Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Deep End Of The Ocean
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 13 | Aired on 08.31.2009
Andy congratulates Esteban on his new run, and Nancy pulls him down to sit beside her. "Andy proposed to Audra this morning," she says grimly, running her hands along his back and arms. Esteban describes marriage as "a complicated and delicate dance," and Nancy grins wildly: "Yeah! It is!" She's through cautioning Andy, because that puts power into play, and there's no winning that one. So she can just laugh and point, and be there when it falls apart, because she no longer has a dog in that fight; she knows she never really did. Just dependence.
Esteban asks, then, where the fiancée is, and Nancy cautions Andy with a sudden line in her lips, but it's too late: Audra's here, too. And Esteban's first question? "Who else got shot?" Nobody, she says carefully: Adelita just wasn't feeling well. He jumps about; Andy looks down, unwilling to see this play out. Nancy shushes her husband, assuring him that Audra will be down soon, and Andy stares: is she really going to pull this shit? There's fire in her eyes back at him, that says of course she is. Things are out of control. He needs to learn, just a little bit. She likes the smell of that deodorant. It's not a symbol, it's not a signal: just a smell she likes. A woman should have that, regardless of how weak her man is. A whole garden, if she wants, free of bugs and slugs and bunny rabbits.
"What is the matter with my daughter," he asks directly, and Nancy stares, aware that she's going down another tunnel with this. "She's pregnant, isn't she?" He bitches and moans about how stupid Adelita must be, and Andy points out that she speaks three languages. Even when he wasn't feeling powerless and emasculated, Andy would be asking for it. I spent this scene thinking he was going to get the shit kicked out of him. "She's not pregnant," Nancy says softly. "She has a heroin problem." His face falls, and she begins to feel sorry for playing this game. This is his daughter. Hers now, too.
Esteban can't believe it: Not sophisticated, elegant, beautiful Adelita. It's impossible. She's a daughter he never met. Andy offers a list of the best rehabs, fruit of his total addiction to Intervention, and it's now a sign of how badly thrown Esteban is that he doesn't start beating on Andy. He melts, he crumbles. He falls apart like a glacier into the ocean. It's awful. He points at a nonexistent advisor and mouths nonexistent instructions. He smiles, preparing to sell the drama; he opens his mouth and closes it again, preparing to threaten the doctors at her clinic. He runs through every option. He nods. He tries everything. There is nothing. He is trapped, in a bowl of stones and bones. A drug kingpin, catching his first glimpse of that bright blue butterfly. "I can't," he whispers to himself, and runs away.