Week 6 of "Bored to Death" felt like it should have come much earlier in the season thanks to the significant backstory dropped into the plot. it was funny, again focusing most of its attention on George and Ray, allowing the two to interact for the first time as they were brought together on one of Jonathan's cases.

It begins promising, with Ray pulling up outside a diner in his Subaru Outback, discharging passenger Jonathan, who emerges in a trench coat and sunglasses. He enters the diner to some pleasingly "Shaft"-like music, setting a nice tone... that is essentially dropped for the rest of the episode. The case: a nebbish cheated with a woman who videotaped the session and is now blackmailing him. Jonathan promises to get the tapes.

We get the most extensive look yet at the offices of EditionNY, the magazine edited by George for which Jonathan freelances. He stops in to pick up a galley of a new Paul Auster novel (yet another nod to the quintessential New Yorkness of the show), and finds George lamenting an invitation to a party for Gay Talese. Jonathan declines an invitation to join him, telling George about his case (George being the last core character to be let in on the secret). He tells George he has set up a sting by posing as a married man looking for a rendezvous with the woman, and George, the character most "bored to death" in the show, asks to tag along. He and Ray talk shop and smoke pot while waiting in the car for Jonathan, missing all of the action. They fill each other in on their respectively lives, giving viewers more backstory in the process.

Things go wrong, of course, and Jonathan ends up at the blackmailer's house, confronting her and her brother. Left weaponless but wanting to help, Ray arms himself with a snow brush, while George grabs a toy stick horse named Janet from Ray's backseat. The image of Ted Danson as George running toward the house, cocking the horse like a rifle, is priceless.

As has been the case with most of Jonathan's other encounters, the "bad guys" here are just trying to do the right thing but have taken a wrong step in trying to make that happen. That fits with Jonathan's M.O. -- despite his sometimes selfish nature, he is really just a misguided misfit whose attempts to do right are foiled by his own foibles. That, of course, undercuts the so-called "noir" in the show, but the sweetness, in its own way, redeems the show, too.

By the way, this week's stunt casting was Patton Oswalt as the manager of a spy stuff store.

Best lines:

George, when told Ray will drive asks, "Is it a good car?" Ray responds, "it's a Subaru." George then asks Jonathan as they walk away, "What's a Subaru?"

Ray: "There's nothing wrong with failure. I do it all the time."

Labels: Bored to Death, HBO, Jason Schwartzman, Jonathan Ames, Ted Danson, Zach Galifianakis