By Jacob
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Nancy spends the episode deciding whether to kill Captain Roy Till or Bodyguard #3, Ignacio aka Sanjay's crush. About which ethical conundrum, don't ask. It actually does make sense, but it's a whole thing. There's a taser, and maybe Till wants to kill Nancy or something, and there's a whole metaphorical Mutually Assured Destruction thing between the two of them because of Till's boyfriend's belt-sanded face, the possibly scrip-related disappearance of Sucio, and the general awesomeness of Ignacio, and like three or four people piss themselves, and it's just a big old mess.
The boys meet Esteban, and Shane brats out in a sort of amazing way while Andy's continuing breakdown for love of Nancy puts him in Shane's corner. I'm guessing one or both of the boys is going to end up coming around to Esteban's corner, but I'm at a loss as to which. Shane -- whom Andy acknowledges as the broken ethical compass for the family, which has been replaced by an essentially random but wholly literal Magic Eight Ball -- sells four grand worth of weed to that sweet ginger English teacher, who stiffs him at the last second. (Shoulda known, considering he starts the episode by Missing The Bear once again, this time in a claw machine.) Silas and Doug continue their dealings with that scary cop guy, who kills a mean lady's cat. (Related: Celia comes knocking on Nancy's door, and Nancy literally tries to set her on fire.)
So eventually Nancy falls apart -- or at least into an understandable sort of cowboy boot-wearing, mascara-applying, Magic Eight Ball-consulting existential crisis -- and decides to call Esteban in to make the call. Which is how Till got capped, Nancy got her Magic Eight Ball taken away, and Esteban gets to pretend for at least another week that any of this is appropriate. They go for a stroll on the beach, and Esteban gets all creepy-romantic Your Belly Is My Secret Garden all over her, and she manages not to barf.
Most interesting of all -- and I can't believe I'm saying this -- is Andy's bizarro journey through this episode, which begins with him pumping iron to compete with Ignacio's heady masculinity and finding an old bank account of Judah's that Bubbeh has been adding to for thirty years and is now close to two hundred grand. He dresses up in a cardigan and hornrims and pretends to be Judah, but it turns out the lady knew and was in love with Judah from when they were all growing up in Ren-Mar. So now, in order to get the cash (and avoid the death tax), the lady makes Andy continue to be Judah for her sexual closure, and date her... Meanwhile at home, he's dressing like Fake Judah on purpose, and smoothly making the house ready for Nancy's baby.
So in effect, and stay with me here: Andy's pretending to be the thing he was pretending to be for reasons he's tried to avoid, by pretending to be the thing he's pretending to be for really good reasons -- but then simultaneously applying his Andy-as-Judah affections that Nancy won't accept to this random new lady, while he continues trying to be Judah-as-Andy for Nancy's sons... Just like he's been doing for four seasons. I mean, deal with that.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously, Till's boyfriend got his face sanded off, the tunnel got shut down, Nancy made out with Andy for fake but he screwed Jill for real, Shane started dealing to his teachers, Esteban got more and more controlling, and Sucio disappeared, leaving Nancy and the boys on the run.
(The credits screen is furiously, unbelievably detailed, being a pinball machine with many pot leaves everywhere, Nancy in Guillermo-fucking cowboy boots and a "Yo ♥ Mexico" tattoo and a tight t-shirt commemorating Chris, who died for your sins. A tiger licks a good shit lollipop, there's a WHORE ball and a pierced dick, a "Save The Dirt Shrew" sign held by a dirt shrew, that drug-free sasquatch, the blue butterfly that always shows up, a U-Turn sign, and probably a million other things I'm not recognizing. Man.)
Now, spooky-eyed Nancy's shooting at us, at the camera rather, or more correctly yet an old-school arcade videogame. Andy asks her what they're even doing here, and she snorts, irritated, "Big Buffalo Blastin'! It says so right on the thing!" He means, of course, how long they'll be sojourning at Ye Olde Family Fun Bowl-A-Rama, to which all his tokens have gone and at which he has bowled seven games and been recruited into a league. He wants to go home. She shoots two bunnies and an owl before returning to the buffalo. No bears, though.
When Esteban calls is when they can go home, where Andy can plant his "sisterfucking ass" on the couch, he can get high, and schedule a post-sisterfucking jerk session the better to relive all the many pleasures of fucking her sister. (While only about two-thirds of the smartassy lines of dialogue in this episode actually work, that's counterbalanced by the fact that it's the first funny episode since God knows when, and there are only one or two really unforgivable lines.) Andy gets all smug and starts leading the conversation to some kind of feelings Nancy may or may not have for him, and she gets grossed out, and he brings up the border patrol kiss, and she reminds him that she was also about to pee her pants -- you will do insane things if you're about to pee your pants, even beg to be killed, watch -- but he won't let it go.
Andy tries, once again, to force them into some amazing movie of love where she's in love with him and is scared to show it, or maybe doesn't even need to show it, so all it takes is one fabulous sort of Moment and then all our problems go away, so he's like, "Fine, kiss me." Which in the When Andy Met Nancy movie that's constantly playing in his head -- at least when she's directly in front of him -- would be the moment that she would, just to prove him wrong, but the kiss would get all amazing and shit, and then it would turn out that she was wrong, and she would love him and care for him and he would finally be a man or something and so, knowing this, she looks deeply into his eyes and says the exact right kind of thing to break down those stupid macho boy fantasies right in the dirty chum water where they grow: "Baby, Andy. Baby. Baby. Another man's baby." He drops it, and she starts shooting the bunnies as fast as they can come, pointing and firing, pointing and firing, and never blinking.