Nancy's on the local college campus, looking for a tutor for Silas. She runs into Doug, who's there to fuck with the accounting students' heads so they end up becoming his clients rather than his competitors. He leaves, joking that he'll catch Nancy at the kegger. At least, I think he's joking. It is Doug, after all, so who knows? Nancy starts to look around and notices that the funny thing about college students is that they're all stoned, all the time. These ones are, at least. They're smoking bowls and shotgunning to each other on the lawn, is what I'm saying. Nancy's eyes practically go ka-ching!
Andy comes home to find Shane and his friend Max studying. Max non-sequiters that he can stick six quarters up his nose. Andy calls bullshit and starts to count out quarters so Man can prove it, but he stops himself. He then tries to help the kids with their science homework, but he's -- surprise! -- totally useless at that, so he instead suggests they order the teacher's edition of their textbook online. Max asks if they can also order some sea monkeys -- he swallowed one once. Andy calls bullshit on that one too, but when Max says they taste like lemonade, Andy is convinced.
Celia's recovering from surgery and sling-shotting peas at her "Get Well" cards. Isabelle gingerly enters the hospital room and looks scared to approach her mom. Celia gives her a hug and invites her to sit on the bed and watch TV, and it's all disarmingly sweet. Celia even says later they might raid the vending machine down the hall for some snacks. Okay, now I'm afraid again. Sweet Celia is so much more disconcerting.
Andy's teaching Shane and Max to cook, and to fake cutting off your own finger, when Max's hot mom comes to pick him up. Andy is, as you might expect, horndoggedly taken with her. Max comes running out, covering his eye like he hurt himself. Shane produces an olive on a stick (fakeout!), and instead of being freaked out Max's mom tells Shane he should eat it. Because she's a Cool Hot Mom. Andy invites them over for dinner, then dismisses the kids so he can gauge Hot Mom's marital status (verdict: trial separation, but she's nearly licking Andy with her eyeballs, if that's any indication). Andy says she must be lonely for her in the "hermetically sealed" suburbs (Andy has apparently not tired of feeling superior to his buttoned-up surroundings), and whatever he's selling, she must be buying, because soon he's setting a timer for the food and they're fucking like mad in the bedroom. She's a screamer, too, and Andy can't manage to shush her up, so it's lucky that Shane and Max decided to play video games with their headphones on.
Back at the hospital, Celia's fallen asleep and Isabelle is rooting through her purse looking for money for that vending machine trip her mom was talking about. Behind her, in comes Celia's mother -- Isabelle calls her "Gran Pat" which is good enough for me -- played by Concetta Tomei, and if Isabelle had begun thinking she could relax now that Mom's gone mellow, she's back in her defensive posture now, because everything that makes Celia awful she got from her mom. Isabelle flees to find a vending machine while Pat harangues Celia for wanting to eat vending machine food or the cheeseburger Dean's gone to get her. Celia lets out an exasperated "Mother..." before thinking better of it and saying, "It was thoughtful of you to come." Pat doesn't seem to know what to do with Sweet Celia any more than we do.
At the Botwins', Sanjay (yeah, Sanjay!) is tutoring Silas on his math. Silas says his brain is too fried to do any more studying. Megan tries to sign him something, but Silas can't decipher it so she has to ask out loud what underwear she was wearing last Thursday. Silas immediately knows it was the Powerpuff Girls ones, so I guess that means his brain isn't as fried as he says. Sanjay starts signing something to Megan, so now Silas feels doubly stupid, and when Nancy gets home she manages to work out a very rudimentary signed greeting to Megan (who appreciates the effort with a high five), so now Silas is the only one he knows who can't sign to his deaf girlfriend. After he and Megan leave, Sanjay mentions to Nancy that if she knows of anyone else who needs the tutoring, please let him know -- he's paying his way through college and could really use the money. Nancy asks how come a smart kid like Sanjay is going to state school. "I'm a highly intelligent underachiever, with debt," he explains. "It's all about the Benjamins, Mrs. Botwin." Nancy's got that look in her eye again.
Cut to the Valley State campus, where Nancy's leading a queasy-looking Sanjay up to the local burnout depository, at the top of an overgrown, yet incredibly visible, hill. Some stoner leers at Nancy and asks whose mom she is, and she answers that question with dime bags. Soon enough, Stoner's taking a pull off his bong, and Nancy tells the assembled kids that if they want more from where that came from, find Sanjay: "He's got the hookup." Sanjay stands there awkwardly, looking like he's got your DSL hookup, but not much else. Nancy walks away, reminding them to brush their teeth and do their homework, and Stoner admires her "nice mom ass" as she leaves. Hey! That's a nice ass for just about anyone, mister.
Back home, Andy's once again fooling around with Hot Mom, and it turns out she's a biter. She won't even let him get up to answer the door, either, leaving Shane to accept delivery for his Teacher's Edition. Max asks the delivery guy if he can ship a whole body (Delivery Guy: "We ship anything, kid."), which tells me Shane has found exactly the right play buddy -- or exactly the wrong one, now that I think about it. Later on, Andy's making dinner and Nancy comes home, enthusing about how great it is for Shane to have found a friend. Andy shows off one of his sure-to-be-many hickeys and admits to having sex with Hot Mom. Nancy's furious that Andy would go and fuck the mother of Shane's only friend, saying that when Andy follows his fuck-and-dump pattern, Hot Mom won't let Max hang around Shane anymore, and Shane will be crushed. Which means Andy will have to keep fucking Hot Mom, whether he likes it or not, "until Shane and Max go to separate colleges or you run out of soft tissue." Andy objects, but Nancy's adamant: "You made your bed, now fuck in it."
At the hospital, we continue to learn more about why Celia's the way she is. Her mom is currently complaining that Celia still blames her for "whatever it is children make up to blame their parents for," and that that's where the cancer came from. Celia starts to explain biology to her mom, and says that it's actually been something of a blessing. Pat gets a phone call from her pastor and bitches to him that her daughter just called her cancer a "blessing." You'd think a pastor would be onboard with that, but it seems this guy just wants to make sure Pat won't miss the church cruise. She assures him that she won't be visiting Celia for that long, don't worry.
Rap music and graffiti-tagged concrete buildings must mean we're headed to Heylia's house. Nancy's placing a giant order and explains that she's expanding. Heylia is, if you can believe it, dubious at the wisdom of this. Nancy gets a call from Sanjay who's apparently swimming in orders, and Nancy's like, "No, this is good news. I'm at my dealer's house right now and --" Nancy gets cut off by Heylia snatching the phone out of Nancy's hand, hanging up, and threatening to fuck her up (Nancy: "No! Don't fuck me up!"). It's time for some more Dealer Tips and Strategies with your host Heylia James. For starters, no talking on her cell at Heylia's house, that's liable to get the both of them popped. She explains that it's like a pyramid, and Nancy wants to be at the top, and she needs soldiers below her. Soldiers who don't even know her and who damn well better not know Heylia. And she should get some disposable cell phones for Chrissakes. Nancy, wide-eyed, says she hears Heylia, who tells her to come back later and pick up her stuff. On her way out, Nancy turns back and almost makes it to a smile as she says, "Every time I leave here I feel like such an asshole." "Mmm hmm," mutters Heylia, halfway to a smirk herself.
Valley State. Nancy's handing Sanjay and his new team of collegiate dealers their stash and their instructions: only deal with people you know (like, uh, those close personal buddies up on the hill, I guess), only accept cash, don't take unnecessary risks. She hands out cell phones -- only dial out -- that they're to dump after two weeks. She leaves them with a "be careful out there."
Montage of Sanjay and the Sanjaylettes dealing around campus, a bruised and bitten Andy making workmanlike love to Hot Mom, and Nancy raking in the cash. She and Sanjay, finished for the day, make their way back to her car, which we see has dozens of scratches and dings on the passenger side, made no doubt by the dozens of pennies lying on the ground to the car. Nancy rants about what kind of asshole would do this to her car, shoots the finger to the campus at large, and angrily drives off. As she does, we see she's being watched by someone with binoculars.
Hodes House. Pat snatches a can of Pepsi out of Isabelle's hand, passive-aggressively chirping that it hurts her to think Isabelle won't get asked to prom or be able to wear normal clothes because her parents aren't doing a good job of raising her. Celia and Dean are right there in the kitchen, silently hating her. Pat goes on to bitch about Celia giving away furniture and Dean not being man enough to stop her. So now both Celia and Dean have had enough and tell Pat to cram it with her "psychotic bullshit." Pat thinks Celia's the psychotic one (she's...kind of got you there, Celia), reminding her of the times she intentionally broke their scales at home so Pat couldn't weigh her. Which explains the "It's hard out there for a fat girl" stuff, not that we didn't strongly suspect it. Celia looks proud of herself at the memory, and Isabelle gets a sliver of respect for her mom. Pat's tired of listening to all this and says she's going for a power walk. No one joins her.
Botwins'. Shane and Max are pledging their friendship for life, which earns an eye-roll from Andy, because that's essentially a prison term for him. Except no! Because Hot Mom is dumping Andy, letting him completely off the hook. He deadpans that this never happens to him and "it's not okay." She says she doesn't want this to affect Max and Shane, "they really click." After she leaves, Andy turns and, looking for all the world like a damaged abductee, repeats "It's not okay." It may never be again.
Heylia's. Conrad's checking out Nancy's pennied car and says she's got a big problem. She tries to convince the room (and herself) that it's just college kids, but Conrad thinks she's pissed off another dealer. "You better slow your roll," advises Heylia. Nancy's like, "No! It's fine, everything's great -- I'm outsourcing. Built my pyramid. Heylia reminds her that it took the Egyptians centuries to build theirs. Nancy adamantly says everything's going fine and heads out. "That girl's got too much hubris," Heylia frowns. Mmm hmm.
Night falls on Agrestic. The Hodeses sit down for a nice and seemingly healthful dinner, and when they're disturbed by Pat's loud knocking on the windows, Dean gets up and closes the blinds so they don't have to look at her locked-out ass. Celia grasps Dean's hand in gratitude.
Back at the Botwins', Andy's still curled up on the couch, PTSDing his relationship with Hot Mom. Shane shows Nancy his 98 on the science test, and he shows Andy and whispers that he got two wrong, just like Andy told him to do. She goes to bed and Nancy says she heard about Andy's "little problem" earlier. Oh? Oh! So it seems Hot Mom opted out for lack of a good, hard reason to stay, then? I have to admit I missed that. Nancy twists the knife, saying it's usually a one-time thing, or so she hears, but sometimes these problems can last a long, long time. Poor Andy. Poor damaged Andy.
Nancy then steps out her front door and finds stacks and stacks of pennies resting on her water fountain. Hundreds of them, stacked orderly and deliberately. Almost as if someone was sending her a message. Somewhere across town, Heylia blurts out "I told you so" and has no idea why.