[Cue moose strutting to funky jazz music]

Ed swings by Ruth-Anne’s to pick up some video editing equipment. The movie is coming along great. He might have a neo-realistic classic on his hands. Maurice walks in and is very impressed with a massive egg by the register. It’s from an ostrich, having been given to her by Marilyn, who raises ostriches now, I guess. Maurice, as always, gets dollar signs in his eyes. A beautiful and friendly-faced dog wanders into town and instantly clings to Maggie. She brings the dog for a check up at Fleischman’s (the vet is out of town, testing livestock for anthrax), and he bites the doctor.

Ed meets with Chris and Holling at The Brick to announce he’s “pulling the plug” on the film. He gives them a heartfelt thanks for the work they put in before sulking out the door. When Chris misses a showing of Wild Strawberries, Dr. Fleischman pays him a visit to check up on him. The doctor insists that all artists go through a funk now and then, but he shouldn’t give up. Ed starts to come around. After all, Francis’ cousin Carmine seemed to think his film could be fixed. And he’s also received various letters of constructive criticism and encouragement from Marty, Woody, and Steven. Ed is completely oblivious to the gravitas of the fact that he is pen pals with the greatest directors of his time, and he cheerfully thanks the town doctor for his helpful advice. Fleischman walks out chuckling and shaking his head in disbelief.

Maggie’s furry new friend sits in Rick’s old stool at the bar. He eats the jerky only Rick liked. He picks around the peppers in the eggs Maggie makes him, as Rick did. He stands up against the door frame where Rick used to stretch I guess. As more of this kind of behavior mounts, Maggie starts to get suspicious. As a viewer, it’s pretty obvious most of these things are coincidences or even less-than-coincidences. Yeah, dogs like jerky and aren’t really into vegetables. And no, Maggie, he did not just say “manifold.” BUT… the things this mystery mutt and Rick have in common do stack up a bit, and in a place like Cicely, it doesn’t seem all that crazy when Maggie decides the dog is the reincarnation of the man.

Maurice has Marilyn over for a fancy meal and to talk her into turning her hobby farm into a business. She seems hesitant, as someone who is pleased to simply raise her birds and give the eggs away, but there’s one thing she and Maurice can agree on: Everyone likes money. Later on, they walk through town together, with Maurice jabbering away about the pros and cons of incorporation.

Maggie takes the dog to The Brick and tells her friends her reincarnation theory. Everybody seems to accept it, or at least find it plausible. Everybody but Joel, of course, who reasonably thinks this is Maggie struggling with guilt and grief, and who is understandably concerned for her psychological wellbeing.

Shelly: Hey Ed, you’re an Indian. Is this Rick?

Ed: Oh, I don’t know, but if Rick was to come back as a dog, I think he’d be a terrier.

Ed sits in Cicely’s little theater, watching a Bergman film with an imaginary (hallucination?) “Grandma Woody.” You might remember this is also where Joel spoke to his younger self. Is this going to be a thing? The Cicely theater allows people to talk to their imaginary friends? Anyway, Grandma Woody gives Ed the advice she gave Woody: Treat every film as a documentary. Capture the animals around you–in this case, the human ones.

Maggie continues to speak with “Rick,” and this time, he speaks back! It turns out to be a dream, though, and Maggie wakes up with the dog licking her face. Maggie pours him a bowl of Rick’s favorite beer (yikes!) when she realizes she is once again waiting on this jerk hand and foot after he waltzed right in as if nothing happened. She boots the bum out of her cabin.

Maurice visits the ratite ranch and brings with him a cutout of Marilyn sitting in her rocking chair so the birds won’t get lonely. He seems to understand the link between their mental state and production… but not enough to not be a boisterous ass around them. The ostriches have all but stopped laying eggs, and Marilyn knows the problem is Maurice. They don’t like him. He makes them nervous. Maurice throws a mini fit about it before deciding that fine, he’ll handle the business end while she babysits the birds. But she’s not interested. It only works as a labor of love. Maurice is shaken, thinking animals must have a sixth sense. What do they see in him that they don’t like? He takes this concern to Joel, who can’t help much. He’s never been much of an animal person either.

The dog shows back up at Maggie’s, scratching at the door with flowers in his mouth. (It’s too cute.) So of course she takes him back in. The two go on a picnic date, during which Maggie dresses very 90s “day outdoors” (long floral dress and big floppy hat) and throws a frisbee and sips wine with “Rick” as (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman plays. It’s hilarious and weird and, again, very very 90s. As I was watching this scene in which a woman has a date with a dog, it occurred to me that this could only have been made in a more innocent time, before the shock humor of shows like South Park and before the horrors of the internet would wire everyday people to associate something like this with something more perverse. And then I was immediately proved wrong. Joel bluntly compares this behavior to that seen in “the kind of beastiality flick that’s usually shown to men in raincoats on Times Square.” So much for more innocent times. Maggie happily brushes this off. Love is complicated, and she’s happy with “Rick.”

But it’s not long before another attractive brunette of about 30 or so comes by to pick up her lost dog. It turns out Rick–er, uh, Butch, as his name really turns out to be–has a type. His real owner says he’s a sweetheart but a total mooch. He whines at Maggie before leaving, but she gives him a “yeah right.” When Joel jibes her about Rick being a lady’s man(/dog), she admits that maybe he was right, that she’d had some stuff to work out about him and that she’d “worked it out with a dog.” But she insists to the end that the dog really was Rick. To his credit, Joel lays off and lets it end with a “What do I know?”

Ed walks around town, simply observing what he sees through a camera lens. And when he’s done filming and editing, he shows his movie to the town. This potential neo-realistic classic really turns out to be something more like a perfectly adequate production by a high school AV club. But it’s sweet and touching. In the opening credits, he thanks Woody, Marty, Steven, Francis, Carmine… and Dr. Fleischman.

Miscellaneous notes, quotes, and anecdotes:

– I am so glad they’ve brought back “Ed as filmmaker.”

– For a show known for being weird, this might be the weirdest episode yet.

– For a show I’ve described as being funny in the sense that you say “Hmm, that’s funny,” this episode had me laughing out loud a lot.

– Ruth-Anne being a film buff is fun. As is her prediction that Spike Lee will grow out of his preachiness.

– That really is a handsome dog.

– If there are any two people in Cicely more opposite one another than Joel and Maggie, it’s Maurice and Marilyn.

– I doubt ostriches would do well in Cicely, but there really was an emu and ostrich craze in the late 80s-early 90s. This fad was huge in Texas. In the era of people thinking fat (and by extension, red meat) was bad for you, the lean meat of giant birds was going to be the next big thing. Some people got in early and made some good money, but many more people lost out big-time. It was the crypto of its day. For a while, feral emus and ostriches kind of roamed around much of the southwest after being released by frustrated ranchers. I once saw a random ostrich pecking at the ground on the side of the highway in the middle of the Texas Hill Country.

– Of course Marilyn would be the one to have a hobby ostrich farm.

– The ostriches not producing eggs because they don’t like someone hanging around isn’t just a bit of Cicely magic; stress really will stop birds from laying.

– Fun Shelly Earring Alert: Dominoes!

– If you enjoy seeing Maggie speaking with a dog which may or may not be speaking back, you might like this book.

– Chris dedicates this song to Maggie:

lol

– You know what’s funny about the reveal that the dog was really just some misbehaving “mooch” that liked to roam around? That this is by no means evidence it isn’t Rick!

– Please don’t give dogs alcohol.

REMINDER: For those following along at home on Prime, next week’s episode is Jules Et Joel, which Amazon has mistakenly placed at the end of the second season.