymire (Penelope) had before her death. She died in 2003 of a heart attack. The episode is dedicated to her.
• The names of the macaws are a reference to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who were married.
• This is the only time that a muse interacts with the world, as the Lovesick Ass blows a packing peanut away.
• The exterior shots of the Barrel was a restaurant in Toronto called The Canary. It was a school and hotel that was remade into a restaurant, and is now owned by the provincial government.
• The sequences with Eric’s heart bursting through his chest and landing in Jaye’s hands is an homage to the French film Amelie.
• The makeshift macaw habitat was originally going to be in Jaye’s trailer, but scheduling and logistical reasons made using the Tyler residence more practical. It is the same house that was used in the 2004 film Welcome to Mooseport.
• Mahandra is reading a copy of Out magazine on the Tyler’s couch when Aaron challenges her to a kiss.
• The network demanded that all references to lesbians and related sex scenes be removed from the episode. Both Thomas and Sharon had steamy scenes with Beth that were removed. The scenes were also supposed to have sperm graphics that would later have been used to foreshadow a second season story arc about Sharon’s “mysterious” pregnancy. After quitting smoking, she would notice some weight gain, and then discover she was pregnant. It would also be revealed that the reason Thomas and Beth divorced was because she could not bear children.

Tags: LWST, Wonderfalls

Written by: Meags