Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Personal
By Jacob Clifton | Season 6 | Episode 13 | Aired on 11.15.2010
an C. Plan... No, seriously. It's C." Which we won't know until the very last part what that means, but I don't want to recap it twice so we'll pretend you already know what Plan C is, and if you don't go watch the show, it's great."We're at the airport. So is Esteban. Yeah, bye." Andy's shoulders dip under whatever the weight of Plan C is, and his face goes all manlike and he fake smiles and says, "I'm sure she'll be here soon." Schiff and Shane are less convinced, but C isn't about impressing them with her punctuality, it's about getting Shane out of the country. Andy sighs, full of the empty place for facts and details he doesn't know for sure yet, and drags Shane and Schiff to the gate so he can do his part of the Plan.
Esteban tries to get two tickets for the flight, but it's all sold out, so he asks for any flight, which raises some eyebrows, and he's not checking baggage, and all of a sudden he turns from a hottie to a terrorist, so the guy fumbles and says his computer froze, and Esteban's used to being treated like a rich man, so he doesn't even see what is plain to see about this situation. But, never having been a man, Nancy completely does.
"You're a foreign national? Buying last-minute tickets to Europe? Money is no object? If you'd ordered the halal meal, you might have hit the trifecta..."
Shit gets real tense for the boys, and the other ticket people and other white people stare and stare, and Nancy finally takes a giant step back, like in Mother May I, and asks Guillermo if maybe he picked up her ticket and passport by mistake, "sir," and totally plays the pretty white lady card, and Guillermo has to not only hand over the stuff but also feel horrible about the way this is playing out. Even though actually he is exactly what they think he is, it's still really insulting I'd imagine, because Guillermo is also much more than what they think he is.
Which... I mean, I've always said this show is about the economy of men and how, if you are somehow marginal to that conversation -- black, female, gay, Latino -- then you have a duty to yourself to step outside the bonds of that conversation. All drug legislation is about keeping poor people poor, because what do the white men care if you create a black market, as long as the white market stays clean.
And for Nancy, that has meant a lot of things, leveraging herself in all kinds of ways (demeaning herself not very often at all, if you think about it this way) in order to get there. So playing the White Lady Card now that she's stuck in the Esteban/Guillermo dynamic, to open her cage up to the greater White People of Iceland dynamic, it's cynical but to me it's just crossing the same kind of line, in the only circumstance maybe ever where it's appropriate to do so:
"White privilege is, after all, a privilege!"
So they're kind of angry, I think, to be reminded that this is the world that we live in -- like, Andy's vic was probably a lot more resigned -- because it's not actually the world they live in, very much of the time. Which, that's a lot to play because the scene could also be read as, "The villains are thwarted by the wily heroine." Which, they're not villains and she's sure as fuck not a heroine, but this show gets things like this really weird a lot of the time, so I wanted to clap for that little moment because the actors are really selling it all.
Guillermo pretends it was just an accident and she does Nice White Lady that -- with every step back -- gets more and more awesomely harsh: "No, no, it's my fault. I'm so sorry, it was my fault, I set it down on the counter. It could have happened to anybody. Who's also from Iceland!"
Nancy bounces and they get taken in immediately, and it's a sad commentary on our sad times that actually works. Andy's on the phone with Plan C, and Schiff's bitching about how Nancy was always late -- for class, for dinner -- and how he used to buy her Lean Cuisines because at his house there was no cooking (too crazy, too pervy) and at hers there was no cooking either (too sad, too drunk). Shane finally asks the question nobody fucking wanted the answer to.
A: Fourteen.
Proudly: "Let's just say that I was old enough to know better, and young enough not to care. I loved her. And then she outgrew me... And then she left. But she came back."
The thing about Lolita that I've always loved the best is that it's really the story of two people who got what they wanted, and it killed them. I'm sure if you've never read the book -- you think it's about predators and prey and whatever -- Jezebel probably says it's racist towards fat people or whatever's outraging us this week, but no: Just a girl who got what she wanted, and didn't want it anymore, and she didn't really know what she was asking for when she asked for it. And it's about a guy for whom the same exact things were true.
But since that book is literary and this show is usually, decidedly not -- fillips, those blue butterflies always showing up when we need them, the Bear, the tunnel -- it's okay to look at Humbert and Dolores as barely-real intellectual creations because that's what they are, and still hate Schiff. When you use the quadratic equation you don't worry about the effect of the patriarchy on the sexual self-image of the variable b; when it's Nancy you better keep your fucking hands off her.
Anyway, Andy's finishing up Plan C when Nancy finally appears, overjoyed to see her, and sadly admits Silas isn't there. Her heart breaks and she shouts at Andy for letting him go off on his own, because: He is not safe. Plan C doesn't account for Silas staying in the country because Plan C doesn't involve doing anything particularly awful to Esteban or the Esteban machine, because Plan C can't invite countermeasures against Shane, so Silas has to go to Iceland or else he'll be in even more danger than he is right now.
"He's with Lars. Lars has very white teeth."
Nancy explains that Lars played hockey and his white teeth are fake, and grabs a phone to call Silas and see what she can do about him. Two very lovely exchanges here, the first as Schiff asks what's up with Andy and Nancy and Shane goes, "Who knows? Always drama," then assures Schiff that they'd never hook up.
The world would end, and they both know it. The second is between them, when she complains that he let Silas stay, and he turns that grownup gaze on her: "I can't believe you can't understand why." And she can, and she does, and she's scared. When they call for passengers, Nancy and Stevie now being in the same place at the gate, Andy nearly jumps into the air with excitement, because they could go back to Plan A. And maybe if Silas were there, she could, but now it's got to be Plan C. Which means they are suddenly saying goodbye.
Andy's face nearly breaks and she stares at him, worried; he nods and points out that she's ruined his life. Which she's fine with, but not the way he almost bursts into tears: That makes her slap him, to make it stop. He does, jumping into manic jokey-smurf: "Not to mention you lied to my brother and made him raise another man's baby! When are we gonna deal with that?" I wouldn't say he's delighted, because it's kind of intense, but there's a sort of oooh girl drama face that comes over him that's pretty great. Like, not "deal" necessarily but maybe kinda "dish." You know?
"I know. I'm the downfall of all Botwin men." "And Guinard, and Reyes," Andy points out, and Schiff and Shane show up. Andy's got to hide his face when she mumbles about changing the baby so they can go ahead, but you can tell Shane's already halfway there. She ushers them away, but she can't help giving him a little encouragement, instead of goodbye. Her voice breaks when she asks him for a pillow and blanket, and he nods. "Go fast, okay?"
The last person she sees is Andy, and it nearly kills her. Once they're on the plane Shane's like, "I gotta get something, hold on." Andy refuses to look him in the eye as they quibble over gum and who gets the aisle seat, but eventually Andy gives in and he heads for the front of the plane. The look in Shane's eye is something we've only seen a few times: Whenever Nancy gets caged up. It's heartbreaking. But he gets a little stronger, they both do, when Andy admits she's not coming.
Esteban and Guillermo show up with Silas, and the camera does that Hitchcock thing where she stays put and the world peels away, and Silas apologizes for showing up at just the wrong time: Guillermo and Esteban ran into him just after proving themselves to security: "It was like fate," Guillermo grins.