In Connecticut, at a PTA meeting, Nancy is arguing against
mandatory helmets for kids playing football ("soccer"). The series
has jumped forwards an unspecified number of years, around eight, and Nancy is
a widower. Again. She married Rabbi Dave but he died when he went over a cliff
in his car whilst swerving to avoid a bear. How ironic. Nancy loses the vote
and breaks the bad news to Stevie (Mateus Ward), who loves football but hates
the idea of playing in a helmet and wants to move to a boarding school in
Minnesota. She refuses to talk about it before his upcoming bar mitzvah.
Silas and Megan (Shoshannah Stern) are married with a
daughter and living in Florida. They've come up for Stevie's bar mitzvah but
Megan still doesn't like Nancy. Silas tells her to try to get along with his
mother for the sake of Stevie. Back in California, Nancy is in one of her
successful weed cafes, meeting with her business manager, Tim Scottson (Daryl
Sabara). Yes, really. She wants to know if Andy is coming to the bar mitzvah
but Tim doesn't know. He leaves and she gets a visit from Crick Montgomery
(Patch Darragh), which sets up some exposition revealing that in most states,
weed is legal. Oh, and she's had an offer for her business from Starbucks.
Everyone else is on board but she owns 51% and refuses to sell.
Shane, his girlfriend Tiffany (Natasha Lyonne), Mitch
(Michael Harney) and Mitch's girlfriend Beatrice (Nancy Youngblut) arrive at
Nancy's house to find Silas and Megan but no Nancy. As expected, Shane's life
has gone down the toilet and he's basically a younger version of Mitch - a
crooked cop with a drinking problem.
Nancy picks up her dry cleaning and Stevie worries that
no-one will come to his bar mitzvah. One person who has come is Doug. Along
with several concubines and a massive bus with his face on the side. Looks like
his cult idea worked out well for him. And for Nancy too, his followers work at
her cafes for minimum wage. Nancy comes back and has an awkward moment with
Megan. She tells Nancy to go away while she's trying to breast feed and then
ignores her as Nancy says that she doesn't know what she did to annoy her.
At the pre-bar mitzvah party that evening, we meet a load of
old characters. Sanjay Patel (Maulik Pancholy) is married to Clinique (Julanne
Chidi Hill) and has kids. He's still gay though, as he tells Marvin
(Fatso-Fasano). Jill's living in India and Dean (Andy Miller) reveals that
Isabelle has had a sex change. Nancy worries that Andy will be a no-show and
shoots down Dean. Again. Guillermo (Guillermo Diaz) tells Doug that he has ten
kids, calling them his "legacy" and Doug feels guilty for neglecting
his gay son, Josh (Justin Chatwin). Josh is now a lawyer, married to a painter
and living in Brooklyn. What does Doug do? He has his followers kidnap him.
Then, Guillermo talks to Stevie. Turns out Stevie thinks his dad was a
politician who was framed by the cartels so Guillermo sets him straight. This
is only going to end well...
Doug has his son brought to his bus, where he tells him
"still gay, still hate you". Doug tells him he wants to re-connect
but Josh isn't interested and leaves. He catches up with Nancy whilst he's
waiting for a taxi and she asks him how he turned out so well. He credits luck,
therapy and his mom. With still no sign of Andy, Nancy wakes Silas up and
quizzes him. Turns out they don't speak much recently but Silas knows he owns a
restaurant in Ren Mar. Lenny died so he named his daughter Leni. Nancy had no
idea about any of it but Silas tells her that he's happy and she accepts that
he's not coming.
The next morning, Nancy goes downstairs to find Andy in the
kitchen but he sends her to get goats milk for Megan. At the bar mitzvah,
Stevie throws away his speech and tells everyone about his father, that he's
not Jewish and that he doesn't care, promising to tell them "where I
land" on whether he's even religious. He calls his bar mitzvah a load of
shit and says that he doesn't know who he is and wants to go to boarding
school. Back at home, Nancy talks to him about his dad and tells him that he
can go to boarding school.
Shane's hungover but Nancy drags him out of bed to go and
pick up Stevie's cake. At the bakery, she tells him that she wants to get him
some help because he's not doing well. He says he's doing fine, then proceeds
to shoot the cake when the woman behind the counter tells them they'll have to
pay extra to have a message written on it.
Doug, moved by the party, has his followers kidnap Josh
again. Nancy tells Shane that she's worried about him and he promises to get
some help. She suggests they find him a place in Pittsburgh and he smiles. Back
on his bus, Doug confesses to giving a guy a blowjob and tells his son that he
messed up. Megan still hates Nancy and she has no idea why. Silas tells her
that she wasn't a perfect mother but he doesn't resent her and he never wonders
what might have been because his wife, his daughter and his life, doing what he
loves, makes him feel lucky. Doug and Josh come out of his bus and hug. Josh
calls his husband and tells him they've made up. "Holy shit", he
replies.
Back inside, Nancy runs into Andy and starts crying. He sits
her down and they talk. She tells him to come back and even offers him 50% of
the company. He says that he doesn't need the money so she tells him to use it
to start a new restaurant in town, but Andy says no. "I have a life I like
and I'm not leaving it", he says. She offers to move in with him but he
tells her to stop. Her husband's dead (again) and her kids are all gone but he
tells her she'll be fine. "You did your job. Now it's done. No-one there
to answer to. No-one to hold you back from becoming the person you always want
to be, doing only what you want to." He tells her that he's grateful she
let him in and he'll always love her but he can't be around her. He tells her
she'll be fine, kisses her and leaves. Nancy calls Crick and tells him to sell
the business. "And then there were none", she says. The party is
ending and a montage of Stevie's life is playing on a projector. He thanks
everyone and tells his mom that he loves her.
It's gently snowing and Nancy is sat outside, alone, on the
steps. Doug comes out and sits with her. Silas, Shane and Andy join them and
they sit in silence, passing round a joint and smiling.
Not the ending we quite deserved but better than the rest of
the series suggested it would be. Things between Nancy and Andy wrap up quite
nicely but she doesn't learn anything or achieve redemption for her past
discretions. At the start of the series, she said she wanted to make up for the
bad things she's done but that idea just petered out as the series meandered
along. She did a good job raising Stevie but the jump forward meant we never
got to see or appreciate that. Silas had a decent (if predictable) conclusion
to his story but Shane's was a bit of a let-down. The idea of him becoming a
crooked cop had legs but it was never really used to its full potential. Again,
I blame a series' worth of pointless storylines in Connecticut. Aside from
Andy, Doug was probably the only main character to have a satisfying conclusion:
the guru of his own cult. Brilliant!
Then there were the past characters who made come backs. It
was nice to see Dean again but I was disappointed that Celia didn't show up,
even for a brief cameo. She was in the series for five years for goodness sake
so even if Elizabeth Perkins was unavailable, they could have made a throwaway
comment about what she was up to. They brought back Sanjay and Marvin but not
her?!? Madness.
There were some good moments in this episode and viewed by
itself, it's pretty good but when you consider that it's the last ever episode
of Weeds, it feels a bit
disappointing. Most of this series has been pointless and the last three
episodes have tried to rectify this by rushing to wrap everything up. The
result is that it's too hurried and feels slapdash. Still, it's better than
most of what we've been offered this season.
7 out of 10.
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