Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT No Country For Newmans
By Jacob Clifton | Season 6 | Episode 7 | Aired on 10.04.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Judah Botwin was a rollercoaster designer, which should surprise nobody that knows his wife. So, now that Nancy's broken up with her latest husband and going off the grid, the family heads to a carnival in Montana. This is so Nancy can make Shane ride a rollercoaster and maybe talk him out of being crazy, and just generally as a lull now that they're fully engaging with something other than the west coast. A few Tea Party trash run-ins later, the world's only managed to degrade his morals further, but at least we get to see Nancy and Shane having fun.
In stark and explicit contrast to their particular form of scary/crazy, you've got Andy and Silas, the grown-up version of Andy, trying once again to provide for the rest of the family and once again failing miserably. This time, it's a butter-sculpture eating contest (administered by the eerily magnetic John Ross Bowie, with whom I am so obsessed I can tell you without checking he's married to Jamie Denbo who played Raylene last year) for the prize of a luxurious luxury mobile home.
Andy drops out early, Silas wins, a bunch of fat white Midwesterners go home in coffins, and it's awesome. But of course they need a SSN or something, they're not just going to hand it over, so then Silas makes that "I dropped my ice cream" face and they head back off the grid in the car he stole from his vajazzled girlfriend. Elsewhere, that cop is showing people, Cesar for instance, pictures of Nancy in that hideous wedding dress. Which is just mean.
Next week: Mark-Paul Gosselaar. That's really enough information, frankly.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Looks like the ambulance came for Cesar after all. The FBI interview is classically taciturn: Did he kill Pilar? "No." Does he know who did? "No." Agent guy holds up that picture of Nancy in her horrible wedding dress: "Pilar Zuazo turns up dead, your boss's wife goes missing. Any idea where she might be?" No answer.
Fast-forward to Nancy driving Cesar's car, heading into Montana, begrudgingly admitting that Seattle was a total bust and now Andy, the Guru of Off-The-Grid, is in charge. I give it five minutes tops. Andy -- sorry, Randy -- gives his apple the usual big-talk shine and makes her "cede the reins" and this sort of thing for awhile, and then quotes Bill Maher:
"New rules. Number one: Keep moving. We need to widen the gap between us and our aggressors. That means at least another 24 hours on the road, no stopping, no exceptions except for gas and potty. Hardcore. [Nothing more hardcore than the word 'potty.'] Rule number two, this one is key: No social interactions. We go way underground, seal ourselves off. I'm talking Bin Laden, the Unabomber, that guy Sly from Sly & The Family Stone."
"Who?" asks Shane, which proves the point. Which proves several points. How does it sound to Nancy? "Great. Movement. Isolation."
Movement and isolation? So essentially your eternal MO? Yeah, that sounds perfect. Doug begs for a "road-trip spirit name," since he's an honorary fugitive thanks to child support, and Nancy offers both "Ted" and "Coward Who Led A Car Of Mexicans To Seattle." In the time that this conversation takes place, Nancy has snuck the reins back out of Andy's hands and decided to stop for lunch. He screams! "Off-the-grid," she says. "Bill Maher," she promises.
At another Hungry Kuntry Buffet, Silas deletes Kimmi's texts one by one. At least he doesn't have to feel bad about the stolen car now that it's really stolen. Shane wants to take the Lewis & Clark Trail, which goes from Washington State to Washington DC. Silas is weirded out by Shane's knowledge, along with all of Shane's other qualities, but he explains: "I'm an autodidact. Also, there's a brochure up front." Andy says no historic trails, because that's obvious, but: Is it, really? Well, Cesar or Ignacio might think of that. It's sort of their style. Doug's confused that Stevie doesn't look Mexican, and Shane's like, "We don't talk about that."
Nancy gets as hot and pretty as she can -- which is lots of both, of course -- in the Kuntry restroom, always fun to watch her gussy, and empties Cesar's wallet out before noticing a poster: The Big Sky State Fair! What better way to remind yourself that normal is terrible? The elders aren't having it -- "Momentum! Seclusion! Andy's Plan!" -- but Nancy's giddy. It's sort of unnerving. Usually she only gets this excited about drugs. So she blathers for a while before dropping the bomb: There's a rollercoaster.