Could Andy get any better? More lovable, irreverent, funnier? He has had the best lines and plots as he’s fallen for Nancy — which is sort of perverse and inexplicable, but actually quite heartwarming — and doggedly looked out for her when nobody else will. He’s been expressing his vulnerabilities and answering the phone, even when it’s meant missing out on a little lovin’. It’s like we’re watching Uncle Andy grow into just plain Andy. Which is why the end of this episode is so exasperating and heart-wrenching.
Now, Nancy: For all those viewers who have been lamenting the loss of our pretty domestic goddess, she’s back, thanks to our appetite for chubby babies. (Even “a Mexican baby,†per Celia.) She’s wearing those floppy feminine tanks while potting fragrant, nutritious plants, hanging vintage-chic mobiles, and disciplining her errant, drug-dealing, gun-wielding nihilist of a son, Shane.
Meanwhile, Doug and Silas are setting up their medical-marijuana business. Silas is getting serious, trying to sort out his life — he’s switched roles with Shane, who has a stellar moment robbing his “titanic loser of a teacher who jacked the wrong kid†— and Doug is painting a self-portrait for his “blue-balls period.†The two erupt into a glorious fury of name-calling — “man boobs,†“bad Dad,†“girlfriend deporter,†says Silas before punching Doug in the mouth and then hugging him softly. Doug: “Sorry, sometimes I think I’m retarded in the mouth.†As we watch Shane devolve and Andy evolve, we see Silas and Doug play out their father-and-son issues. It’s touching and hilarious and refreshing to see these characters actually moving somewhere.
Celia, who is squatting in Nancy’s garage, ends the episode hurling abuse the likes of which we haven’t seen for an entire season — through the cancer and the coke habit and the getting kidnapped, tied up, and abandoned by her daughter, we’ve almost felt bad for her. But she’s back, too, blackmailing Nancy with photos of the dead body that she just saw sealed into a barrel of acid. “I’m staying in your garage for however long I want!â€
It’s the usual battle between good and evil, between slugs and flowers (Nancy’s plants died), between a selfish pregnant women and a downtrodden bitch, between a loser teacher and a guileless goon. “Why is fucking Armageddon always coming on me?†asks Nancy. And here’s where Uncle Andy shows his wholesome colors: “You do it, you do know that. You have to know that it’s all you,†he says.
But he has a plan: No need to abort the chubby Mexican baby. Here’s where his well-intentioned but less-than-wholesome brilliance comes in: He mans up — or down, depending on how you see it — combing his hair, donning a cardigan, and screwing his dead brother’s overly imaginative, ridiculously nostalgic ex-girlfriend all for the 100-plus-thousand dollars that has been left in his bro’s name. All … for Nancy. Who left a note on her pillow for Andy and packed herself and Shane off to go live with the Mexican mafia father of her baby. And Andy says: “These are dark waters you’re swimming in, even for you, Nancy.â€