Episode Report Card Jacob: A+ | 120 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Big Rocks & Candy Mountains
By Jacob | Season 5 | Episode 12 | Aired on 2009.08.24
The credits take the form this week of a fake policeman, his badge and gun, his minty fresh gum, at the end of a long hard day. But this is the beginning of that day: Nancy, drinking wine on the couch and telling Shane she's been drinking all night, not that it's helping. He asks why, and she says, "Because that's what I do when my husband... God it feels weird to say that... I'm drinking because they took him away in handcuffs." And the second they did, he stopped being scary and he stopped being useful. And Nancy can only love you if you're one or the other. He was both, now he's neither, and she's saddled with him nonetheless.
Shane asks for which of his many crimes they took Esteban away, and puts forth the idea that Pilar set the whole thing up. As usual, he's thinking more clearly than anybody. "I don't know, Shane! They just... Took him away." Shane notes that it's about fucking time, and she watches him slurp his cereal. "Ever wish you go back to right after Dad died, and do things differently?" She assures him, with a dead look in her eyes, that she tries not to think about it. Which is how they got here. She smiles instead of crying, and answers a call from Cesar, who has located Esteban in Tijuana. She heads off again, and Shane asks if she should be driving. "Probably not," she giggles: Put that on the list.
When Isabel shows up at Celia's awesome condo with coffee, she's greeted by a horrible mess: Celia is dressed like Nancy, sucking on one of her It's A Grind iced lattes. Remember when Agrestic burned down and all the people were on fire? That was so awesome. Celia informs her daughter that she's on top, and staying on top this time: "Like Nancy. I'm gonna out-Nancy Nancy." With the long brown hair and the ruffly lavender top under a leather jacket, Isabel thinks she looks like a prostitute. I just think she looks scary as hell, so at least she's got that part down.
"Nancy had the right idea. Life is not about making good choices in order to get good things. Life is about admitting what you want and not being afraid to take it." If that's how Nancy's life looks from the outside, I can see her point. Celia brandishes a big wad of cash in Isabel's face and informs her daughter that she is quote "off to swap this cheddar for some heady nuggets" and then "perhaps eat a salad" and get her "Sapphic freak on." Isabel admits that this time, she threw up all the way into her nose. "Throwing up is slimming down," Celia sing-songs in a way that might make you think that's a thing human beings say.