Holling and Shelly are discussing mundane bar management stuff with an unnatural enthusiasm when a solemn Maurice comes in to tell Holling that someone named Bill Planey has died. He’ll get the horses ready. They’ll leave at first light.

[Cue moose strutting to funky jazz music.]

It turns out Bill Planey was a wild frontiersman, known for being tough as hell, and a good friend of Maurice and Holling. Unlike Maurice and Holling, Bill had never come in from the cold. He lived and died in a remote cabin, and years ago, his friends had promised that if he died before them they’d bury him at a place called No-Name Point. So now they’re duty-bound to take his body through 45 miles of rugged, hostile terrain to fulfil their promise. They load up their provisions, Oregon Trail style, hitch the horse trailer to a truck, strap a simple coffin (“long and lean, just like Bill”) to the roof, and head out.

Throughout the episode, Chris reads from The Call of the Wild. “If Whitman gave me poetry, then Mr. London took me to a place inside myself that I didn’t even know existed but instantly recognized like I’d been heading there my whole lost life.”

The misadventures begin almost right away, when Holling has back spasms while trying to change a flat tire. The two discuss their wild friend Bill as well as what they want for them when it’s their turn to go. Maurice isn’t sure; the Minnifield family crypt doesn’t appeal to him. Holling just wants to be laid next to Shelly.

Shelly’s been paying pretty close attention to The Call of the Wild, though she doesn’t understand why Buck never made his way back home to a life of comfort. Chris says he could have, as White Fang did. But the point of either the tame-to-wild or wild-to-tame story is that “both those old dogs got to go out in the world and see both sides” and were in the end fit for either.

Meanwhile, our two old dogs seem happy enough, Holling’s back notwithstanding. They discuss how it came to be that they lost touch with their old friend Bill for several years now. Life gets in the way. Things happen. Plans change. An aging astronaut has a speaking engagement in Houston. An old trapper decides to buy a bar. Buck stays in the wilderness while White Fang retires with a family on a ranch.

They get to Bill’s old cabin, where they meet Solvang Planey, Bill’s wife of the last three years. This isn’t the only surprise. Bill’s body is anything but lean, apparently owing to Solvang being an excellent cook. But it seems the couple had some “lean” years despite this, having little luck trapping and having to sell all the guns and dogs. The three of them eat dinner and work to expand the skinny little coffin. Holling and Maurice both independently and secretly give the widow some money on the dubious pretense of having had an outstanding debt to Bill.

All the while the bereaved widow doesn’t really act like a bereaved widow. She’s in unusually good spirits. She aggressively comes onto Holling that night at the cabin. Then she demands to come along with the two. The first night on the trail, she aggressively comes onto Maurice.

The next morning, the horses have run off, and the two men argue over whose fault it was. They have to drag Bill for a while, until they come across the horses at a very implausible tavern They hadn’t been there in years, and they learn that the owner has died and his son has taken over. Here, Holling and Maurice play cards with a couple of rough-looking guys while Ms. Planey hits on the bartender. Maurice and Holling predictably get into a cheesy bar fight with the cardplayers. A bit bruised, the two bid good riddance and leave… without the widow, who has finished her period of grieving and has decided to stay there with the bartender and invest in the bar with the money Holling and Maurice gave her.

More misadventures on the trail. A horse rears, the travois comes undone, the coffin breaks, Bill slides down a hill and into an icy river, and his two friends go after him. They build a fire and take stock that night: they’ve lost most of their supplies, this 3-4 day trip is going to take another week or ten days, and Bill is starting to “take on an odor.” The next morning, they give Bill a very austere funeral right there and then head home.

Holling takes a bubble bath and tells Shelly about his trip, and we see a montage of the events set to this song:

I have mixed feelings about this episode. I appreciate the bold move of focusing on two secondary characters. (Joel is not in this episode at all! Neither is Maggie.) I really like the Jack London stuff and the parallels between Buck’s story and theirs. But I could have done without the slapstick bar fight, the horny and opportunistic widow, and the montage of things we saw just minutes ago and which took place in-universe just over the past couple days. It felt unnecessary and unearned.

I would have liked to simply watch two old friends take the body of a third through the wilderness to his final resting place while they discuss their lives, mortality, and what it means to get older.

I guess The Straight Story meets My Dinner With Andre by way of Jack London isn’t the kind of thing they put on primetime network TV. But I wish it was.

Miscellaneous notes, quotes, and anecdotes:

– Fun Shelly Earring Alert!: Frying pans with eggs and bacon. I think we’ve seen these before. Also, tropical fish.

– Ruth-Anne reminds Maurice that Bill once threw a man through a plate glass window.

Maurice: That man insulted his lead dog!

– Continuity Error: Chris’ hair is too long after his fresh haircut and suit-and-tie getup at the end of the previous episode.

– I thought they were leading up to getting to No-Name Point and finding it was no longer “someplace obscure.” The script seemed to be hinting at it. But then the ending came so abruptly. The two three of them not getting there at all, plus the bizarre montage at the end, makes me wonder if they instead had to wrap things up quickly for some reason.

– Ah, Google