Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Daredevil Girl Survives Fall
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 2 | Aired on 06.15.2009
Andy doesn't want to get up just yet; he's not naked on his sister-in-law's sister's couch, but he does have a boner -- "comfy couch, happy dreams" -- and before you know it, without even really turning their heads, the twins exclaim that the boys are awake, and Jill snaps the fuck out of it, putting on a smile and focusing her eyes on something outside the one-foot circle that takes up most of her day. She asks the usual questions without really being interested in the answers, and her husband Scott Gray comes in with his bike helmet on and pounds Shane on the shoulder and says hello and asks if Nancy's there too and says hello to Andy and Jill asks to speak to him and he puts her off, without ever really looking directly at her, focused on the twins and past the twins -- "lock and load!" -- and tells Shane and Andy, empty, to get some sun. "You're in California now!" Jill's appalled: "We've been to their house, Scott," she says, pointing out that they've lived in California this whole time; it's just that the distance is longer than it seems.
Shane points out that they've moved but still technically live in California and the whole time Scott's doing this efficient dance around his wife where he never actually has to look at or touch her despite needing about thirty things in the kitchen, so he's like this human tornado in a bike helmet and she's standing there like in a movie when the party speeds up around the person and they just stare at the camera, the only unmoving thing. I've mostly but admittedly in fits and starts loved Nancy Botwin unconditionally but never pretended to really understand her; Jill I feel like I already do both. He kisses her head and vanishes with the kids and she offers the boys a Hot Pocket, admitting she didn't even know they'd moved to Ren-Mar. "Nancy doesn't talk to me?" she explains -- breezily, knowingly, angrily; too hilarious and too sad to look at directly -- and all of a sudden the family resemblance is sort of shockingly and commandingly present.
Nancy's in the chair getting her manicure when she first floats the idea: that Cesar, being bored, being a man in a woman-centered place, being uncomfortable and tired of standing around being menacing, might like to go for a walk. The whole time the ladies at the salon are doing this efficient dance around Cesar where they never actually look at or touch him. He is impassive. Houdini pats the chair beside her -- "At least get out of the way!" -- and puts her environment to use. The women swarm him, making jokes at his expense, racist and otherwise, that he can't hear or understand. We know what they're saying, because we have the benefit of the subtitles, but for all he knows they're talking about how attractive he is. They pull off his shoes, oohing and ahhing, and she laughs along with them, telling the ladies that Cesar needs the fish. They agree.