Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT This Day By the Lake
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 6 | Aired on 07.13.2009
Well, and crazy. I can't wait to see what madness flowers bloomed in that wacky-ass head under Rudolfo's tutelage, and how that might interact with what seems to be her upcoming storyline. Something like when flesh hits acid, I'm thinking. So no, it's not comfortable for her to walk to work in heels, but it's no more comfortable for her to work at "Super Sneakers" in the first place, and the endgame is that Celia is suffering for her beliefs. Not, she explains -- with one million crucifixes around her neck! -- unlike Jesus. Whom Doug always thought wore Birkenstocks.
All alone, Andy's still moving in sync with Ms. Pac-Man, a modern woman who retains her independence as we all must do, by keeping her relationship status in doubt even as she takes her husband's name, because he understands her. He looks radically crazy at this point. The phone rings -- Oh! Andy has my phone! How neat for me! -- and it's Nancy, so he doesn't answer. She kicks down the door as it's going to voicemail, and enters the house, leaving a message as she walks closer and closer to him, begging him to turn and look at her.
"Yeah, hi Andy. It's me, Nancy. I thought maybe you'd pick up this time, but you're..." She steps closer, watching him play, "Probably really busy." She stands back-to-back with him, nearly touching him. "I think it sucks that you've been avoiding me, because I miss you." Nothing. "Despite what you might think. And I hoped that maybe by now you'd understand I'm doing the best I can? To deal with everything?" The tears spring up, but first the anger. Get it out. "Maybe that's asking too much. Oh yeah, guess what? Esteban asked me to marry him. I know, right? No more Nancy Botwin. Mrs. Esteban Reyes. Mrs. Somebody Somebodyelse." No response. She wavers, and finally says she'd normally be expecting jokes: outlaws/in-laws, or a fajita bar at the wedding. "Anyway. Call me? Come and see me. Hope you're good," she spits, feelings honestly hurt, and then pulls it together. Maybe humor.
"And... Please don't have a scraggly moonshiner beard. Unless you plan on starting a cult, in which case... go beard." This last almost silent, not a great exit, not a final line, not the drama she knows he needs, not the grand gesture. It's a gesture but it's not grand enough. Every avenue explored, she walks to the door, defeated, and waits just inside the door, for him to come. "Bye," she says then, out loud and to him directly for the first time, as she's leaving. And he stands at the game, hands gone slack, shaking, and looks at her as she's vanishing into the heat and the bright white sun, and he goes, "Fuck."
Silas finds Doug checking out his outrageously, cartoonishly fake tan in the mirror, and is then subjected to quite the speech about how George Hamilton is the key to life. Apparently Bubbeh or that awful father of theirs left a G-Ham autobiography in a john somewhere in the house, and Doug has discovered within it all the answers. Man, I have been on this Earth for a long time and I just looked him up on the internet and I still don't know jack about that guy. He has a fake tan and he's not that cute and he is or was a sleazeball, and for this he is remembered. Feh. So Doug's just totally in gay love with the idea of George Hamilton and wants to be like him, and for that he needs "the deep, dark, savage tan."
Doug agrees that CP is an issue, because nobody wants to buy in front of the "bacon" and that it skeezes people out, like midgets. Full-on orange mahogany, Doug says this. So when he hears about the gun, Doug decides that CP is a douche -- wearing a cravat and smoking out of a tobacco-type pipe, Doug says this -- and says that they have to "fight the power" and ask themselves WWGHD. Because the man slept with his stepmother, at age twelve, and thus can do anything.
Which is a thing I knew he said but forgot I knew he said, because who needs to know shit like that. LA, Hollywood, is like, what if you were teaching a fifth-grade class and one sunny Tuesday a student walked in carrying her arm in her mouth, bleeding, like this, between her teeth. And then instead of freaking the fuck out and getting her to a doctor, you and your students all started collectively thinking, "What would I look like with my severed arm in my mouth?"
Or up your ass. Or if you just left it at home, because who needs all that dead arm weight dragging you down all day. Anyway, Shane's Miss Pettigrew moment goes completely south at this point, as a lesson in random acts of senseless harassment -- toward a man at the golfing range who may or may not deserve it -- becomes abuse, becomes a whalloping shit-knocker of a throwdown, as he flips off the casually offensive Shane and Ignacio and earns a golf club to the face, nads and throat for his troubles. Shane finally realizes that Ignacio is a wild animal and scary as hell. I guess this is the first time they've hung out during the day.
Nancy comes to the jail to throw her wedding ring in Guillermo's face and make sure he understands that she's not Mizzzzzz Dead Puta Whore, but in fact now Mrs. Esteban Reyes, and she's thinking of hyphenating, to keep the old Nancy alive, as a modern woman. He compares her to a cat which, thrown off the porch, lands on her feet, but then points out that it's a different story when you throw her off the roof, and asks if she's inviting him to the wedding. Mad that he won't just give in already, she gets nasty and tells him that her fiancé -- who loves her, who has brioche made fresh every day for her, because it's her favorite -- loves her so much he would even kill for her.
The baby kicks and she smiles nastily, and he asks her if she had Till killed. He thanks her for that, and offers to thank her more personally once he's out of jail. Now that he's taken away what little power she was trying to get back in the first place -- by fleeing the house of men who know her secrets to a trapped man who will die knowing her secrets -- but ended up on top again by calling her out on her implication in Till's death, and followed up with a little threat of his own, she leans in close to the glass and tells him he's never getting out. Um, I think he is, and I think he is going to cut you open, Mrs. Reyes. It always upsets me when Guillermo gets sad, both because it makes me sad and also because it makes me shiver, because Guillermo Angry and Guillermo Hurt Feelings are the exact same terrifying face.
Jolly Ignacio comes looking for Shane -- and walking past a white maid, which is so awesome -- and asks if he wants to trade the driving range for the tennis courts today. Shane literally runs away without a word, and because Ignacio is a lunatic, he just shrugs and giggles and goes looking joyfully for candy.
Celia, hobbling, misses her bus and sits down, cursing her abusive shoes and staring into space. An air-conditioned vision of loveliness pulls up, in a red car airbrushed with, "You're Pretty!" The woman is reapplying her lipstick, wearing a scarf and shades, and smelling like Flowerbomb. Celia lusts after her with all the spirit she can muster, and the woman cocks an eyebrow before driving away, leaving Celia to confront her worthlessness once more. But wait! The woman puts it in reverse and comes back to compliment Celia on her shoes. "Thank you," Celia says with all the class she can muster, which I'm happy to say is a surprising amount. "I may work in casual, but my heart is in couture." The woman laughs, saying she's been there, and offers a business card. Raylene Reynolds, who has been there before but is now the regional sales director for You're Pretty. She offers Celia a ride, and so begins Act II.
Silas is feeling bitchy because CP is hanging out in this hangy-down Papasan bed-thing, like a swinger might have, and being a fat-ass might end up ripping it out of the ceiling and costing Silas his security deposit. I'm sort of totally bored by this whole dispensary thing right now, especially considering how hot that guy in the Cleveland National Park was, so whatever: the spirit of George Ha