6. War and Peace

Complete story — includes the ending

A Russian opera singer and international celebrity ( Elya Baskin ) makes his yearly trek to Cicely to bring gifts to the townsfolk. His visit reopens old wounds with Maurice, however, who is intent on another challenging chess game. Ed loses his virginity to Light Feather Duncan (Dana Andersen), who is only excited by his flowery letters, which Chris writes for him (in the manner of Cyrano de Bergerac ); the plans to woo her go awry after she finds the source of the letters and is more attracted to the words than either Ed or Chris. Holling is plagued by dreams that deprive him of sleep; he initially believes he needs to go out into the woods and kill a moose, but he finds that all he needed to find sleep without dreams was to simply go out there. Maurice challenges Nikolai to a duel after alleging that the latter (technically) cheated in the chess match. When it comes time for the duel, with the whole town watching, Joel breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience, reflecting on the first Gulf War — and everyone agrees to move on to the next scene.