'Weeds' Recap: Episode 8.02 "A Beam of Sunshine"

Finally awake and aware, Nancy Botwin is introduced to her $420,000 hospital bill and her newest roommate. She’s had roommate after roommate, but this new one comes with a surprise: she thinks she knows Nancy’s secret. After 77 days in the hospital, Nancy’s story has gotten around the hospital quickly, but with a little twist. They think she was shot by the mafia. Leave it up to Nancy to not correct them and use this to her advantage!

If you’ve ever been in a hospital, you know that once you are conscious and awake, the only place you really want to be is home. Nancy Botwin is no stranger to this feeling. Once she can climb a flight of stairs without running out of breath she will be allowed to go home! On her first attempt she makes it half way and gives up. With Shane by her side, she knows she can make it all the way soon.

Shane’s storyline is the one making this show for me. Trying to become a cop, he is more intuitive and is desperate to find out who shot his mom. He drew a graph for Nancy of all the possible assailants, but she wanted nothing to do with it. Shane is really scared that once Nancy leaves the hospital, she will no longer be safe. He fears that whoever shot her in the first place is going to come back to finish the job.

Still not being able to climb a flight of stairs, Nancy explores the hospital and starts becoming friends with the patients. She becomes friends with a patient who mentions that there is a clown who comes to the hospital to cheer everyone up. He’s doing a fantastic job, not because he is funny, but because he comes with lots of goodies (and by goodies we all know that I mean weed).

At first I thought that Nancy would A) become friends with this clown/drug dealer because what’s better than a clown dealing drugs in a hospital? or B) be really pissed that she didn’t think of the idea first. Neither happen.

Instead, she’s insulted that clown is ripping off sick patients. She want’s to turn over a new leaf (again) and feels that nobody should profit from another person’s pain. So what does she do? She calls up her drug dealing son Silas, and together they give out weed to all the patients in the hospital. Whose laughing now? Apparently not the clown. He’s super pissed.

At night, the clown comes to Nancy’s room and threatens her. Leave it up to Nancy to find him the next morning and show him what’s up! Remember when I told you that everyone in the hospital thinks Nancy was shot by the mafia and she’s not correcting them and is using this information to her advantage? Well it’s coming into play here! She tells the clown that he can sell to and rip off anyone else he wants, but weed must be free to all the patients. If he doesn’t follow that rule, the mafia will be after him too!

While all this is happening, Andy is is still screwing Nancy’s sister Jill. They finish up a session of rabid love making and go downstairs to find that Jill’s husband Scott has returned home from a long trip to India. He’s back to make up with Jill. He takes her to a fancy dinner and confesses that he wants her back. At first this doesn’t bother Andy. He’s confident she’s not going to go back with her husband until he runs into Jill’s daughters who are in their room packing their things. Apparently this is something she does a lot. Jill will take a break from her husband, find another guy, then the husband will win her back and the new guy is left in the dust. This scares the crap out of Andy because he want’s Jill to himself. He rushes to the restaurant, does his Andy thing to distract Jill, and fucks her right there in the bathroom to remind her what she would miss if she went back to Scott. Great idea if Scott didn’t walk in on them. Scott is pissed Jill’s cheating on him and leaves. Now Jill has no other choice but to keep playing with Andy.

The episode ends with two big things happening. First Nancy is finally able to climb a flight of stairs and is discharged from the hospital. Second, at the police academy, Shane learns that kids who have dead fathers tend to be violent and angry at the world. All they want to do is get revenge. Shane’s father is dead and he didn’t grow up like that so this scene really confused me until the very end of the episode when we see Shane looking up Tim Scottson’s Facebook profile. If you don’t remember he is the son of the DEA agent that Nancy was married to, and was also killed on Nancy’s behalf. Miss the connection here? So did I the first time around. Tim Scottson’s father died. It’s him who is having violent tendencies and wants revenge on the world.

I’m glad Shane made this connection and is starting to discover who shot his mom. In the previous episode we do find out that Tim Scottson was in fact the shooter, but I really wish we were finding this out along with Shane. I’m hoping next week we can witness Shane bringing Tim into custody!