Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Away We Go
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on 06.22.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Cesar has had it with Nancy detail, and calls in as replacement bodyguard the shockingly sucio Sucio. Silas and Andy return from their ill-advised adventures -- in Cleveland National Park and the Oakland Hills respectively -- and make Sucio's acquaintance, as well as that of his ever-present gun. A little bleeding, thanks to last week's violence, sends Andy and Nancy to the scary Mexican OB-GYN, where Andy gets a chip on his shoulder with Esteban. To everyone in the universe's dark amusement, Nancy is told to take it easy and avoid stress.
Celia, well on her way to running Rudolfo's revolucion from behind the scenes, eventually emasculates him past the point of no return with her gift for guerilla EQ, and ends up kidnapped and forcibly returned to the Texas border. And so Kevin Alejandro leaves us once again.
Silas's new plan is to open up a medical marijuana shoppe, eventually convincing Nancy to buy in (as long as he keeps Doug away from the stock); they're able to secure permits after accidentally entering a deal with a grifting policeman, so I guess that's their story this year. Jill Price-Gray brings Shane back to Ren-Mar, supposedly because he's creepy but really because she is addicted to El Andy. Nancy and her sister have a succession of desultory fights that are not actually fights but Xerox copies of the actual problem: Nancy's been running from grief since long before Judah, and left Jill holding the bag when their parents died. So now we know two things, total, about Nancy.
In the middle of this chaotic rapid recapitulation of her entire family drama, and everybody winging back toward her, Nancy comes suddenly and heavily to rely on Sucio (even though she -- like the rest of us -- really misses Cesar). Which makes it even sadder when Sucio is abruptly murdered off-screen. It's a random, non-Guillermo move that confuses and scares even Esteban, who suddenly becomes protective again. But why's Till back to stalking Nancy? (Was Sucio the one holding the belt-sander last year?)
Next week: The terrible idea that is Silas and Doug's new venture, Shane's ongoing teacher/dealer relationship with Hot Ginger, Celia and Till return to Nancy for yet more abuse, the boys meet Esteban, and Andy continues to be jealous of Esteban.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Cesar stares at Nancy hatefully across the kitchen table and she stares right back, tapping a hardboiled egg against the plate and refusing to blink. She's got ginger ale, yellow mustard and salt. I assume that means something, but I don't know what it is, because that combo just makes me want to hurl. She peels the egg without looking away, and puts mustard on it. When the doorbell dogs start barking, Cesar jumps to his feet: "I am through with you." She sends it right back at him, and he brings in Sucio: smaller, less adorable, and filthy. He's her new bodyguard and his name is what he is.
"Where's the dog?" asks Sucio. "Eating an egg," says Cesar, and she calls him pendejo. This is like the nastiest morning. Usually Sucio tortures -- Phil Schlatter, for starters, whose face he beltsanded off -- but now, because Cesar is done, it is Sucio who will be tortured, by Nancy. "Don't you have people to kill?" Nancy asks, hurting Cesar a little bit. Nancy gets her first whiff of Sucio, and almost barfs. "He's comfortable with his man smell," Cesar says, and tells her to live with it. Then Sucio scratches his nuts and smells his fingers. Oh damn, Sucio.
"Whatcha writin'?" asks Celia, pouring coffee for Rudolfo and still trying to worm her way into every part of his life. "Ransom notes," Rudolfo says, very serious about his work, trying to focus. She hands him his coffee and starts offering suggestions: he should type the note, he shouldn't use the word insist but instead demand everything -- he should listen, terrorism and demands are her stock in trade -- because after all, he doesn't have a list of "insists."
Rudolfo assures her he's been writing ransom notes since he was a young boy and bends to the task. "Who are we kidnapping?" she asks, and I think it's amazing at this point that we still don't know if he's the kind of revolutionary who actually does things, or if talking and thinking about doing things is the same thing as doing things. For as silly as this beat in the story is, it's deft: boys playing dress-up, boys playing at spies. He was Quinn's PoliSci teacher, talking about praxis and the revolution, before all of this started. He says they're going to kidnap the Minister of Commerce: "He has people willing to pay for him," Rudolfo says lightly, and she points out how cold it is to mention that.
Rudolfo smiles, and Celia takes the note away from him. "Some people aren't writers, some people are talkers. You talk, and I'll just write it down." Her aim is threefold: one, to actually help, two, to rewrite the note as she sees fit and thus more effectively abduct and ransom Mexico's Minister of Commerce, and three, to have a purpose. Specifically to Rudolfo's movement, but also in general. She calls him a "lost puppy," overbearing, fucking it up. "I am not a puppy, I am a man." Oh dear. Celia? Hit him. The only chance you have to stay in this shit is to hit him, right now.