Weeds - Season 8 Episode 4 - Recap and Review - Only Judy Can Judge

Weeds took an important step in its fourth episode this season, "Only Judy Can Judge." It focused mainly around the relationship Nancy (Mary Louise Parker) is struggling to build with her youngest son Stevie, who spent most of his life growing up while Nancy was behind bars. Also, Nancy finally started getting back on her weed game.

The episode opened with Nancy skinny-dipping in her neighbor’s pool in the middle of the night. She snuck home to find little Stevie snuggling in bed with Jill (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Andy (Justin Kirke). She fought too hard for this relationship with her kid to let things be. The next morning, she offered to take Stevie to the zoo to see his favorite animal, the naked mole rat, in person. Doug (Kevin Nealon) offered her some Ambien to help her sleep at night.

The episode also heavily revolved around the growing tension between Silas (Hunter Parrish) and Shane (Alexander Gould). One brother is a marijuana dealer and the other is training to be an NYC police officer. Silas seems to stress this problem a lot more than Shane. The way Shane sees it, by the time he's graduated Nancy and Silas will be dealing weed off a cart in the mall. Weed will be legal! What will happen to the family business? Nancy also confronted Shane about the police academy. It's a scary job. He could get shot. Shane isn't worried, though. He's already been shot! Nancy wants him to stick to pursuing work as a puppeteer.

Kiku, the head model dealer from season 7, called Nancy to see how her rehabilitation was going. She needs more supplies and she needs Nancy to make the connections. At that moment she was stuck on Staten Island with a bunch of trashy thugs looking sell her faux weed. Nancy ended up having to haul herself over there to save Kiku, missing her trip to the zoo in the process. Jill offered to take Stevie instead, much to Nancy's displeasure. Nancy came up with a plan to retry the family dinner that went awry last time. Hopefully this time, no one will get shot in the face. Stevie will sit next to her.

In order to rescue Kiku from the goon with a Judge Judy tattoo, Nancy had to trade her fancy bedazzled cane for his jank one. Nancy and Kiku then rushed over to a laser tag center to meet Dimitri (Pablo Schreiber) and his band of fools. Dimitri, if you don't remember, is her ex-lover/ supplier from last season. Kiku refers to Silas as a broke Christian Grey, but Nancy doesn't even give a crap about who that is. Leave it to Weeds to take down "Fifty Shades of Grey" in a single quip! She's supposed to meet Dimitri at the yellow team base. He agrees to a deal with Nancy after she collapses due to all of the guns and strobe lights. He cuts her a break, and she offers to pay cash.

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Silas made a new friend in R.J. He's a quirky character who works at a "gardening supplies" store. Meaning, he works at a store that covertly sells hydroponic grower supplies. He's obsessed with California so he gets a little obsessed with Silas. Shane found him strange. Once Silas informed R.J. about his situation with Shane, R.J. was quick to sell Shane out. He thinks the power of being an NYPD officer will go to his head, and Shane will sell out his family. This got to Silas.

Shane, meanwhile, has been getting hot and heavy with his new girlfriend, Angela, who seems pretty great. She wears a sports bra, but Shane doesn't care. He relates to her well, so he spontaneously brings her home to meet the family over dinner.

Jill has been taking out her frustration with Andy on Nancy's relationship with Stevie. She can tell that Andy is giving Nancy a little too much care and affection and she doesn't want to be screwed out of her relationship. She doesn't want Andy cooking for Nancy's family dinner, but he can hardly resist. Even after he got Elizabitch, the substitute coach, to take over his roller derby practice, Jill refused to budge. He ended up sneaking a few of his famous courses into the menu, anyway. Although, Andy did, inevitably, lay Jill's woes to rest.

Doug spent the episode dueling with a nasty neighbor. The son of the snooping elderly couple from the season premiere has a dog, named Gilda, who continuously takes a crap on Doug’s newspaper. When Doug attempts to make things right by switching their papers, the neighbor gives him a hard time. Doug makes fun of him for still living with his parents. Later, the neighbor calls the police on Doug after he spray paints “Sh*tter” across Gilda’s coat! The police actually favor Doug, who has every right to be mad that the dog trespasses. There aren’t any laws that protect a dog from being graffitied, though.

Needless to say, the family dinner ended up being a nightmare. Jill gave Stevie Dimatapp to knock him out cold, so that he’d miss out entirely, much to Nancy’s dismay. Another police cadet showing up caught Nancy off guard, as well, even though Angela was polite and clueless to her trade. The icing on the awful cake was when Nancy accidentally referred to little Stevie as Judah, her dead husband. Silas and Shane argued, Doug almost spilled the beans about Shane being a murderer in front of his new girlfriend, and the neighbors sent a sack of Gilda’s crap flying over the fence and right into Silas’ face. He took it all out on Shane, and Shane ran after him to make things right.

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Andy called Jill out for drugging Stevie on purpose and comforted a depressed and devastated Nancy. She’s still healing. It’s only natural for her to slip on a name. Andy likes Jill but refuses to compromise his relationship with Nancy’s family in the process.

After Andy left Nancy alone to cry, Stevie bobbled out of the house. He couldn’t sleep after his nap, and neither could Nancy. She took him to her secret spot, the neighbor’s pool. This time, though, the neighbor in the window caught them swimming. Stevie waved a friendly wave, and the man waved back. He let them have their swim.

The episode ended with Shane’s surveillance equipment picking up the truth behind Gilda the dog’s accidents. As it turns out, Doug’s Ambien has him sleepwalking and crapping on his own newspapers.

What did you all think of the episode? How do you like the final season of the show so far? Do you like the conflict between Shane and Silas? Are you glad they expanded on Nancy’s relationship with Stevie? Do you think Jill and Andy will last? How will it all come to an end?

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