98 replies to this topic

[Last Time Lord]

This episode was intense. I felt a little uncomfortable with he scene at the end. Lets be honest, Nancy was just raped by Esteban.

[toganja]

That was disturbing to say the least. I think the most disconcerting part is that she seemed more tolerant of it than would be expected. Maybe she feared the repurcussions of retaliating but I still feel unsettled by it.

[Femvamp2009]

Celia was funny, as always. However my favorite part was when she told...uh whatever the hell his name is, that she had no friends. I think they're going to make an interesting team.

Could they be a threat to Esteban and therefore a roundabout way a saving grace to Nancy?

Edited by Femvamp2009, Jun 15, 2009 @ 9:46 PM.

[meowboo82]

That was so dark. I miss suburban Nancy dealing pot in sunny SoCal.

[braggtastic]

Wasn't Jennifer Jason Leigh supposed to be some kind of health conscious mom? Microwaving Hot Pockets wasn't what I expected.

[Last Time Lord]

True, but they were going bike riding right afterwards. Burn the hot pocket right off.

[noregrets]

I've always like Jennifer Jason Leigh. I'm happy to see her.

On another front, what do the fish do?

[Last Time Lord]

The fish eat dead skin cells.

One of the workers explained that to Cesar, and they were also used on a first season episode of Ugly Betty.

[Kinestex]

I really didn't like this episode. I'm getting tired of them writing Nancy like she doesn't have two brain cells to rub together. I also didn't like the way she reacted to Esteban raping her. MLP just didn't pull that moment off. What was the point of the scene in the prison? Seeing Guillermo shouldn't have made her that much more worried simply because she should already be maxed out.

That said, if Celia manages to foment a revolution in Mexico, I will forgive this show almost all of its transgressions. I can picture Celia as a wanna-be dictator. She might have finally found her calling.

BTW - when the fish start eating the dead skin off your feet it really tickles. Cesar should have been trying not to laugh while getting worried about whether Nancy was leaving.

[redbirds]

What was the point of the scene in the prison?

I think in part at a juxtaposition to him being some cell mates bitch, while she is Esteban's bitch and in her own prison of her own making.

Edited by redbirds, Jun 15, 2009 @ 10:50 PM.

[Skylergirl]

That was so dark. I miss suburban Nancy dealing pot in sunny SoCal.

Me too. Now I can't sleep after that disturbing rape scene. The only good part was Celia organizing the weapons (and if she can do that in a day, she is welcome at my house any time!).

[meowcat]

Loved:
Celia's revolution organization skills. She has found her true calling. I hope she somehow saves Nancy.
Andy......I have a serious thing for Andy.
Andy yelling about Nancy being a bitch while schtuping her sister.
Shane taking pictures of the above to probably blackmail Andy to take him back home.
Doug and Silas' hiking conversation.
Hearing Guillermo say, "blanca" again.

Hated:
The rape scene.
No Till and Sanjay.
Silas losing his plants.
Episode seemed really short.

I do miss the more lighthearted side to this show, but I think if they were still in Agrestic it would be pretty boring.

[aletta]

I found Nancy confessing her previous suicide attempt to the sushi guy interesting.

[frostedglass]

I'm really getting sick of "Ambiguous" rapes that are really not that ambiguous on tv. It's a disturbing trend. The L-Word had one, with its "flagship" couple, no less. One Life to Live recently had a redux of a famous rape story with the rapist keeping his amnesiac victim under his "care." Basically withholding her past from her and convincing her he was teh awesome. And now this last scene on Weeds. When Esteban started his violation, he was saying "Aqui" or "here"...and it was almost like Nancy reacted like it was sex talk...like finding the right spot at first or something. Gross. Then the slap on the ass at the end? I thought I was going to hurl.

I guess given what nancy has been through and the awful position she put herself in, her flat affect at the end makes sense. Juxtaposed with her confession of a prior suicide attempt, I feel like Nancy is dead inside with a life inside her...and it's symbolic and all that, but still? Some things cross the line for me, and the rape stuff just shuts me off to the larger message or story Jenji is trying to tell.

Edited by frostedglass, Jun 15, 2009 @ 11:58 PM.

[fauxpaw]

Every season I expect Nancy to get raped. It never happens, and I'm always relieved because I am so sick and tired of seeing women get raped.

Nancy usually get lucky or outsmarts anyone who wants to hurt her. I enjoy watching that, too. Especially because I keep expecting for them to trot out the cliche rape scene.

Now they've included a rape scene. It was dark, disgusting, and hackneyed. The tension is gone. I don't know if I'll be back.

[Miss Perception]

Um, yeah.

The rape of a pregnant drug dealing suburbanite is just not good comedic material in my book. I don't know if it was the writers' intent to nauseate the viewers, but if so, mission accomplished.

I'm not sure if this is one of the first warning signs that my beloved Weeds is venturing off into the kind of What-the-fuck-ery that I had come to expect only from the likes of Ilene Chaiken. It might be too early in the season to tell, but I am mighty worried.

That said, if Celia manages to foment a revolution in Mexico, I will forgive this show almost all of its transgressions. I can picture Celia as a wanna-be dictator. She might have finally found her calling.

Word. Celia was the best part of the episode, by far.

Edited by Miss Perception, Jun 16, 2009 @ 1:43 AM.

[honeycocoa]

Seriously this is getting less and less entertaining. I come here & read your guys comments before I watch so I know what I'm getting into ( a left coast advantage) I want to like this show, but I'm really missing the funny mom in the suburbs, too. Andy is a more interesting charactor these days ( as oppsosed to all that random army/porn stuff) But Nancy getting abused & now raped is getting really old.

[pinkluxe1]

Ok I feel like a total perv right now because I didn't get "rape" at all from that scene until I came here and now I realize the cheese stands alone. I figured from Nancy's reaction that she was enjoying it. For one thing she was drunk, and drunk, angry sex can sometimes be kinda hot, and second because he said "More?!" and she said "YEAH!".

Ok I'm going to reevaluate my life now.

[rain21]

Did not like this ep at all....The rape was just to much....

[boewyr]

Have to say I'm surprised about the rape comments, while it was awkward and uncomfortable, I didn't see it as rape. Nancy didn't really fight him, and she (as a character) probably would if she didn't want it to happen, and, at the risk of sounding sociopathic, appeared to be enjoying it. Since she's been an established danger junkie from the first season when she fucked the Mexican pot dealer in the alley, approached the gang kingpin in the night club etc, I thought it was just another time where she acted on that. Possibly as a way to alleviate how she felt after Guillermo threatened her in prison. Heck, the entire reason she went from suburban pot dealer to distributer to grower to Mexican Gang Bitch was for her hard on for risk and her hard on for danger. Rewatch season two. It's all there.

And I won't hold it against the writers as not being funny, because the Nancy plot, in this episode at least, was clearly not meant to be laugh out loud funny the whole way through.

I also don't have a problem with the show straying from its original premise because if Nancy was still dealing to kids at Agrestic Community College the show would be boring.

The rest of the episode cracked me up and was quite good (actually, the last two scenes were the only ones that stuck out as painfully dramatic, even the scene in prison had its funny moments). I think my favourite line was:

Nancy: I guess that whole though shalt not kill thing isn't working out for you huh?
Cesar: But I support gay marriage.

Along with Doug's recount of the sixth grade and his explanation of his and Silas' relationship.

Shane continues to be a little weird.

Edited by boewyr, Jun 16, 2009 @ 2:39 AM.

[MackMamma]

That was rape and he was using it as a show of power. Nancy had no choice in what was being done to her. She laid there and relented, but she had no choice. Enjoyment? No way. This woman has lost it. She's intentionally endangering her child with the smoking and alcohol and may even be contemplating suicide. Rape isn't always a fight. If she had said said "Stop", he would have ignored her. Rape. And it was disgusting and overpowered the rest of the show. This was probably the last straw for me.

[frostedglass]

That was not rough or angry sex between two wanting adults. It was Esteban exerting his power. Nancy's drunkeness is also an impairment that removes her ability to consent - hence rape. Also, after the conversation she had, taunting her ex-boss about prison bitches etc? Nancy is Esteban's prison bitch. A person not "Fighting him off" doesn't make the act consensual or mutual. It's a power play, and an act of violence - rape.

[boewyr]

I agree it was an act of dominance. I agree that if she had told him to stop, he wouldn't of. But she didn't. In fact, she smiled (and laughed?) at points throughout it. I'm not saying it's out and out consensual sex and a-ok, but I'm still hesitant to label it rape without more information about what Nancy was thinking at the time, her position on it etc.

Edited by boewyr, Jun 16, 2009 @ 4:16 AM.

[Jacob]

My take was that she didn't figure out it was rape until it was over. She'd demonstrated her power over the fetus by endangering it, hoping to get killed, and at first she thought she'd scared him back into loving her -- you see her try to kiss him a couple of times after he refuses to shoot her -- but then he demonstrated his power over her body with the assault.

The prison rape/tattoo comments and bikini wax thing with Cesar show that she's been thinking about this, but expected her physical sovereignty to overpower Esteban. Instead, he turned her joke into a reality, without anything tattooed on her back. She's still thinking like an entitled white girl -- the gun thing would have worked until this season -- until he leaves and she realizes what just happened: she's still playing out the story of the girls that came through the tunnel.

The promos played over it, but the song in the credits, coming off her dead affect on the table, is "Love Has Left The Room," by Nina (Cardigans) Persson's band A Camp: this is a turning point in their relationship, but she only figured it out after the fact.

[HellsBellsTrudy]

Esteban was conflicted. At first, it looked like he was going to have sex with her while they faced each other, maybe even wanted to kiss her, but then he turned her over and raped her. His feelings are conflicted, yet in the end he opted for a show of dominance.

Like many others have said, this show has lost sight of what made it a fun watch to begin with. How the hell is Nancy going to get out of this?

That said, if Celia manages to foment a revolution in Mexico, I will forgive this show almost all of its transgressions. I can picture Celia as a wanna-be dictator. She might have finally found her calling.

Totally going to be Eva Perón this season.

Edited by HellsBellsTrudy, Jun 16, 2009 @ 7:23 AM.

[frostedglass]

I agree Jacob. She didn't realize he wasn't playing angry sex time at first. You say it much better of course, but that is what I was getting at in pervious posts about Nancy respsonding to to "Aqui" like it was a question of sexual position. Nancy's original submission and the ambiguity of the that part of the scene grosses me out.

I don't think it's hot or sexy the way Esteban physically manipulates Nancy, like a rag doll, in any position he wants her in. We saw it that at the gynoDr. who he chose and we saw it as he bent Nancy over his desk.

Nancy's sister and Andy were having angry sex. Esteban was showing Nancy who was boss. It's akin to a bookie's henchman beating down a person who was late on his/her loan. Except the boss handled the beat down instead of the henchman. Nancy thought she was getting the upper hand because of her taunting prison visit to Guillermo, because of Cesar's humiliating spa treatment. Esteban gave her a grim reality check, not some angry/hot/sexy time.

As for the not screaming not and not fighting back aspect. A lot of women don't. A lot of guys in prison don't and a lot of kids who are molested don't. It's part of the whole f-ed up thinking that plagues survivors with guilt and the "it was my fault" or "I didn't fight back" thing. I hear the same type of thing about battered women. If a person is about to be or in Nancy's case actually being raped, they're feeling powerless. Often a person will report "Going numb" in the middle. Just blocking out what is going on to just wait until it's over. So just laying there is not consenting, it's a coping mechanism. For those with more presence of mind, who don't physically fight back, there is still a fear that "If I struggle, he will kill me." (I say "he" as the rapist as a generalization. I understand there are females who rape and assault. In my experience at places I've volunteered and in relation to Nancy on the show, I only encountered female survivors of male attackers).

Nancy redid her will, talked about a suicide attempt, did things dangerous to the life inside of her and at the end of the episode lay expressionless and numb after Esteban slapped her ass and walked out. She is dying inside and losing anything to fight for. Once the she is no longer pregnant, she feels like she's dead for sure. Her endangering the baby is speeding up the process.

I'm sorry if I'm rambling etc. I'm just really disturbed by the episode and last scene in particular.

Edited by frostedglass, Jun 16, 2009 @ 7:40 AM.

[trippyhop]

The rape was no doubt disturbing and horrible to watch, but I'm not leaving the show. To me, the show isn't a laugh-out-loud comedy. Not even in Season One, arguably the funniest season, was every episode just humor and nothing dark. There were breakdowns, fights, the creepy pennies left on the fountain. I think that emotionally, the show has followed the same trajectory, just reacting to the situations that Nancy finds herself in. True, the plots on the show have gotten very outre over the last season and strayed from the original premise of pot-dealing in Agrestic. But in my opinion, that premise could only have lasted for so long before becoming stale. The show has been very good at reinventing itself every season, because even if the attempts haven't always worked, it's been pretty fearless in constantly resetting itself and making the stakes go up higher. In fact, the initial premise was out in Season Two, which is when Nancy started creating her own drug empire. Whether that makes for entertaining television is everyone's opinion, of course. And that being said, the rape was no so fun to watch.

Oh, yeah, topic. So, this episode...

I loved Jill. Yeah, I thought it was a bit odd that she fed her twins Hot Pockets for breakfast, but I could totally see her and Nancy being sisters. Plus, there's the whole love-to-get-drunk-off-wine thing. Once they were drinking, it was impossible not to see Andy and her hooking up, but I thought it was hilarious that their angry sex talk revolved around Nancy. If they keep on doing their thing (which they really can't do for too many episodes, now can they?), they'll only have a love/hate thing for Nancy in common.

Celia, of course, is still rocking, and only she would think to organize an entire guerilla's tent. But the moment of that scene for me was her heartbreakingly telling Rudolfo that she has no friends back home. I really do hope that this plot ties back into Nancy's plot in some amazing way. I don't like how everyone is being totally spread apart at this moment. One of the things about last season that I thought worked so well was that everyone's plots tied in together - granted, it was a bit sitcommy that they all lived together (at least for a while), but I thought it helped everyone's characters and making the show feel like a whole entity.

[khyber]

I'm close to not watching the show anymore.

[jgriffin7]

Rape? Think you all are reading WAY more into that scene.

[merrocks29]

I didn't get rape from the scene. I re-watched it this morning and slo-mo'd parts. Nancy is smiling when he pushes her back onto the desk. He seems upset with her but attracted to her. Then Nancy seems to push him away and that when he rolls her over.
It seems to be a mixture of love, attraction and rage. Nancy never fought him off.

I agree this year's Esteban is totally different than last year's but I think that is too show he isn't Robin Hood.