This episode is all about moms (and grandmoms, I guess) because David’s mom is coming to visit. This inspires Bryan to go “eat a pill the size of a cake” while Nana is discovering her groove. I’d say “getting it back,” but a flashback shows us that Nana kind of had her groove cut off at the knees fairly early on.
As Nana is sitting at the hotel bar complaining to the bartender about getting back to Ohio, a guy in his late-ish 30s or so slides on over and offers to buy her a drink. It takes Nana a moment or two to figure out what’s going on, but once she does, she’s flattered and receptive.
The next day, she visits David’s practice because she’s concerned she had a petite mal seizure after experiencing some “tingling” in her personal area, followed by lightheadedness. Once she cops to having sex, David has to break it to Nana that she just experienced an orgasm. Never too late to start, Nana! High five! Because Nana’s husband was gay, her love life was a bit lackluster as we see in a sad flashback where she’s desperately trying to seduce her husband and he literally runs away. David reassures her that she’s a fit and attractive woman and there’s no reason she shouldn’t have the chance to rediscover her sexuality. Because David’s mother is there, Nana questions her a bit about her sex life and discovers that there is indeed sex after 50. And good sex too!
Nana goes back to her hotel, tarts herself up, and wordlessly propositions her friend from the previous night. When she tries to ask him to a movie, though, he gets exasperated and makes it clear that he’s just looking for sex and goes on to insult her by saying that he was just picturing what she looked like at 22 anyway. Because Ellen Barkin isn’t still SMOKIN’ HOT right now. Nana snaps that she wouldn’t have given him the time of day at 22 and he goes, “Exactly, but look at what you gave me now.” Prick.
Nana kind of flips after this and gives a big speech about fear being healthy and not doing everything you want to do. But also during this episode, Shania has been checking things off her “California Bucket List” and Goldie says that’s a wonderful thing. Nana appears to come around and realize that while her feelings were hurt, that’s no reason to deny herself what she wants. She gets back at her former booty call by cockblocking him the next night before sauntering off with a much more attractive (but still younger) man.
David’s mom (Frances) is in town to see her son, and David and Bryan tell her the news about the pregnancy at dinner. Goldie’s there, and while Bryan gets a decidedly frosty reception, Goldie is embraced joyfully and is instructed to call Frances “mom” herself. When David and Bryan are in bed later, Bryan tries to bitch about the way David’s mother treats him and how David always defends her. David says that he’s going to stay out of it and let the two of them talk it out like adults. Which, I get, but at the same time, it’s his mom and if he’s never really addressed the way she treats Bryan with her then he probably should. But we don’t find out if he has or not.
Bryan and Frances meet up late night in the kitchen seeking heart burn remedies. They have kind of a harsh conversation that boils down to both of them enjoying being the center of attention. She does seem abashed when Bryan calls her out on deliberately ignoring him. He goes a bit far when he accuses her of turning David into the man in her life when she got divorced, and Frances shoots back by asking when the last time Bryan talked to his mom, and if she even knows that he’s having a baby. The answer appears to be “no.”
At the end of the episode, Frances makes dinner for everyone and says she wants her son to have the best portion. And then she serves Bryan. I guess that long standing conflict has been completely resolved! Hooray! At the end of the episode, we see Bryan call his mom, and when she answers, he has tears in his eyes but all we see is him saying, “Hey Mom, it’s me” before we fade to black.
Couple of interesting points raised this week, the first being older women experiencing and enjoying their sexuality. I think they kind of sped up Nana’s arc since I can’t see a woman of her age who is otherwise so conservative jumping into bed with a stranger so quickly no matter how flattered she was, but I understand why they did it. I did like Goldie’s line near the end about how she doesn’t regret the things that she’s done, but she does regret the things she didn’t do, even though it’s not super original. I also wish the conflict between Bryan and Frances had been explored a little more and gotten more of David’s perspective on it. It can’t be comfortable when the two people you love most in life hate each other, and I would have liked to hear a bit more about how he dealt with that in himself. I am also interested to see where the bit with Bryan’s mom goes. And finally, I did enjoy that we’re not focusing 100% on the pregnancy anymore, as it’s interesting to see what else these characters have to offer.
2 replies on “New Show Recap: “The New Normal,” Episode 1.5, “Nanagasm””
Hm. I think this is kinda the thing with Ryan Murphy. He tries, but ends up always just a little too much on the side of wrong and clichés.
To be honest, this was the episode that probably lost me. Maybe it touched a little close to home, but I thought the scene with Ellen Barkin’s character and her two-night stand was just so toxic and ugly. It might be true that some people think like that, but somehow Ryan Murphy’s supposedly light shows often deliver some of the most hateful statements on television.