Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Wide Stances and Sneaky Glances
By Jacob Clifton | Season 5 | Episode 9 | Aired on 08.03.2009
r the years, sexually speaking. He has sexual experience, I don't know if that's been made clear. We should probably make a few identical jokes that add nothing to the story or the character, just so the sheer repetition becomes in itself hilarious. Nancy, meanwhile, is like, "Awesome. Because from where I'm sitting, I'm sitting in the LGBT clinic to see if my fourteen-year-old has a venereal disease." The way she manages to sneer each noun in a different way is impressive.They have a whole battle of wills with Shane about how sex isn't dirty, so he shouldn't feel weird about it, but Nancy's point is that it doesn't matter how healthy sex is if you're going to get diseases, so it's better to abstain if you can't keep your shit clean, and Andy says that it's good to get back on the horse, just not bareback. Meanwhile, Shane's like, "I just had a Q-Tip. In my dickhole." He's able to say this word with a very funny, appealing sort of horror, and Andy nods sagely -- "Cotton-Eyed Joe. We've all been there" -- because guess why. He starts telling some retarded story that's not even worth it, and Nancy starts to go off on him about how the Uncle Andy Fractured Fairytales aren't even that interesting anymore because nobody's trying, and how Shane needs a parent, not a buddy. I would start with one friend who's not a creepy skank. Or Celia Hodes.
Before anybody can call Nancy on her inability to even parent, much less be anybody's friend, the doctor comes in, and it's gender dysphoria incarnate Brother Selma saying that Shane's got candida, and says the word "penis," and I don't know what happened after that because Brother Selma talking to me about rubbing my penis is one of those things. Andy and Nancy argue, Shane reminds them he needs neither a parent nor a buddy right now, just a pharmacist, and they separately think about what fuckups they are.
Esteban is drowning his pain in cigars and cognac or blanco or whatever and Pilar comes lurking around the corner about "Love in the modern age" and how it's as inconvenient as babies and whatever, he moons about and feels sorry for himself, and things get meta as she says, "I know what it's like to choose the wrong person," and he grins, and then she tries to set him up with some lady from a magazine who is of their class: educated, moneyed, society. "Take her out! Be happy, instead of drinking in the afternoon." He sullenly slugs a shot, but whatever. He'll go on the date, which is I guess in like five minutes.
What the script isn't doing a very good job of is reminding you why all this is happening: he's been completely whooped by Nancy's fake choice to raise the baby with Andy, so no matter what happens in this episode, he's going to end up back in Ren Mar. He could be watching TV with Cesar, he could be getting a pedicure with the other one, the hottie with the beard, it doesn't matter: something happens, Pilar does something, he goes running back to Nancy, based entirely on the confrontation last week. Same deal with Nancy. This whole episode is about that fight, and the increasingly insane shit they're doing in tandem, playing out the consequences of her calling his bluff and him calling hers. They both have to keep pretending that fight was real, until he comes back to her.
Later, the baby's home with Lupita while Nancy gets her drink on for the first time since that regrettable sushi session and tries to ignore Andy's intense babbling. They are at a truly hellish-looking tiki place where the drinks all have straws. Finally, she rolls her eyes and deigns to permit him to speak, and when he does it's to freak out that Shane has a yeast infection, which seems to Andy like a gross medical miscegenation, like getting hoof-and-mouth disease or Mad Cow. (Except, you know, how ladies are human. But then, stay tuned!)
Nancy agrees that the human body is a complex and mysterious experiment, and Andy corrects her: "It's a sewer!" He's still reeling from his first diaper-changing experience -- "That wasn't human" -- but at least now Stevie is Lupita's problem for a couple hours. He means this to be comforting, for them both, but Nancy moans. "Aww. He's not a problem!" She quietly wigs to herself about having had three songs, and finally goes, "Little bastard saved my life. And he's pretty damn cute. Like sick crazy cute." She goggle-eye mugs about how the drinks are strong, and again the acting is weak, and just as Andy's wishing the baby could talk and she's assuring him he'll learn to read the signs, she massages her breast, burps, and heads off to pump. Yeah, it's pretty hot.
Nancy stares at herself in the mirror, and I started getting really nervous and I didn't know why. I mean, it all fits together if you think about it long enough, but it was that feeling of dread that remained long after the episode, before anything ever happened. This is one of those episodes that takes place almost entirely on Mary Louise Parker's face, and if you're curled up in a ball on the floor it's easy to miss those subtle facial cues.
So the pump works away for about two seconds before dying, and she gets worried and frustrated and eventually throws it against the wall. She gives manual expression a fair shot, telling herself out loud to chill out and relax, but to no avail. Now, drunk and slightly terrified and in opposition to her own revolting body once again, she stares for a second before nodding and picking up her phone, laughing ruefully at the perversity, but psyching herself up for it too. When she summons Andy to the restroom, there's a moment where he balks and she nearly breaks down in tears. But just a moment.
Doug. When I see Doug it's like I just got injected with narcolepsy. So Silas is all upset about the stolen pot, and Doug is all gloom and doom about how "you only get one chance in America," an assertion which barely makes sense but bridges awkwardly to Celia coming through the house triumphantly with cardboard and packing tape, bound for the garage, ready to peace. Silas hatefully congratulates her on getting the fuck out of his house, and Doug is like, "Good for you! Who are you fucking?" Nobody, she just got a second chance thanks to America and You're Pretty cosmetics. I love how only because she's actually a drug dealer can she pretend to have this pride selling Mary Kay. It's like how you feel weird about buying condoms, right up until the day you have to buy, like, dandruff shampoo or whatever, and then condoms are okay.
Back in the bathroom, Nancy yells at the bewildered and tipsy Andy, "I'm engorged! It hurts! Please! I need you to suck it out!" He mutely makes a suggestion -- with a hilarious "wringing out the dishtowel" motion -- that she's already tried, and vaguely points in the direction of the pump, but she's like, "Please be the baby!" Please, stop being a valid choice for the father of my child. Please, stop using Dr. Alanis against me the exact same way I'm using you against Esteban Reyes. Please, stop wearing cardigan sweaters and assembling domestic bliss in front of me. Please, stop standing up for yourself and helping me with my kids and acting like an adult and turning into Judah. Please, just be the baby.
Nothing is quite what it seems, nor is it otherwise. Andy says he's done "crazy weird shit" before, like role-playing, like he was a werewolf once, and she finally goes -- and the visual is important: she's standing up in front of him and he's sitting on the toilet and she's sort of wiggling her breast in his face -- "Shut up and suck!" He almost does, then fakes left for the third time and asks what it's going to taste like. "Rum and milk." He gets nervous, talks to himself -- "here we go, lips to nips" -- and then does it!
After a false start with teeth and a moment to latch, there's a release of oxytocin and a uterine contraction that sends Nancy's eyeballs rocketing to the back of her head, which Andy does not need to know about and frankly nobody but new mommies need