''Weeds'': Mary-Kate Olsen plays naughty

Well, that was an odd little episode. Remember all the gangbanging stuff that went down last week? It more or less simmered down into an interlude about relationships.

While we’re on the topic of relationships, I must offer a sincere mea culpa to you, my readers. Last week, for reasons I’ll spare you, I committed the cardinal TV Watch sin: I did not watch carefully. To clarify, it was Heylia who ordered the drive-by that deep-impacted Marvin’s booty. Thinking (as I did) that the Tres Seis were the culprits, U-Turn then retaliated against the Latino crew with a counter-drive-by. Should the two crews continue to spar, Heylia will come out ahead. But that’s apparently moot for the time being. Instead, this episode we were treated to a class in Gangsta 101, a WASPy party, Andy in his tighty whities, and Mary-Kate Olsen — without her twin! Where to begin?

How about with the most bizarre, delightfully breezy turn of events: angry U-Turn going all sensei on Nancy. This yielded some awesome banter between the two, as well as a most excellent pearl of street wisdom: ”Thug means never having to say you’re sorry.” Which, when you think about it, is sort of true. U-Turn decided Nancy had the makings of a fine lieutenant — in the light of Marvin’s ineptitude and the fact that the mom still has some discernible ethics, unlike his other colleagues. (Nonetheless, Nancy was called out, somewhat discreetly, on her dubious parenting skills. Och aye, poor Shane.) We saw U-Turn become a bit of a Mr. Softy in that boxing ring and at Heylia and Conrad’s new farm operation, where he coached the awkward Nancy on proper strong-arming techniques. (Once more! With feeling!) This gave Mary-Louise Parker a plum opportunity to show off her physical-comedy chops, but I’d ultimately give credit to Page Kennedy (U-Turn) for carrying those scenes with colossal charisma and deadpan delivery.

The nicer new U-Turn seemed to have Nancy fooled too, until he reminded her who was boss by, you know, choking her. That set us up to cheer on the dude’s sudden demise. But I gotta be honest with you — I’m gonna miss that cranky mofo and his tendency to oscillate from legitimately scary to slyly funny. At the same time, it was so gratifying to see teddy-bearish Marvin show some cojones at last. Killing his tormentor with his bare hands? Nice touch. Interestingly, it was here that the Weeds brain trust nailed that old tone I’d missed so much, by seamlessly transforming this dark turn of events into a goofy spoof of action-movie death scenes. Brett Ratner should be so good.

NEXT: Michelle Tanner gone wild!

What does this mean for that ominous trunk of heroin in Nancy’s house? The mind twitters with possibilities: Nancy could sell it; the newly badass Marvin could swipe it; the Tres Seis could get wind of it; heck, Andy looked like he could use it. But for now, Nancy’s just trying to hide it. Still in nervous possession of those blocks of dope, she and her house played host to Sullivan’s party for the Agrestic city council. (The ever-unemployed Andy, previously seen making eggs in his underwear, catered the affair. Welcome back, old friend! You’re truly at your best when you’re being a stay-at-home schlump and de facto parent to Shane.) Sullivan will really need to suck up to the council since the houseless, spurned Doug has launched a full-on war against Majestic, using the elusive dirt shrew as leverage to erect a roadblock on S— Highway. I wish Sully the best of luck, because we all know Doug never truly loses. At least one positive development came out of Sullivan’s blatant attempt at suck-uppery: Between gratuitous bouts of flirting with him, Celia managed to patch things up again with frenemy Nancy. Or so it would seem.

Meanwhile, over in Majestic, Silas was forging his own kind of bond with guest star Mary-Kate Olsen. While dealing at a local senior-citizen center, he met the God-and-ganja-loving girl and hooked up with her. (By the way, I’m using every ounce of self-restraint here not to crack a joke about twiggy M.K. and the munchies.) Mary-Kate put forth a valiant effort to play it cool and dry, yet mostly came off as a bit stiff. I’m willing to let this slide because, honestly, I was transfixed hearing the expressionless, bag-lady-esque tabloid moppet actually speak. But I really didn’t need to see wee Michelle Tanner dry-humping a young man. Still, I guess in context of former child stars’ forays into adultish TV appearances, a guest spot on the edgy Weeds totally beats playing Amy Fisher in a movie-of-the-week, starring in a VH1 reality series about your destructive life, or hosting Pants-Off Dance-Off.

So what do you think? How did Mary-Kate do? Were you sad to see U-Turn die? Are you happy to see Andy back home? What will become of the heroin? And do you think Celia will succumb to Sullivan’s advances?

This week the theme song, ”Little Boxes,” was covered by the Shins. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it an 8.5.