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Weeds recap: Season 4, episode 5

by jill on July 15th, 2008

“No Man Is Pudding”

Wowzer. Terrific episode. We open with Guillermo’s crew leveling a gun at Celia, who cowers and blubbers on the warehouse floor. She makes no sense in response to Guillermo’s questioning, but mentions him by name. He’s interrogating her when Nancy steps up. She tells him Celia’s her back up for when his schemes get her in trouble. She acts pissed at Celia and tells her she should’ve stayed in the car. When Guillermo notices Celia’s camera and asks her why she’s taking photos, Nancy pistol whips Celia in the face, knocking out one of her front teeth. She orders Celia into the Prius and tells Guillermo she’ll go to the outlet mall later for her new assignment.

Meantime, Andy’s chatting up the illegal immigrants he’s trekking with toward the border. One of them, a pregnant young woman who speaks pretty good English shares the marzipan figures she’s made with Andy when they break for a snack. The candies look like cartoon pigs. She tells him she can make anything out of the stuff, even a portrait of him. Right, Andy says: “Marzipandy.” When the coyote (immigrant smuggler) leading the group comes back and basically tells the girl he’s going to rape her later. After he walks off she unleashes a string of violent curses about what she’d like to do to him. Andy, not being so good with Espanol, thinks she’s saying she misses her mom.

In one of the best Nancy moments in an episode full of good ones, she drives around with Celia and calls Andy from the car. She gets voicemail and leaves a message telling him she’ll be late getting him because (dry as dust delivery here) Celia’s back and, well, she’s not sure what’s going on but she’s awaiting Celia’s unbelievably stupid explanation.

In Ren-Mar, Silas goes looking for a place to stash his plants so they don’t get towed again. He power-saws into the wall, where he and Shane discover a colony of bees. Doug freaks out because he’s allergic.

Nancy gets to the spot where Andy left the red cooler and discovers that he’s not with it. She’s anxious and angry. Celia’s trying to explain her deal with Roy Till, but Nance is too upset that Andy’s missing. She kicks Celia out of the car for a second to collect her thoughts. When Celia butts back in, Nancy snaps. She rolls up the car window, trapping Celia’s head inside and her body outside. Nancy drives in circles and Celia has to run to keep her head from getting stuck. After much discomfort, Nancy lets her back in.

To the near north, Andy and the immigrants are ushered into a pudding delivery truck. The coyote demands Andy’s limited edition belt buckle in payment. Once they’re settled, one guy shares his vision of fishing in Iowa. Andy tries to explain it’s landlocked, then bonds some more with the marzipan lady, who’s from Central America. She tells him the coyote is a terrible bully. He broke somebody’s arm and he keeps jacking up the price to take them across the border.

At home, the boys arm themselves with insecticide and safety goggles, then go to work on the bees. Doug locks himself in the bathroom for safety.

Nancy and Celia have arrived at the outlet mall. Celia looks crazy — matted hair, missing tooth, blood-spattered shirt. They sit on a bench, waiting. When Guillermo arrives, he unlocks a shop and invites Nancy in. He’s gotten Celia’s pics developed and shows Nancy that they’re all of her. He tells Nancy to be careful of Celia — she’s a stalker-type friend. Then Guillermo tells Nancy about her new job. She’ll manage this maternity store. Blanca is more valuable here than doing border runs, he tells her. She says she doesn’t want to work retail — she wants to do trafficking and reap the cash that comes with it. Guillermo says tough, but tells her to write down how much money she wants to make this year. She does, but he says to aim higher — he can only ask the boss once. She writes a big figure. Guillermo says he’ll see what he can do. But Celia will only make minimum wage.

Andy and the crew have crossed the border. The coyote steps up to the marzipan lady, trying to force her into sex acts. Andy tries to stop him but the coyote pulls a knife. No worries, since Andy has the gun from the cooler. He shoots the coyote by accident, hitting him in the knee (honestly, I expected better aim after Andy’s stint in basic training last season). While the coyote’s down, the marzipan lady kicks him, hard. Andy takes the opportunity to retrieve his belt buckle, then leads the woman and another guy home to Ren-Mar.

We cut to a surreal dinner scene: the boys and Doug are blotchy with bee stings. Celia can’t eat her Popeye’s takeout without her front tooth. The two immigrants look awkward and confused. Nancy, in her “I’m so on the verge of losing it” tone of voice, welcomes everyone. She tells Shane how sorry she is for not being more available and mentions to Silas that she hasn’t forgotten about him getting his GED. She explains to Doug that it’s time for him to move out, oh, and he might also want to seek medical attention. Then she tries to tell Celia she’s sorry. Looks like Mrs. Hodes is their newest houseguest. As everyone breaks into the marzipan pigs for dessert, Celia wants to know what she should do about Roy Till.

In the next scene, Nancy arrives at agent Till’s karaoke joint. She sits down with him and smoothly tells him to forget about Celia. When he asks why, she says he’s a kind-hearted guy. He counters that he’ll back off Celia if Nancy can deliver Guillermo. Nancy responds that all she and Till have in common is Peter Scottson. Roy says that’s old news. She says not all that old. Then she tells him came to the bar to thank him. His investigation forced her to get out of the game. She was bad at being a dealer, Nancy says. She’s ready to try something else to support her family. Then, over a montage of maternity store scenes, she explains her new, boring, existence. How she goes to work every day at the outlet mall, shuts off her brain for eight hours, then closes shop and goes home.

The montage segues into a night scene at the store. Nancy locks up, then hears thumping sounds from the back room, the one with the combination lock. She goes in and sees the floor bouncing under some cardboard boxes — there’s a trap door. She moves the boxes and the door opens. A workman with a shovel comes out and snaps at her in Spanish about how she shouldn’t place boxes in that part of the store room. Behind him is a long tunnel, which terminates in a shop across the border. In it, impeccably groomed Mexican guys smoke cigars and grin. Open for business.

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