Weeds

Nancy Botwin was an interesting combination of naive and capable. For awhile. Unfortunately the more she learns the less she knows. The less she knows the more despicable she becomes. That's okay. The fact the other characters in this show never seem to get it, no matter how unbelievably horrible she treats everyone, gets old. The incredibly weak circumstances that keep drawing them all back in is frustrating to watch. I do not like to leave a show unfinished. I never walk out on a bad movie. I want it to redeem itself. I am watching the final episode of the seventh season. If it was so stupid it was funny then I could endure the stupid. I just don't think I can make it through thirteen more episodes of everyone wanting to cling to the Nancy train when she clearly could not care less about any of them and makes no effort to hide it.

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!

This show is as good as it gets. As in, Six Feet Under good, without being any kind of clone: it's its own magical world, of which there will be many future clones, but nothing will ever come close to this for wit, emotion, pacing, or perfection of casting. This show says This Is Us like nothing I've seen in a long time. Showtime has done some good shows, and they've been getting better (after decades of astonishingly lazy creative thinking) but in Weeds the we-try-harder network finally has a true destination series. For one thing, Mary Louise Parker, who is always brilliant, here manages to pull it off with none of the mannerisms that have colored some of her lesser roles: she is luminescent and true in every moment. And the kids? And the son's girlfriend? You get this weird feeling there was no camera around--there couldn't have been for people to come off this completely real. Bravo bravo bravo! Can't wait to see episode 2.

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.

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.