Weeds: One Bad Mother
And I don’t mean in that Shaft “shut your mouth” kind of way. Nancy Botwin is a horrible mother, and I am putty in the palm of her pot-slinging hands.
In the first season of Weeds, we meet the grieving Botwin family who recently lost their patriarch Judah (Jeffrey Dean Morgan — how come he always plays dead guys?) to a heart attack. Before Judah’s untimely demise, the well-to-do Botwins remodeled the kitchen in their suburban California home. The remodel exhausted their savings and Nancy doesn’t have a job. In order to maintain their quality of life, she decides to start selling weed. She starts small with dime bags at baseball games, but things quickly get out of control. Fast forward to season six, and one of her sons is a psychopath and the entire family is living life on the run. The suburban cookie-cutter home was burned to the ground a few seasons ago, and Nancy has unfortunate ties to a Mexican cartel.
Weeds has evolved in a delightfully dark manner. I don’t want to spoil any many more plot details in case you haven’t seen it, because you definitely should see it. Mary-Louise Parker is amazing as Nancy, the sexy mom with an inability to make a smart decision. I feel like I should hate her, but I can’t. I want her to be my best friend. When she realizes that she is being a horrible mom, I feel sorry for her. She’s the crappiest person I’ve ever rooted for.
The supporting cast is equally depraved and fabulous. Elizabeth Perkins is the drunken, selfish bitch Celia Hodes. Kevin Nealon is the pot-head accountant Doug. Justin Kirk is Nancy’s love-struck loser brother-in-law Andy. There are incredible guest stars like Jennifer Jason Leigh, Matthew Modine, Lee Majors (oh yes, it’s Colt Seavers), Zooey Deschanel, Richard Dreyfuss and Linda Hamilton. The writing is brilliant and never predictable.
Weeds is an amazing show for many reasons. All six seasons are available on DVD. If you haven’t seen the show, start from the beginning.
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Is the show over or are they still filming? We watched through the season five ender, and I wasn’t sure I could take any more. Nancy is weirdly adorable and I was on her side the first three seasons – but since her goal is basically to honestly BE the kingpin, I’m afraid my allegiance has slipped.
I understand where you’re coming from, but you should push through season 6.
It was funny, because we watched the first 5 seasons pretty much in one epic Weeds bender. The first season was on Netflix, then we went and rented the following three and watched them over the weekend, only to discover that season 5 came out on DVD that very Monday. It was a crazy amount of crazy!