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So Shane's pretty chill about the fact that he just murdered a lady, but for once his mother seems to get the gravity of the situation. At least until she starts drinking, at which point she pretty much just keeps drinking. It's weird to see Nancy Botwin out of control -- physically, as opposed to like existentially -- but considering the entire universe has turned against her, it's probably best.
Because every single character on the entire show would like Nancy to know what an asshole she is, and how this whole six years of cascading bullshit situations is something she made up out of her own head and that everything she does is just to make more zombies to do her fucked-up bidding. Most notably on this list are the holy trinity of authentic wisdom made up of Silas, NPR and Alanis Morissette (last and most holy of whom delivers a speech I'm sure we'd all have liked to deliver Nancy at some point, beginning with "Bitch! You crazy bitch!" and continuing on from there).
Not on this list: Poor Esteban, who covers up all evidence but will probably send his devoted Cesar to cut off her thumbs, and hapless Andy Botwin, whom she retrieves from his disappointed fiancée under the guise of commandeering the urban assault vehicle he once thought represented all manhood and now is just the bigger boat in which Mama Jaws is driving us all merrily to hell. After saving them from that crossbow-wielding Jesus freak Gale, Nancy blatantly begs Andy to come with; of course he is no match for that, and Audra's nearly happy to see him go.
So it's Silas, Shane, Nancy, baby Stevie Ray and Andy once again a happy little family on the run. But meanwhile, murderous/strangely numb Shane is either 1) Setting himself up for a massive and long-delayed comedown once reality hits, 2) Just as unstoppably crazy as we always thought, or 3) The latest casualty in Nancy's pissing match with God.
Probably all three. : Seattle? Lesbians? Hash. Room service. Shane most likely proving -- even with blood on his hands -- he's a better mom than Nancy could ever be. And, here's hoping, a run of twelve episodes at least as awesome as this one.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Poor Pilar never looked so tiny as when floating in a swimming pool surrounded by her blood. Strange Botwin never looked so tiny either, holding a croquet mallet. "Couldn't find a golf club," he grins. While Nancy tries and fails to pull it together and get over the freakout that she was just having -- Pilar threatening her sons' lives, feeling helpless before her because she'd never had to deal with a woman and women are her Kryptonite -- so she can start freaking out about what just happened, Shane continues to dissociate. The music all through this beginning part keeps reminding me of Rosemary's Baby, or like a Kidz Bop version of the Suspiria soundtrack. Somewhere in there, anyway.
"It's cool how the lights change color. I wonder if it's a saltwater pool. It doesn't sting your eyes as much as chlorine. Not that that's her issue..." Nancy wigs and tells him to keep hold of the mallet and closes the pool cover over the body. He waves up at the security camera and she knocks it out with the mallet. She keeps calling it a stick and he keeps correcting her and it's very annoying and it happens throughout the episode, which would be fine except there are, like, ten other recurring conversations that are much funnier, and I'm not sure what the point even is. Nancy grabs him by the face and marches him out to the limo, like, that's what you do when you're Nancy Botwin and your kid kills a lady: Straight into Time Out and no complaining.
Silas whines at them; he's been waiting in the car when he could have been inside at the party, "eating mini-sliders and making small talk with the king of Nicaragua." Silas is accustomed to waiting for Nancy to do whatever bonkers thing she's doing. "Nicaragua is a constitutional democracy," Shane says, while their mother bashes against the driver's window. "I need to get home and feed the baby!" she shrieks, and then grabs a bottle of vodka from the minibar. Like, how out-of-control does shit actually have to be for Nancy Botwin to start drinking?
Silas wonders why she's drinking if she's supposed to be feeding Stevie Ray (Your milk is poison! Be the baby!) and Shane grabs a bottle of his own. "Hey! You're underage. Thankfully!" (Parenting!) Shane complains that he's at least earned a drink to steady his nerves, but Nancy disagrees: In fact, what he is done is go off the deep end. He giggles at the pun and she gets mean-eyed and scared for a second, pointing one claw in her son's face: "No." Nancy won't tell Silas what happened, just drinkin' and cryin' and lookin' pissed off, and Shane's still being strange -- "I pegged out" -- and when Nancy finally admits she doesn't even have the words to explain what's going on, Silas knows they're in deep. I would feel sorry for him except, honestly? He was so shitty until Nancy actively started destroying his life at every opportunity.
Lupita gets her shit packed up in the blink of an eye the second Nancy says to do it, mostly in Spanglish because she is freaking out, and Nancy continues to drink. The only thing Lupita really has to say is that Stevie Ray is her favorite and that Nancy better not let a damn thing happen to him. Nice that somebody's watching out for the baby; at this point he's Shane's only hope. I'm not interested in Stevie Ray yet. He sort of piqued during the original Rosemary's Baby thing where they were going to kill her secretly and make him the new Simba or whatever. Float him down a river.
Out in the garage, the boys are waiting once again. Silas wants to go inside and figure this out so he knows what to do, but Shane tells him Nancy's in a state. "If you go in and I go in, and Mom comes out, and we're still inside, she's gonna shit a hedgehog." He's playing air hockey the whole time but Silas is not actually playing so it's a very easy game. He finally explains, in cadence from Clue, that he killed Pilar with a croquet mallet by the pool. He has to say it a couple of times because it's so unbelievable. Which it would be, if A) Shane weren't fucking bonkers and B) Nancy didn't have those good luck/bad luck powers that spread disease and contagion and fire and death everywhere she goes.
"She was gonna kill us, so I popped the bitch. Right in the melon. Thwack! Splash. Dead." Silas's heart breaks, finally, once it sinks in: Shane's serious. "Serious as Dad's heart attack. Now in general, I don't like using that simile because some heart attacks just aren't all that serious. I mean, you recover, reduce your salt and fat, drop a few pounds, and life goes on. But Dad's? Dad's was serious." And Silas can't judge him for what he did, in final analysis, because they are family. I feel like the more we see inside Shane's head the less scary he gets. It all makes a certain scary sense, which is more than you can say about his mom most days.
"I defended the family. Mom's luck was running out. You called it." Silas stares, terrified; like Shane is a zombie, controlled by forces beyond his control. Like a wasp's nest, just lying there on the ground, maybe a buzz you're imagining. Maybe little formicatory movements that could be just your eyes playing tricks. "Mom said you stood and peed on her leg once when you were three," Shane offers. "That's kind of freaky." Silas says that there is no comparison and making the comparison means that Shane is fucked up to a degree that is unfathomable and that he is going to wait, again, in the car: He has officially lost the human/monster majority that kept Nancy in check.
Nancy's amazed by Lupita's swiftness. "I work for you. I'm always ready to flee. You should know yourself better." Valid, and funny. I forgot how much I used to like her. Nancy asks if there's any money stashed around, and she rattles it off with aplomb: "In his closet in his black pointy boots, in the left pocket of his winter coat in the hall closet, and he has nice jewelry in the drawer in his bathroom... Cuff links, watches." Nancy's jaw drops, hilariously, like this conversation is taking place five years ago: "Have you been casing my house?" I know Celia's gone, but in that moment I felt like she was with us. Lupita swears she's just a curious person and Nancy continues to drink. Of course, the second she's alone Lupita grabs the biggest stash of all, but it's a pretty you go girl moment, all things considered.
Nancy's baggage is so voluminous that it fills up the entire car; there's barely enough room for her boys in there. Silas assumes they're not going to the police station; at this point he's slightly more pissed that, once again, Nancy has been grabbing all her stuff and leaving all of his stuff behind, while he was outside waiting with his dick in his hand. "Yeah. Sorry. So, so, so, so sorry. For all the countless times I've left you holding your dick, I am sorry. But now you have the handbook for what not to do. And as we drive far away from here, we can talk about the many ways in which I failed you, or we can play license-plate bingo. I'll let you decide."
Which, Nancy Botwin 101. It is never time to know herself better. It is never time to take inventory or think about everybody or anybody else. It is not that she is a malicious person, it's that survival mode trumps other people's feelings, and she is always in survival mode. There is a constant and possible tomorrow where she could nurture the people around her -- where she could be the person that she knows, deep down, she must be -- but that tomorrow will never come, because it's always time to run. And you can only get raked over the coals for that so often, in the midst of what is clearly a fight to survive and a constant running from the spectre of death and the constant danger that feeds her, before you just start laughing. Yeah, I'm an asshole. Tomorrow maybe I won't be, but right now it's not time to talk about it. Stick with today.
There are fights, before they get going, about who sits where. Shane, who for all he knows became a man tonight, refuses to sit on the hump in the middle of the backseat. Silas yells at him at length to move over, but when Shane gives him a threatening look Nancy goes into action, kicking him hard. "Don't play the whole I'm A Killer Now card. That is unacceptable." (Paaaaaarenting!) Lupita is interested in that conversation, but not hugely. In fact, she realizes she needs to know nothing about it. Nancy agrees, and tells Silas to drive, because she just realized she's finally drunk.
"I'm buried," Silas says. "You have to dig me out." But he's so old now and so strong and he's grown so much, she thinks, can't he just do it himself?
Silas refuses to drive until Nancy buckles up, although she's sure the mountain of her baggage will protect her, and Lupita offers to get the fuck on up out of there at the nearest bus station. She offers -- and to Nancy's credit she doesn't think twice -- to take Stevie Ray with her. No go. "I make 'em, I keep 'em." Silas is not loving that policy, but it's too late now. (Also, she hits both of her kids about 60 times in this episode, and they also have Shane say something about it this week, and I know she slaps the shit out of him again week. So that's something we need to monitor, I think, moving forward.) After a lot of scrunched driving, Nancy finally admits that her baggage is crowding everybody else out. Does she think to herself that maybe getting rid of some bullshit would free up space? No, she just jokes about ruining more lives. "We're gonna need a bigger boat," she says, and Silas goes, "Wouldn't want the shark feeling cramped!"
Did you know the shark thing is a myth? I mean, sharks aren't a myth, they have their own week on TV. But the always going forward thing? Not true. In this particular case, of course, it's completely apropos, because the myth is true about Nancy Botwin. Keep moving, keep eating, keep tearing through the shoals and wonders of our natural world. And the Jaws reference, too, of course. A mommy entitled to her rages and her blood, cruising through the water, chomping randoms with equanimity. Lots of coffee and eyeliner.
Meanwhile, these drunk dudes back at the party are daring one of their number to jump in the pool from a rooftop. They talk shit about Pilar and roll the automatic cover back, and he jumps without looking. He makes fun of their terrified stares, and then bumps into the dead body floating around in there. What a terrible night that man is having! In his underwear and all.
Nancy comes upon Andy, who is lurking outside the Ren Mar house because a crazy Christian with a crossbow is inside being all obsessed with Alanis Morissette. Andy fills Nancy in on how he abandoned her to this fate, and thus is not a man in any of the thousand ways he attempted to be a man last year. Nancy, to be sure, is not interested in one single part of any of this, because other people's lives just aren't that interesting to Nancy Botwin. She keeps interrupting him to give her the keys to his van, so all her shit will fit in there and they can run away. This is literally how far she thinks. After six years, not a surprise, but she is sort of turning into a particularly shitty kind of superhero.
Nancy offers Andy the Prius, and he stubs his toe on the whole mess of grownup/family-man metaphors that the van represents to him, but again: Not interested in other people's lives. Not even interested in explaining the degree of her extremity tonight, although she does give it a moment to act appalled that Andy assumes it was Shane that murdered somebody. (Andy also assumes it was Esteban who was killed, but I think that would just be too awful even for this show. Plus, won't he eventually be eaten by a lion?)
At this point Nancy realizes that she's going to have to save Alanis Morissette from a random nutjob if she expects to get the keys to this van, and is of course so totally insane that she doesn't think twice about it. It's like how drug dealers work so hard and show such work ethic and deal with so many different kinds of people and you're like, "What is the benefit of not having a regular job at that point?" I mean, she's a drug dealer, but you know what I mean. Like, why not man up and face your demons? Because from the outside, you're totally charging a guy with a crossbow. But there's danger and then there's danger, and she'd rather be charging a guy with a crossbow than looking in the mirror. The worst thing that could happen there is, you get shot and die.
Daredevil Girl heads inside. Audra's complaining to Crazy Gayle about her bad choices in men, and Gayle is pleading his troth hilariously -- "Let's wash the blood of the unborn off your hands and live together in the light of the Lord! We'll make babies! I have a trust fund!" -- and admitting he's off and on his antipsychotics for reasons of weight gain. Plus, you know, I'm sure it gets lonely when God stops telling you what to do and how you are His special friend. (Although on this show God would follow that up with, "But have you met Nancy Botwin? That girl, I tell you what." And then take a twenty out of your wallet and hand it over to her, just to be a dick.)
"Hey Audra? It's Nance! Just wondering if I could get a quick abortion?" Nancy knows how to make an entrance, for sure. I think that's my favorite line of the whole thing. Audra several times complains about how of course Andy called Nancy when things got hot, and Nancy unconvincingly tries several times to say that it's just a coincidence before going back to just demanding the van keys over and over. Andy finally comes in and starts fighting with Gayle, but of course in the end he misses the bear and Nancy still has to vanquish him. (Maybe I just like Andy better when Nancy's sucked his brain out? What a terrible thing to contemplate.)
While they're doing that, Silas and Shane discuss how they are constantly, constantly waiting on Nancy, and that in the final analysis it's mainly her complete self-absorption that causes this effect. "I'm not sure if it's pure ego or false bravado," says Shane, which is really canny of him because after all, that admits the possibility that she does this shit on purpose. And the whole tragedy and sort of mindbending horror of Nancy Botwin is the possibility -- which even she shies away from, and she's better at hating Nancy than any of us -- that on some level she knows what a dirty fucker she actually is.
"You know why I peed on her leg?" Silas asks, and Shane's hilariously like, "When?" But he also knows exactly why: Because he had to pee, and Nancy was ignoring him. Dick in hand. Shane is in a position now to understand that better than Silas ever did. Does Shane feel different, having killed? Not yet, he says. Which is, again, canny of him. Admitting the possibility. Silas, who is still almost loathe to touch him, says to let him know if Feelings actually show up. Going through the bags of stolen stuff, Shane finds a cock ring. It is uncomfortable.
Inside, Andy is protesting that it counts that he technically came back to defend Audra and stuff, and she isn't buying it. "You bailed. And then when you came back with Mommy over there, she had to save your sorry ass." Nancy swears, again, that she's just there for the keys, and at this point she protests too much. Because of all the times I think Nancy actually does know what she's doing, I would lay odds on this one. It's not the van she wants, it's Andy. But she's got to do it just right, which means ignoring what's going on and just demanding the keys over and over until Andy hangs himself with Audra, which if you started holding your breath right this second, well, let's just say it's unlikely you'll turn blue before he somehow fucks up.
She finally throws the keys in Nancy's face, which offends her, and Audra lets her have it. "How about fuck you, bitch? You crazy fucking bitch! You're married, you have children. Why couldn't you stay away? You keep him around like a little puppy dog. You use him!" For her part, Nancy immediately tries to get the fuck out of there, wishing them well, and even telling Gayle she doesn't want to drag Andy into her shit anymore. Part of her actually believes this, but not the part that any of us, including Nancy, would ever respect.
This, of course, makes Andy whine about how he can totally handle Nancy's shit, whatever it is this time, and she tells him to stay with Audra, and Audra says that he is dumped, and Gayle backs her up on that even though it is a lie, and finally Gayle's mean enough to him that Nancy can go in for the kill-slash-be honest and sweet.
"Shut up, nutballs! Andy's wonderful. He's loyal, scrappy. He's funny and great with kids. He's resourceful." Beat. "You can come if you want. You have to know it isn't the healthy choice, but you can... Come. I'd like you to come. You shouldn't. Do you want to come? Come on." It's as close to begging, or caring, or feeling, than she's ever come. I always like Nancy when she's drunk.
(Well, unless she's drunk and making people drain her breasts in the bathroom of a Mexican restaurant. That's too drunk. But it was just like that one time.)
Andy and Audra go back and forth, back and forth, and I don't think he can tell that she's testing him so his performance is admirable, but nothing compared to Nancy's witchy wasp-monster zombie powers. She waves her ass in Gayle's face and takes his weaponry, against his Bible-quoting screams. "I don't... I don't give a shit. And I'm still drunk. Andy, meet me by the van if you want to come." Five. Four. Three...
Andy wavers for like one second, fighting it out with Gayle and Audra both, and finally he gives in. "So I might as well just go with Nancy?" Oh, the roof comes in. "I knew it! I fucking knew it. F. You failed. F, you get an F. You were supposed to fight for me!" Andy is flabbergasted because that was like Inception right there. Wheels within wheels. Gayle yells at him to get out of the house and he remembers that actually this is a Botwin house and tries to throw them out. Of course, since Gayle is crazy and tied up, that won't work. Audra calls the police. "Gayle, I am fond of you, but you need help."
Gayle, of course, knows within himself that Christ's love is all the help he needs, and Audra's so exhausted by tonight that she can't even laugh at him. Without turning around she tells Andy, once again, to leave. She doesn't look back. Neither does he.
So yeah, of course Andy's coming. There was no doubt. Nancy played it as straight as she ever could, but of course she got exactly what she wanted. The four of them, and the baby, load up the van. Silas is still pissed about the hypocrisy of leaving all their stuff behind, and he spits on her Zen take: "Just stuff? Oh, okay, then. Fine. How about we leave some of your stuff here, because it's just stuff? How about this lovely bag of shoes?" Nancy, of course, has an excuse -- odd size to fit -- and Andy finally figures out that the mallet was the murder weapon. Silas's bitching about stuff and the need for new stuff to replace their old stuff makes Nancy sigh, and she stops moving.
"So sorry to do this to you. Silas is right about money. You have to go back in that house and get Bubbie's ring back from Audra."
The last little bit of brains in Andy's head goes wobbly and he realizes that he has made the choice, that in fact well before he knew about the choice he had made the choice, and it was just what Nancy wanted, as usual. That Audra was right about all of it. He heads inside and comes back out again, with a black eye and no ring. I miss Audra already. Alanis Morissette makes me feel understood and safe when she is around.
Meanwhile, Esteban is sad as hell watching the tape: Shane hitting Pilar, Nancy hitting the camera. For once it's not Nancy betraying him, exactly. Just running, which she's always done. He destroys the tape and threatens the man that showed it to him, and heads downstairs to shoot Cesar one of those complicated looks they so often share, across the crowded party.
Finally on the road, Nancy heads back to good old public broadcasting: "This is Radiolab. Our topic today: The parasitic wasp."
Esteban calls. She ignores it. There is still the issue of his issue.
"So, what it does is it flies around and it looks for a cockroach, it stings it, it can't run away. It has essentially lost its will. Well, parasites are very careful. You know, they won't eat vital organs that will kill it. God should not be personally blamed for having created parasitic wasps."
Andy's asleep, but he is there. Nancy tosses the mallet out the window.
"A parasitic wasp can insert its stinger into one specific part of the cockroach's brain, but then turns the cockroach into its slave in a very elegant way."
She stares at Shane in the rearview mirror. He stares right back.
"...That, to me, sounds like the purest description in nature of evil that I can imagine."
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