“I slept with 14 guys my junior year… I have had herpes for 27 years.” – Patricia, a high school classmate of Nancy’s
“Viking Pride” is an episode that I imagine is a lot like a Weeds writing room session: everyone going off in different directions, pursuing their own agendas, without a whole lot of purpose or communication between them. The episode wasn’t awful, at least not by the extremely low standards set by the first nine or so episodes of the season. But after last week I was filled with hope that the show had turned a bit of a corner. Unfortunately, “Viking Pride” was a bit of a letdown. That said, there were some funny gags and some interesting reveals, so all in all I can’t be too disappointed with the effort.
Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) gets the ball rolling this week by meeting with the club owner, Hooman Jaka (Assaf Cohen, a.k.a the poor man’s Aziz Ansari) who says he can hook her up with a passport guy, but the guy won’t do business with her because she’s a woman (you know, the whole Muslim thing and all). Nance hands the ball off to Andy (Justin Kirk), turning her focus to the gnawing curiosity left by her strange meeting with Ellis at the cemetery.
She starts by asking Schiff (Richard Dreyfuss) if he remembers a student by that name. He does, but as he recalls she was a fat girl (“very good at geometry and lunch”), not a geeky guy. A quick stop at the high school library and a peak at another yearbook confirms this. The man Nancy met at the cemetery was most certainly not Ellis Tate, unless she lost a lot of weight and got a sex change. So who is he? Well, luckily for us, the show doesn’t try to drag this mystery out.
Silas gets a bit of closure, if not comfort in the whole daddy-scare situation. He goes back over to Lars’ place and after a few beers pretty much just blurts out “I think I’m your son.” Lars’ reaction is shock, but not disbelief. Silas doesn’t really know what kind of reaction he was expecting or what kind he wanted, for that matter. Andy assures Silas that he was at the hospital when Silas was born – that he is, indeed, Judah’s son – but suggests he talk to his mother about this whole situation if he wants the truth.
One person who certainly isn’t on a search for truth in “Viking Pride” is Warren Schiff. No, Mr. Schiff seems content to live in a fantasy world in which he and Nancy are going to make a life together. He’s making renovations on the house to better accommodate her family, stocking the fridge with their favorite munchies. “Dude, give up the dream,” Shane tells him and then lets the cat out of the bag about the family’s plans to skip town. This totally freaks out Schiff, who chugs some of Andy’s yet unnamed (he’s leaning toward “C-4”) hash-pharmaceutical cocktail and threatens to kill himself if Nancy ever leaves him. It’s a weird scene in that Schiff household, man.
Andy, tasked with passport procurement, visits Hooman’s guy (who turns out to be Hooman’s future father-in-law) but is disappointed to discover that the going rate for a passport is $5,000 and he only has $3,000. Mr. Mahmud (David Diaan), the father-in-law, proposes a deal; he will give Andy all of the passports if he will make sure that Hooman is unable to marry his daughter (Mahmud hates Hooman because, aside from being a douche, Hooman is a Shiite, while the Mahmuds are proud Jordanian Sunnis). How is Andy supposed to ensure that Hooman won’t be able to marry Mahmud’s daughter? By killing him, of course. Where is Shane when you need him?
After setting up a lunch date with Ellis, Nancy follows him back to his hotel room for some snooping, only to have him barge in mid-snoop. Caught red handed with a hotel room full of Nancy-themed pictures and papers, Ellis is forced to come clean. He admits to being Vaughn Coleman (Eric Lange), a journalist from San Diego. “I’m writing your story,” he tells her. He offers her a chance to expose Esteban and Pilar, the “drugs, tunnels, murder” and that seems to spark Nancy’s interest a little. Let me give you a little advice, Coleman. I have been writing about Nancy’s story for a while now too and no one seems that interested. Just bail, dude. Do what Doug did, go back to California. If people aren’t that jazzed to watch Nancy’s story unfold on TV, how psyched are they going to be to read about it in a newspaper? Do people even read newspapers anymore? No way a local paper can afford for a reporter to travel around the country chasing stories, right?
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.