Episode #8

“…banana omelets, banana sandwiches, banana casseroles, mashed bananas molded in the shape of a British lion rampant, blended with eggs into batter for French toast, squeezed out a pastry nozzle across the quivering creamy reaches of a banana blancmange... tall cruets of pale banana syrup to pour oozing over banana waffles, a giant glazed crock where diced bananas have been fermenting since the summer with wild honey and muscat raisins, up out of which, this winter morning, one now dips foam mugsfull of banana mead... banana croissants and banana kreplach, and banana oatmeal and banana jam and banana bread, and bananas flamed in ancient brandy Pirate brought back last year from a cellar in the Pyrenees also containing a clandestine radio transmitter...”

—Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

It’s clear Pynchon has bananas on his brain, but perhaps not nearly as much as the bruised and spoiled synapses of Lt. Detective Christian F. “Bigfoot” Bjornsen, whose appetite for the yellow crescents sneaks nightward across the borderline of simple hunger and into the lawless landscape of horny-melancholy obsession…which, when you think about it, isn’t that—a preoccupation both depressed and thirsty—the mood of Inherent Vice as a whole? Further, after the wistful Big Sleep-isms of the seductive opening scene, and the twisty-turny plot mechanics of Doc pinballing from Pipeline Pizza to Aunt Reet’s phone line to brunch with Denis to learning the another lesson in the long, sad history of LA land use before taking a ball bat to head after being on the losing end of Jade’s Pussy-Eater’s Special, don’t we deserve a break with the funniest stretch of film in all of Inherent Vice?