(Warning: this article contains mucho spoilers!)
This episode was a head turner for sure in an uneven season, to say the least. One week Weeds was jumping the shark, the next it was harpooning it. If you recall, Nancy's short lived marital bliss was upended by Esteban being dragged away by the Mexican policia on charges of suspicion of conspiracy, tax evasion, and racketeering. His spoiled and beautiful young daughter Adelita had come home from her French finishing school to visit daddy and look down her perfect nose at her father's new American wife and stepkids. And Celia was living high off the hog in her new incarnation as cosmetics/cannibis saleslady. Oh and yes, Andy and Dr. Audra were in the first flush of love, by which I mean they couldn't keep their hands off each other.
As we draw the curtain back this week on Lady Botwin-Reyes, she's on the couch drinking wine, trying unsuccessfully to get plastered while she waits to find out where Esteban has been spirited away to. Cesar finally has some sort of lead, and she goes to meet him at a Mexican jail. On the way, Andy joins the hunting party, and natters on about how he's going to ask Audra to marry him. He's a new man. He also wants Nancy to return his mother's engagement ring to him so he can give it to his ladylove, the ring that Judah gave her when they got engaged. She's not ready to give it up - explaining that she is still processing everything. And she totally disbelieves in Andy's joy.
Meanwhile, in the scary world of Celia-Land, Isabelle finds her mother tricked out in an outfit far too young and sexy for her age and on her way to another lesbian tryst. Celia is on a desperate personal quest to outnancy Nancy; buying and selling drugs, dressing like a slut, et cetera. Of course she is completely clueless that her daughter and ex-husband, along with Doug, have banded together to teach her a lesson she'll never forget. She goes to make her drug deal with the Mexican wrestler she befriended on his moonlighting job as an Esteban goon, glimpses someone she thinks is an undercover cop, and turns tail. Celia goes right into an overcaffeinated paranoia trip, even calling Nancy for advice and getting hung up on. She's beaten and she knows it. We last find her barricaded in her apartment (which has been robbed by the aforementioned wrestler), calling Doug and begging for help in unloading the leafy green plants she's now packing. Celia provides this week's 420 Moment and also proves that Isabelle is the smartest of the Hodes clan, since she pulled this off. And Dean proves to be far funnier in his blackface 70's cop outfit than he ever was in real life.
Andy, Cesar, and Nancy are stuck for hours in the Mexican jailhouse, being shunted from floor to floor, trying unsuccessfully to negotiate the miles of bureaucratic red tape. Cesar's at a distinctive loss, since Esteban's status in Mexico has always risen above this sort of thing. He never had to deal with red tape; people like Esteban create the red tape. Nancy's at a loss because she can't wrap her head around the phrase "my husband" and doesn't know why, and she feels her world crumbling around her. Andy's the only one not at a loss, for a change. He's a whole person for perhaps the first time in the series. The grand state of Amor has changed him for the better and he is, albeit unprecedentedly, the voice of reason for once.
Back at the Reyes casa, Adelita has invited a couple of friends over to party with her and invites Silas to join in, even as she continues to sneer at him. Her two male friends are, like her, snotty and privileged Mexican kids. Kind of the Mexican equivalent of Gossip Girl. "Where'd you prep?" one of them asks Silas, to which he responds, "Agrestic." This greatly amuses them. They proceed to smoke heroin-soaked cigarettes and get trashed. Adelita passes out and the two boys attempt, in their drug haze, to date rape her. Silas and Shane kick them out and Shane proves he's learned a lot while observing the behavior of Esteban's goons; e.g. how to pull a knife and threaten someone in street Spanish.
As Nancy and Andy plod through the jailhouse on their search for Esteban, with Cesar leading the way, they've found a vintage 1974 magazine in English with a quiz about being in love. To pass the time they take the quiz and Andy passes with flying colors, while Nancy's score indicates that she still has a chance to reexamine her priorities and make a positive change in her life. She is not pleased with the outcome.
Andy finally dresses Nancy down, soundly, telling her all the things we've wanted to tell her for the past 12 weeks... and perhaps the last 4 years. "You're a fucking coward...you think that all this crazy shit you get into makes you brave." Nancy tries to explain her behavior since Judah's death by saying that she made sacrifices for her family. "No, what you sacrificed was your family. Look where you are. Are you watching Shane play soccer? No. 'Cause you fucked that up. Don't sit here and tell me you want to be someone else when you do fuck all to change what's going on."
At the end of a long day in the hot, crowded jail, they find that Esteban was released four hours before. Nancy, now completely fed up, beats up the government bureaucrat that delivers this news to them. When she and Andy walk into the casa, they find Shane swilling red wine and watching Esteban on TV. He's back on the ticket, and he's Pilar's boy again. She's with him at the podium as he announces his return to the gubernatorial race. ¡Qué sorpresa! Never saw that one coming.
Weeds airs on Showtime Monday nights at 10 p.m.