Nancy walks out into her garage, and when she shuts the door, a heavy trunk full of something falls onto the hood of Conrad's hoopty. Guess she hasn't gotten around to buying back her Rover, then.
At Agrestic Elementary, Shane's meeting with a school counselor (played by Amy Aquino -- yay!), who is troubled by the drawings of bloody carnage that Shane's made, not to mention accompanying über-violent gangsta rap lyrics that are just awesome enough to deserve direct quoting: "My name is Shane/ I bring the pain/ up from the streets of Agrestic/ Bitch, you don't wanna sweat this/ I cap any motherfucker/ you don't wanna test this, beyotch..." Shane's excuse? "I got rage in me." Amy, who is awesomely not all that scandalized by Shane or his lyrics, says he's made a lot of people quite nervous. He blames this on the preponderance of "bitch-ass white boys" at school. "I hate to break this to you," says Amy, "but you're also a bitch-ass white boy." Love her. Amy then tries some psychoanalysis, explaining how he's "lashing out" because people call him "weirdo" and "Strange Botwin." Shane rolls his eyes like, "Totally, I just want to fit in. Can I go now?" Amy says there are concerns Shane will act on these impulses, but Shane assures her he won't cap any motherfuckers. His therapist just says he's acting out because his dad's dead. This is apparently good enough for Amy, because even school counselors are no match for the Dead Daddy card.
Hodes House. Dean is dealing with the insurance guy in the aftermath of the crate of Diet Coke falling through his ceiling (which, by the way, was a sweet nod to Donnie Darko and I forgot to mention that). Across the room, Celia's working with a faith healer, who pokes and grabs and sniffs at her cancer-ridden tits. Nancy shows up just in time for the sniffing, and in case Celia's "WTF" expression didn't clue you in, this was not her idea. The Gossipy Bitches of Agrestic sent her over, though Celia would have much preferred "one of those cookies on a stick." I hear that, lady. Faith Healer gets the hint and skedaddles, and I'm not sure if it's the cancer or the hole in her ceiling, but Celia's mellow enough to leave her with a "namaste" that manages to be fondly ironic rather than frightening and venomous. Then, Celia tells Blanca to just take all of her clothes. Take them! For herself or anyone else who they might fit. Dudes, Celia's sicker than we may have realized. Of course, she makes the "Aren't there, like, eighteen people living in your house?" joke, just so we know she hasn't been body-snatched by aliens.
Andy's at home watching porn (Incredahoes, in case you were curious) when Doug comes calling. After a short while where they debate whether Andy's name is or is not "Randy" (Doug really thinks he looks like a Randy), Doug catches a glimpse of the TV and recognizes Incredahoes instantly. He asks if Andy would mind if he came in (so to speak) and watched with him. Andy's like, "That'd be weird," but when Doug says he's got and eighth of herb on him, Andy welcomes him right in.
Agrestic High. Silas runs into one of his greasy-haired friends, who gives him shit about tying himself down to the Deaf Girl, especially when he's not even getting any. Grease-Turd tells Silas that he's in his prime, and oh by the way, while he was wasting his time with Megan last night, he missed some girl's party, where apparently all the hot girls in his class were. And one of them, Chelsea, is into Silas. Silas says he's full of shit, and just then a trio of high school bitches strut down the hall in Mean Girls formation. One of them casts an oh-so-brief look at Silas, though, to his credit, he appears to remain slightly dubious.
Celia's still clearing out boxes of clothes to give to Blanca. She comes across a box of unused baby clothes and tells Nancy she had a miscarriage last year but, "with my track record, it was a blessing." Celia offers the clothes to Blanca, but Nancy wrests them out of her hands, as she knows someone who could use them. She doesn't tell Celia that someone is one of her weed suppliers. [Okay, since we're speaking about Vaneeta, let's sidebar: She's Heylia's daughter? Daughter-in-law? In later episodes, Heylia talks about her "grandbaby," but then Vaneeta calls her "Heylia" and not "mom," so what gives? And why have the Wiki nerds not come up with a comprehensive blog for this show so I don't have to ask these questions mid-weecap?] Thrwarted in her attempt to score some onesies, Blanca starts digging through another bin and finds a hot pink roller skate. Celia gasps and remembers what hot shit she was in the days of the roller disco, rocking the hot pants and high on 'ludes. "I could fuck against a wall with my skates on. No easy feat." Nancy smiles, and Celia asks Blanca how she feels about free furniture.
Botwins'. Doug and Andy are getting high, watching porn, and fiercely debating the proper terminology for the strip of flesh that runs between one's asshole and one's balls. Doug says "runway." Andy says "taint." What, no votes for "spaba"? It's not a preferred term, but it beats "runway," Doug. Finally, in comes Lupita, and Andy asks for a tiebreaker: "What do you call the thing between the dick and the asshole?" Lupita considers it for a moment, then gestures to the furniture in between Andy and Doug: "The coffee table."
Heylia's, which this time is prefaced by several establishing shots of rough-and-tumble ghetto exteriors, people drinking and smoking and thuggishly leaning on fences. We'll find out why in a second. Inside, Nancy is animatedly describing the Hodes' Diet Coke carpet bombing, saying it's not as innocuous as it sounds -- dropped from that kind of height, those bottles are like "little torpedoes." Heylia scoffs that "that white lady gonna make out like Haliburton." Vaneeta asks how much she owes Nancy for the clothes, but Nancy grins ear-to-ear and says they're a gift. Vaneeta objects to being made into a charity case, but Conrad calls her out for accepting free cheese down at the church. Vaneeta says Heylia makes her go. Heylia says she doesn't make her do shit, and furthermore, don't act like you're too proud for free shit. "If it's free, it's me," Heylia sums up. "And don't act like you don't like free cheese just because this white lady's standing here. Fuck her." "Yeah, fuck me," deadpans Nancy. Conrad has her take a whiff of this Clark Kent weed he's got for her, which he says will make you want to rip off your clothes and start fighting crime." Talk then turns to how, with this payment, Nancy's getting her Range Rover back, which in turn leads Nancy to stammeringly explain how she dropped something on Conrad's car today, but before Conrad can finish reading her the riot act, some car drives by the house and starts shooting up the place. Everyone hits the floor except for Nancy, who's frozen. Conrad has to drag her down before she gets shot. The car speeds away as Heylia, Conrad, and Vaneeta pop up brandishing guns, which...were they underneath the table? Heylia was hiding a shotgun in her bra? Anyway, everyone kind of dusts themselves off and get back to business except Nancy, who can barely move she's in so much shock (Heylia offers to slap her). Conrad starts to give her more shit about the car, but Heylia yells that she's just had her shooting cherry broken and to give her the keys. Nancy kind of staggers on out and Heylia sums it all up for us: "White folks get soda pop, niggas get bullets." Truly, the man who invents a bullet with a fizzy cola center will be the man to bring racial harmony to all.
I'm amazed Nancy was able to drive home considering how utterly freaked she is. She pulls into her driveway and gets out of the car when a car passing by backfires and she drops to the ground like it's an air raid. As she does, we're able to see the improvements to the car that Conrad had mentioned earlier: shiny, spinning rims. Time-Lapse Nancy then makes it to her bathroom, crawls into her tub, and passes out. Some time later, Andy walks into the bathroom unannounced (oh, Andy) with some papers Doug wants her to sign so they can officially acquire the space for the bakery. Andy's all enthusiastic about it, envisioning a Botwin and Botwin partnership, while Nancy doesn't want to be bothered. Andy says she has to act now, before the space gets sold to a vitamin store. "This town doesn't need more ginko biloba," says Andy, "it needs pot brownies!" Nancy tells him that her eyes were opened today about how "the downside of this business is death," and she's thinking about enrolling in dental hygiene school so her sons don't become orphans. Andy further strengthens her resolve not to die when he says that he'd raise Silas and Shane as his own. Nancy tells him the business is hers, and she doesn't want him involved in it. Andy begs, saying he was born to cook pot brownies, but Nancy harshly tells him if he wants to sell drugs, do it on his own. Andy, actually hurt, which I heretofore didn't think was possible, sulks out.
Agrestic High. Megan texts Silas to join her in the library, but he blows her off thusly: "i cant b tied down." Megan's like, "I'm getting dumped by an Avril song?"
Elsewhere, the head Gossipy Bitch, Maggie, is running the PTA meeting when Celia wanders in, wearing her Pink Ladies jacket and not so much looking for the condescending sympathy everyone's throwing her way. She lights up a cig and gets the usual ration of shit re: secondhand smoke. She also tells Maggie she didn't bake the muffins for the bake sale, because she didn't feel like it. "None of us feels like baking," snots Maggie. "But we do it. For the kids." Celia pulls a wad of cash from her jacket and tells them to keep the change. Then she pulls out a white pellet, which she says is the "last pharmaceutical Quaalude on Earth," and leaves with a hilarious behind-the-back finger wave (Elizabeth Perkins's physicality in this role is sublime), which nearly causes Pam to follow her out.
Back to Silas, as he approaches Chelsea and her Mean Girls, saying he heard she was asking for him last night. Oh, Silas. You deserve everything you're about to get. Chelsea's like, "...I was? Oh yeah, someone said you were bringing beer, so by asking around for you, I was really only asking where the beer was." And then she asks him if he got carded or something. Humiliated, Silas is like, "Yeah, something like that." Punk.
Heylia's. Andy's turned up like the bad penny and Heylia's treating him as such. He tries some Eddie Haskell on her, but even Conrad is grossed out at that. Andy levels that he wants to go into business for himself, and would Heylia be able to hook him up? Conrad starts grilling him about horning in on Nancy's territory, but Heylia pointedly says that's Nancy's problem, not theirs. Their only concern is whether Andy has the money. He does. He pushes his luck trying to get cutesy with Heylia, though, and he's lucky she didn't crack him one.
Cut to Andy driving home in his beat-up hippie van, hands at ten and two and a joint in his mouth. What I just told Silas about deserving what he's about to get? Goes double here. He gets pulled over by a bicycle cop, and since he decides to cope with this situation by giving the cop as much shit as possible, he gets his fool ass arrested for what started as running a stop sign.
Back home, Shane tells his mom that the school counselor's probably going to be calling her soon because he wrote a "gangster rap about killing Devon Rensler. With my gat." Nancy was probably not in the mood for firearm-related foolishness today, so she's immediately all up in Shane's business about how that's not funny, it's serious business, guns firing and bullets whizzing by people's heads. Shane tries to squirm away, but Nancy's grabbing his arms and trying to make him understand how freaked out she is. She's too busy doing that to take Andy's phone call, so Lupita passes on the message: Andy's in jail.
thing we know, Nancy and Andy are meeting with a lawyer -- played by Allison Janney (eeeeee!) -- about Andy's legal options. The lawyer is delightfully spacey, and if she's not currently high, then she either just was or she's about to be. She assures Andy that he's only looking at probation and an anti-drug class because he had less than an ounce of weed on him. Nancy thinks that's great news, but Andy's pissed that he paid for a full ounce and Heylia cheated him. And if you're listening to the DVD commentary track, you then get to hear Tonye Patano bellow, "Were you smoking in the car? OF COURSE you were! So that means you no longer have a full ounce!" Thank you, Tonye. Nancy clarifies that less than an ounce is a misdemeanor, and Allison says that's only if the cop's an asshole; most cops just let you go. Sensing a friendly source of legal advice, Nancy asks about the penalties for edibles. "If you can eat it, you can beat it," Allison singsongs. She gives Nancy the whole rundown: It's not illegal to have weed (less than an ounce), but it is illegal to buy it. As for growing, so long as it's not broken down, you're talking 3-5 years probation. Nancy clarifies the not-breaking-it-down part, and Allison says, "Not unless you want to go to jail. Or flee to Mexico. Or Canada. Canada rocks. Primo weed. Really good Chinese food." I, uh, wouldn't know. Nancy asks for Allison's card, since in her, ahem, "business," you never know when you might need a lawyer. "What's your business?" Allison asks. Nancy says she owns a baker. "Smart cover," smirks Allison. "Call any time." And not that I'm hoping Nancy gets into any legal trouble in the third season or anything, but PLEASE bring Allison Janney back to this show. She rocks so hard.
Time-lapse Silas waits around in front of Megan's house until she shows up. He begs for her to take him back, but she just shoves her way past him. Punk.
Back at the Botwins', Silas sits in the gutter popping caps with a hammer. Nice undercutting of the "pop a cap" metaphor, I like. Celia strolls up, still in her Pink Ladies jacket, looking for Nancy. Nancy's still bailing Andy out of jail, though, so Celia sits down to Shane. He says he likes the jacket, because who wouldn't, really? She says everyone thinks she's lost her mind, and Shane counters that everyone thinks he's weird. Celia's like, "Well, yeah, I can see that," but she's not nasty about it like she might usually be. He says he doesn't care what people think, but he's maybe not as convincing as he could be. Celia tells him to "let [his] freak flag fly." She says she's stopped giving a damn what people think, and it feels great. She has cancer and Shane's got a dead father, and both of those things make people uncomfortable, so they can either feel self-conscious about it, or they can just "be our strange selves." Shane thanks her for telling him the truth. Celia looks away for a second and then looks back at him and says, "It's a bitch, though, ain't it?" Shane nods. The scene ends before Celia allows her "free to be you and me" thought processes to drift towards her daughter.
That night at the Botwins', Celia and Nancy are drinking martinis as Celia mourns the impending loss of her boobs. Nancy says after the reconstruction, she'll have the tits of a 19-year-old. Celia jokes about "going bigger, like freak show big," so that other, smaller breasts will want to orbit them. Nancy laughs that she's had one too many. Celia gets serious and asks Nancy, "Do you like me?" Nancy's like, "Really?", then hesitates and says, "Mostly." Celia thanks Nancy for her honesty, then goes to pee.
In the bathroom, Shane walks in without knocking (Jesus, Botwin men, fucking knock!), and Celia tells him to hold up for a second. She takes off her top and asks Shane what he thinks of her breasts. Silas can't quite get to saying "Like Quinn's but better" because Nancy walks in, puts a hand over Silas's eyes, and shoves him out. She then pulls Celia's top back up, looks at her kindly, and says, "I don't give a flying fuck if you have cancer. Put your tits away in front of my kid." Celia quietly apologizes, then leans into Nancy all conspiratorially and says, "I took a 'lude." And me without my roller skates.