Weeds Recap: Old Dog, Same Tricks

"I thought being released would give me some sense of . . . release." --Nancy

Let's get to it, shall we? Season 7 picks up three years after Nancy turned herself in to the FBI for Pilar's murder. She's been serving a manslaughter sentence in a Connecticut prison. She has horn-rimmed glasses and a new prison tat. No, no, I said tat, although, that too. She is getting released into a Manhattan halfway house (a show set in NYC -- that's new!), but not before saying a passionate goodbye to her sweet morsel of Russian crazycake, whom she seems to genuinely care about. (But that may last just until she falls onto the penis of the first Zack Morris stand-in she encounters; If Sex and the City taught me anything, it's that New York is a city full of men who will do it against a fire engine.) Aw, and look, y'all! Nancy's first act of semi-freedom -- after getting back into her fancy-prostitute gear -- is to try to video chat with baby Stevie! She's a changed person and a reformed mommy, guys, for realsies this time! Oh, wait. Scratch that. I just finished watching the episode.

Oh, that Nancy. She just doesn't learn, does she? Even after three years in the slammer. (Note: By the end of this blog post I will have used both of the slang terms for "prison" that I know.) But I suppose the audience, including myself, has certain expectations. On the one hand, I was sort of relieved to see her go almost an entire episode without sniffing out nefariousness. On the other hand, boooooriiiiiiiing! So, needless to say, I had similarly mixed feelings about the final suitcase-full-of-deadly-weapons scene: on the one hand, yay, danger/excitement! On the other hand, really, Nance? You're not even gonna wash off the prison stink first? Still, I do have to hand it to the writers for zeroing in on a foolproof way to make the audience sympathize anew with our complicated protagonist: make her sister, Stevie's current mother figure, into a raging role-usurping bitch; not only is Jill manipulating Nancy out of her own son's life/consciousness, but she's doing the same to the Botwin manboys (menboy?) as well. America, I think Betty Draper has just been out-hated.

And speaking of those manboys over in Copenhagen, Shane has hilarious muttonchops now, presumably to indicate that he is older and more mature but not so mature that he's ready to give up quirky hipster jobs, like, say, nude puppeteering (the puppets are nude, not the puppeteers), and definitely not so mature that he's ready to put a baby inside his temperamental Danish girlfriend. Andy and Doug are making an honest living as tour guides, but are we really supposed to believe that Andy is running for president of a so-called country, anarchist and minuscule as it may be? (Though while we're on the subject, any Birthers reading this, you can take a page from the constitution of Freetown Christiania (totally a real place!), where apparently native birth is not even a prerequisite to presidential eligibility.) Still, at least he has some ambition, unlike Silas, who seems to have regressed for the first time ever; he even has a gigantic zit to match his recently acquired teenage attitude. Throughout the course of this show, Silas went from being a reckless shaggy-haired boy with crooked teeth* and grown into the one reliable voice of reason of the Botwin clan, and by the end of the last season, his character had been firmly established as the "heart" of the show, and yet quicker than you can say "Who's the daddy?" he seems to have morphed into just another dime-a-dozen privileged party boy with a hair-and-makeup team? I don't accept.

And what's up with Nancy not being assigned into witness relocation? Did everyone just forget about Guillermo, who wanted her dead probably even more than Esteban did? For that matter, what about Esteban? Call me a crazy conspiracy theorist, but I'm not yet ready to accept that the primary antagonist of the last season -- and the most well-realized and terrifying of the whole series -- suffered an off-screen prison courtyard death, just like that, the whole situation being magically taken care of in one line of dialogue. Then again -- to paraphrase Nancy -- they who marry/love her do all die, and her first two husbands also died off-screen. And OK, maybe Agent Lipschitz had no reason to lie about his death, but is it crazy for me to harbor an infinitesimal hope that the series will end with Nancy going back and killing a still-alive Esteban herself, Kill Bill-style? Or am I overestimating the stylish martial arts/samurai sword wielding/coldblooded vengeance skills acquirable during a three-year stint in the clink?

*I know they make a world of positive difference sometimes, but does anyone else find dental veneers a little creepy and off-putting?