Weeds

I haven't been a dedicated fan of a TV series since Moonlighting back in the 80's but I'm totally hooked on Weeds. Mary-Louise Parker plays the role of Nancy Botwin perfectly! As a widowed housewife trying to maintain an upper class lifestyle for herself and her two sons by selling weed, she obviously encounters problems maintaining her two roles....mother and drug dealer. Parker really emphasizes this "dual role" and she does it brilliantly....you'll find yourself really feeling for the character and cheering for her all the way. Elizabeth Perkins in the role of Celia, Nancy's close friend, is phenomenal. Watch her carefully in this show, her brilliant acting and her characters dry sarcastic nature provides much of the shows' comedic value but it is sometimes very subtle. I personally think Perkins deserves a supporting Emmy for this one. In short, Jenji Kohan has scored big-time with Weeds and I hope it enjoys a good long run on Showtime....I'm definitely a dedicated fan! My only suggestion....episodes should be an hour long!

For years Weeds is being the "everybody-talks-about" series but I never had the opportunity to watch it. But finally I did it, and I did it desperately because the show is addictive. So finally I could understand why it got so much attention.

First of all, the cast is amazing. Mary-Luise Parker, as Nancy Botwin, fits so well in her character and she is so charismatic and so beautiful and so subtle, gentle, comprehensive and polite that it's almost impossible dislike her. Elizabeth Perkins, as Celia Hodes, my god, that woman rocks! She's so naturally dried by the unhappy life she has built that even a spontaneous smile seems like a rock. I can't believe that Elizabeth Perkins never won an award for this character until now because every moment is an outstanding performance and I mean it! It's a shame that her character lost so much of her potentials to a point of being kicked out of the show because Celia was one of the gears of the show.

The most interesting things about the show were not the drugs, neither was Nancy living a hell each new day, nor the mistakes each character does during the episodes, but yes the social matters that it pointed. I'm Brazilian and I live in a small suburban city like the imaginary Agrestic/Magestic, so... I know a lot how is to survive in a place where you're surrounded by ignorant people that are moved just by an inexistent appearance. It's so revolting to a point that sometimes you just want to do things just to provoke them and play with their abstraction of reality, and the series shows it in a very intelligent and interesting way so you feel connected by it.

But now, after 6 years and some changes, Weeds seems to have lost most of what made it so interesting during the years becoming just another dramedy and Weeds is now just all about a woman dealing with an everyday drama that doesn't fit anymore. While the first 4 seasons were amazing and subtle in its subject, the last 2 seasons lack of the cleverness that once existed. Weeds now is being pushed to something we don't know anymore and it's showing signs of tiredness and completely losing its identity and also its characters. But that happens with every kind of show sooner or later.

But anyway... if you have the opportunity to watch at least the first 4 seasons, do it. Weeds is not about dealing with drugs, but a way to express the hypocrisy of each single person in the world.

I give 8 just for the show in a whole, but the first 4 seasons deserve 10.

What a clever, well written show. Immensely watchable and well acted. Mary Louise Parker is perfect in the role of a Yuppie, widowed woman making ends meet by selling Marijuana. The show highlights well the difficulties for single women not just at the upper end of the economic spectrum, but those not quite as well off. The language, although at times is strong, is realistic and appropriate.

All of the roles are interesting. Elizabeth Perkins plays the role of the acerbic friend who never quite realized her life ambitions. Her one daughter is overweight, the other just hates her, and her husband is sleeping with the Asian American tennis pro.

Every episode offers something new. I will definitely keep on looking for the next episode.

Weeds is about Nancy Botwin a working mum and housewife who gets into the darkest situations when her husband unexpectedly drops dead and she is left to raise two kids, a brother-in-law and rustic area's secret addiction to home-grown weed. Using this; as a way of dealing with her emotional collapse, in return for providing for the family by dealing marijuana to neighbours and spacey school-kids. Nancy is played with perfect pokerfaced- untelling-drug-seller mum by Mary-Louise Parker, ex-West Wing star who talks on a less political and more social tasks of day to day life. She is groomed for any social eventuality. Alongside the mum of two is youngest Shane (Alexander Gould) who played the voice of Nemo in 'Finding Nemo' who is less stutter and more into the wild flights of fancy. Older bro Silas (Hunter Parrish) who is eager to get his school life on the OC-type list by doing anything or anyone possible.

Yes, selling drugs makes good TV? Weeds outshines the morally ambiguous judgement on drugs. Some of the people who do drugs are good, some are bad. But it's the person we judge, not the substance. While it seems a bit Desperate Housewives, it's got a lot more going for it. With bitchy neighbour Elizabeth Perkins who makes the typical rich mum attitude take a leap forward.

Verdict:

With its entwined spontaneity, this is addictive and yet bizarrely enjoyable. Like most TV shows trying today: firmly planted in reality.

WEEDS is the anti-Christ type show for the people lobbying for wholesome story lines. The title only begins to tell all the things about this program that would have it on a Jerry Falwell morals hit list. Maybe that is why I like the show so much.

Mary-Louise Parker leads a great cast with superb veteran performers such as Elizabeth Perkins and Kevin Nealon. The premise of the show is Nancy Botwin (Parker) has to figure out how to keep together her family in an upscale Calif. neighborhood after he early 40's husband, whom we never meet, dies of a heart attack while out running around with his youngest son. This boy now has issues and doesn't quite fit in with his peers. Her older son is discovering his hormones are raging and the brother-in-law has come to visit and he is a horrible influence on the boys, the housekeeper, and Nancy despite her attempts to keep him in check. Despite it all she really loves her brother-in-law as he is her family reminder of the husband she loved and lost.

What she does to keep the roof over her house is to sell weed...pot...marijuana. She gets the stuff from a thoroughly outrageous and hysterical black family on the poor side of town. She sells in the community of Agrestic, where she lives, and she sells to her lawyer/neighbor, a guy on the city council (Nealon), and anyone else that will take, which in this community seems to be almost everyone.

Great part for Parker as she is the consummate actress. She is always a bit understated, never overacts, has a great sly smile, does dry comedy very well, and delivers her lines convincingly. Nealon is great as the burnout councilman/accountant who can't seem to be high enough of the day yet covers his bases so as not to be discovered. But I think it is Perkins who just might steal this show. She plays a very bright yet vapid wife and mother of two girls. She is an overbearing parent who chastises and spy's on her 15 yr. old and harasses her youngest because of the poor girl's weight. Her shallow nature is shown as a defense mechanism for a woman whose own mother (Conchetta Tomei) is even more overbearing than her daughter and toward her husband whom she verbally spars with when they are together.

From the opening song, a reprise of the great Pete Seger song "Little Boxes", to the weekly dilemmas for the characters of coping in suburbia the show scores. Usually HBO has the standard for cable comedy series but this one is as good as any.