"Weeds" Recap & Review - "A Pool and His Money"

Weeds
"A Pool and his Money"
Original Air Date: August 20, 2007

Maty
Senior Staff Writer

This week Little Boxes is performed by Angelique Kidjo in a very Jamaican folks song way. As took place last season each week a new version of the theme song opens the show. At least now they are letting us know who it is. Last week it was Pixar’s favorite Randy Newman.

Now where were we - yes a pool full of pot. Nothing makes a pool turn green quicker then dumping $150,000 worth of dope in it. After seeing this disaster Nancy pleads with U-Turn’s thug, Marvin, that if he was going to kill her to at least have the courtesy to kill Celia too, and first so she could watch. Nancy grabs a skimmer and yells at Celia to leave. And before she needs she offer the services of a good pool boy.

Cut to: the tension back at the Pot House. U-Turn is holding Conrad hostage till Nancy gets back with the weed. U-Turn challenges Conrad’s thug-ness and gives him a chance to grab his gun and shot him to escape. Conrad isn’t a murdering and won’t do it. U-Turn continues to challenge Conrad, but this time about him not being about to close the deal with Nancy. Conrad answers back with “we are just friends”. Then a loud noise is heard from the other room. Oh my god, we have totally forgotten- Sanjay (Nancy’s college distributor) has been hiding in the closest from last season. With U-Turns gun in his nose he looks up and declares, “I’m gay”.

So now Nancy and Marvin are trying anything and everything to dry out the ganja, from putting in the dryer to roast it in the oven and nothing is working. Celia is walking home and drinking from a flask. Shane and Silas are both at the Agrestic prison and Andy all beat up is making his way back looking for Shane. It’s important to know that Andy put out an Amber Alert to help locate Shane.

Back at the house in a hilarious scene (to graphic for the Two Cents) U-Turn, Conrad and Sanjay discuss Sanjay’s desires. U-Turn decides to take matters into his own hands and has one of his ladies come over and try and change Sanjay’s preferences.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Nancy is so desperate that she goes to Heylia James and asks her to help. Heylia says she should have killed Nancy long ago. Nancy accuses Heylia of sending the Armenians after her. They fight. After the fight they go see U-Turn.

At the house Nancy explains what happen to the grass. Heylai steps up and explains that she is paying the debt. U-Turn responds that he’ll take money from the white woman but Conrad is his. His debt is to be U-Turns new gardener. Conrad is now a slave and Nancy still owes U-Turn $150, 000 or he’ll go after here family.

Nancy now has to go to Jail and bale Silas out. When she gets there she discovers Shane in there too. At that moment Andy runs even more beat up, because some people at the gas station wanted to do a little vigilante justice on Andy thinking he was the cause of the Amber Alert. Finally the whole family is home, but Nancy is lost inside her head. She walks through the door stripes down to her bra and panties and jumps into the pool to let out a huge scream under water. The last shot is Nancy in the water full of fear with her family looking on in the background.

This episode was a lot of fun. It had great dialogue exchanges and a lot of tension. The stakes are getting higher and higher with each episode and they still know how to hold on to the comedic moments. I always felt the show was great because of Mary Louise Parker’s ability to emotionally ground this world that could sometimes seem cartoonish. She is at the top of her game this season holding all the tension and fear in her eyes. A real actor doesn’t need dialogue to acting and Parker is putting on a clinic this season.

I give this episode a Machine Rolled Fatty – it looks like a camel unfiltered only filled with green, burns slow and never canoes.