- [a drunk, emotional Tanya is preparing to scatter her mother's ashes into the ocean, while Shane and Rachel look on uncomfortably]
- Tanya McQuoid: My poor mother... she died in June. And she loved the ocean. Just loved it. My poor mother, she had a beautiful house in Carmel. And she tried very, very hard to be a really good mother, even though she didn't have any maternal instincts or skills. She, uh, she was always in search of male affection. And, uh, she was... a nymphomaniac. I'd walk in her room and I'd find all sorts of strange men in her bed. She had borderline personality disorder. She took her money and she manipulated people with it. And she was cruel. And she was very, very cruel. She was so, so cruel and...
- [Tanya sobs]
- Tanya McQuoid: I- I just- oh, mother, mother, mother, mother. My mother... told me I would never be a ballerina, and that was when I was skinny! My poor mother, she... She just couldn't handle her jealousy. She had to take me down. And what's weird is I miss my mother... even though she was a big jerk!
- Nicole Mossbacher: When you're young, sex is powerful and intoxicating. And as we mature, it gets demystified. You realize there are more important things to focus on.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Like what? Zooming with China?
- Nicole Mossbacher: Like holding onto whatever shreds of dignity you still have.
- Olivia Mossbacher: That's so perverted.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Dad, you don't wanna say that.
- Nicole Mossbacher: Well, he can say whatever he wants. You know, if he's having a negative visceral reaction to his father having gay sex, it's valid. It's fine.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Well, it comes off as homophobic.
- Nicole Mossbacher: Well, it's not.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Well, that's how it comes across.
- Nicole Mossbacher: Well, luckily, he's in a safe space and he's here with our family so he can come off however he wants.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Up to a point.
- Nicole Mossbacher: Or what? You'll cancel him? Dox him? Sic the K-Pop fans on him?
- Nicole Mossbacher: This lighting makes me look freakish.
- Olivia Mossbacher: You sure it's the lighting?
- Olivia Mossbacher: Mom, you look deranged.
- Nicole Mossbacher: It's all right. I have a filter for that.
- Mark Mossbacher: Twenty-two years we've been married.
- Rachel Patton: Twenty-two? That's impressive.
- Mark Mossbacher: I guess. I mean, I've got friends that, you know, have been married, divorced, married, divorced, so... We're still going. So you never know.
- Rachel Patton: That's impressive. What's your guys' secret? How do you keep the spark alive?
- Mark Mossbacher: Oh, the spark.
- [laughs]
- Mark Mossbacher: No, that's not alive. That died. Yeah. I mean, love may be alive but spark... thpbbt
- Rachel Patton: Sure. That happens.
- Mark Mossbacher: You, you're gay, right?
- Armond: Yes, I'm gay.
- Mark Mossbacher: No, my father was gay. I think. He, uh, he had sex with men.
- Armond: That's a telltale sign.
- Mark Mossbacher: Hey, can I ask you a question?
- Armond: Hmm.
- Mark Mossbacher: What's it like, like, you know, being fucked up the ass? Like, is that... I mean, it must feel kinda good, otherwise you wouldn't keep doing it, right? Does, does it feel good?
- Armond: Do you wanna find out?
- Mark Mossbacher: Uh, no, I'll take a rain check.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Dad, what's wrong with you?
- Nicole Mossbacher: Your father got some very upsetting news last night.
- Olivia Mossbacher: He does have cancer?
- Nicole Mossbacher: No. He doesn't have cancer. He found out something about his father that he never knew before.
- Olivia Mossbacher: I'm listening.
- Nicole Mossbacher: Your grandfather died of AIDS.
- Paula: How did he get AIDS?
- Nicole Mossbacher: Apparently, Paula, he was having sex with other men.
- Quinn Mossbacher: Who was?
- Nicole Mossbacher: Your dad's dad.
- Quinn Mossbacher: Why?
- Olivia Mossbacher: Because he liked it. Why else? He was probably closeted.
- Paula: Or bisexual.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Dad, why are you so upset, though? You're like catatonic.
- Nicole Mossbacher: Well, it was a secret that was kept from him his entire life, Liv. So now, whatever image he had of his father, of his childhood, has been pulverized.
- Olivia Mossbacher: You know, he was probably a bottom. That's how you mostly get it. Receiving. Dad, do you feel like your father was less of a man or something?
- Paula: He might have not been gay. A lot of straight guys like ass-play.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Yeah! Maybe he was just too embarrassed to ask Grandma to use a dildo on him.
- Quinn Mossbacher: Oh, Jesus!
- Mark Mossbacher: Can we not, please? Uh...
- Olivia Mossbacher: Even if he wasn't a top, it doesn't mean he was femme. He could've still been butch, Dad.
- Paula: Maybe he was a bossy bottom.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Yeah, maybe Grandpa was a power bottom.
- [to her dad]
- Olivia Mossbacher: Does that make you feel better?
- Mark Mossbacher: No. That makes me wanna throw up.
- Nicole Mossbacher: It's funny how you're able to have so much compassion for all these groups of oppressed peoples you don't even know, and yet not for your family.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Yep, okay.
- Nicole Mossbacher: Who actually know you and love you. Your generation's only sacred value. Biting the hand that feeds you.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Whatever.
- Mark Mossbacher: After a few years, it doesn't matter how much role-playing you do, or, like, toys you buy, porn you watch together, whatever. Sex just turns into, like, uh, y'know like when they do one of those food challenges on a reality show? Y'know, where they gotta, like, eat, like, a bowl of live worms and you just gotta, you gotta psych up for it, and you're like,
- [exaggerated pro wrestler voice]
- Mark Mossbacher: I can do this, ju-just hold my nose and, like, suck it down as fast as I can so I don't gag.
- Rachel Patton: [awkward sigh] Yeah...
- Mark Mossbacher: But, it's natural. It'd be weird if it didn't fade, y'know. Look... I'm just being real with you.
- [pause]
- Mark Mossbacher: Y'know? Oh, this is my son, Quinn
- Nicole Mossbacher: I don't understand what happened to your father. I mean, I've been texting him all day.
- Quinn Mossbacher: [engrossed in his device] I have his phone.
- Nicole Mossbacher: Well, you could've told me that earlier, Quinn.
- [to Olivia]
- Nicole Mossbacher: You know, this is all because of you, because you won't share a giant room with your brother.
- Olivia Mossbacher: Mom, it works out perfect. He can have the entire beach to himself to jerk off.
- Shane Patton: Hey.
- [Olivia and Paula look up from their books at Shane without saying anything]
- Shane Patton: So, yesterday you were reading Freud and Nietzsche, and today you're reading what?
- [Olivia and Paula silently hold up their books-Camille Paglia and Frantz Fanon, respectively]
- Shane Patton: Oh.
- [chuckles]
- Shane Patton: So you finished Freud and Nietzsche. Are you actually reading any of these books?
- Olivia Mossbacher: No, they're just props.
- Paula: We have a stylist choose our outfits and then we have a book stylist pick out our books.
- Mark Mossbacher: It's natural to want something new. I mean, when you're jerking to porn, do you watch the same clip every time? No. Never.
- Quinn Mossbacher: Mom, I need a new phone, stat. I'm gonna go completely insane.
- Olivia Mossbacher: You already are insane.
- Mark Mossbacher: Do you wanna know me?
- Quinn Mossbacher: May... maybe.
- Mark Mossbacher: Do you?
- Quinn Mossbacher: I don't know.
- Mark Mossbacher: Maybe it's better if I'm just really real with you. Maybe that's the healthier legacy. I think it is. Yeah.
- Mark Mossbacher: Are you gay?
- Quinn Mossbacher: No.
- Mark Mossbacher: Hey. 'Cause if you are, it's okay. Just, like, be real.
- Quinn Mossbacher: I am being real.
- Mark Mossbacher: What's real is... like, gay, straight, whatever, we're just monkeys, we're just fucking monkeys.
- Quinn Mossbacher: Yeah?
- Mark Mossbacher: Yeah. Yeah, we're just animals. I mean, you know, we wanna be, like... superheroes and respectable fathers and pillars in our communities, whatever, but, but in fact, we're just monkeys... living in our own little monkey pods, driven by base instincts to create these hierarchies and hump each other. I thought I knew my father, you know? I only knew the part that he wanted me to see. He hid the monkey, and that screwed me up, Quinn.
- Quinn Mossbacher: You think that's what did it?
- Mark Mossbacher: Yeah, definitely. Hey, I thought... My whole life, I thought I was the flawed child of an icon. Like, I put him on this, like, enormous pedestal. Meanwhile, like, he's off in some bathhouse on the DL, getting manhandled by some... like, random dudes. Wow. Oh, I wish I had known.
- Quinn Mossbacher: I'm sorry.
- Mark Mossbacher: Yeah. But I get it. I mean, you know, you don't want your kid thinking you're some sex-crazed lunatic.
- Rachel Patton: Shane. Don't worry about it. I loved our dinner. I thought it was really romantic... until it wasn't.