Weeds Recap: The End, Maybe

"Everyone's a little happy, everyone's a little miserable. That's family."   --Nancy

Oh, Nancy Botwin. How you continue to taunt me even in (almost) certain death.

Having just finished watching the Season 7 finale -- a few days late because, honestly, I forgot this show was still on my roster -- I am left feeling strangely puzzled. Yes, this mediocre season got it together long enough to end with a few strong episodes, but that's sort of a weak sauce consolation, considering the fact that the last episode conveniently abandoned almost all the story arcs the season had invested in week after week. If the individual subplots weren't already so forgettable this season, they have certainly been rendered moot by the finale. Dimitri, Zoya, Emma, Klein, Heylia, all moot. Granted, some of them had definitely overstayed their welcome -- Vehement Capital, anyone? -- but the most promising development of Season 7 -- Silas's long overdue break from the family (extremely temporary, as it turned out) -- was cheaply glossed over with a quickie reconciliation and some sentimental dreck about family ties and regrets and forgiveness in spite of how badly a son (or mother) screws up. Never mind that Silas was the one character on this show with the slightest chance at (and temperament for) actual independence. Never mind that any potential Season 8 plot that dealt with a possible rivalry between Nancy and her oldest would have been several times more interesting than yet another Godmother-style season arc predicated on the idea that Nancy is somehow still the best chance this family has for survival. That may have been a believable concept back in Agrestic, where Shane and Silas were still defenseless children, but it's no longer the case. Even Shane is showing some promise by secretly enrolling in cop school.

And what was that, by the way? What was the point of introducing this new element into the alleged series finale, mere minutes before Nancy more than likely gets nailed in the face by a sniper? I have no problem with the idea of Nancy dying in the end, but a) the ending was ambiguous in a way that Weeds has neither the right nor the dramatic cred to attempt to be and b) if you are going to kill off the lead character, a nameless shooter in the bushes (with no inkling as to who might have hired him) is not an OK method of doing so; even Nancy deserves better. This is why I have such a gripe with this episode as a series finale, and though I swore I wouldn't, I find myself now rooting for a Season 8, if only so that this show can get a proper conclusion, preferably in the form of an organically progressive season. 

That said, the episode by itself struck a good balance between the light and the dramatic and featured several strong, well-written scenes, particularly the big showdown between Detective Ouellette and Shane. It was also surprisingly funny, and all the interactions between Nancy and Jill were nearly brilliant; even Andy had some actual grownup material to work with, which is always great. Well... it's better than the alternative, let's just leave it at that.

If this show gets another season, I'm not well-adjusted enough to abstain. And if it doesn't... well, I'm no longer invested enough to really mourn the lackluster conclusion.

Until next summer, fellow prisoners! Or not.

Weeds Recap: Loyal Soldier

"I already fucking know it's all about my mom."   --Silas

Finally a good episode! This week's was easily my favorite of the season, probably because it was such a throwback to the show's early days when Nancy peddled pot to bored, rich suburbanites. More enjoyable still was the overall feel of an episode that set Nancy back into a society that she neither understands nor belongs in -- now more than ever -- but one whose collective idiocy she will nevertheless use to her advantage. If there's one thing this show has always done well, it's stereotyping privileged people for laughs. This here was vintage Weeds. Also, in a pretty disjointed season replete with abandoned plot threads, "La mère..." seemed to be the one chapter that might give this show some actual direction. This whole mother-son business split would be an interesting angle, should the Jenji choose to pursue it, but as much as I applaud the gradual emancipation of Silas this season ("My loyal soldier days are over"), I still think Andy has been grossly underutilized in a real "missed opportunity" kind of way. 

I will say one thing about this show: it never does what I expect, though I haven't decided if this is a strength or a weakness; on the one hand, yay for unpredictability, right? But on the other hand, it really makes it obvious sometimes how entirely writer-driven this show is. This isn't one of Shane's puppet shows, folks; you're not supposed to see the strings. The setup from last week didn't really seem to go anywhere as exciting as I was imagining; Silas was nowhere near the site of the police bust on Pouncy House, though maybe Nancy will still have some 'splaining to do now that Emma knows about the Botwin cop connection. But I don't even care about all that, because what actually took place -- Silas reaching his limit on being treated like an employee/child by Nancy -- is so much more promising a story than most of the stuff they started to do this season, though it does read like more of a Season 8 exposition move than a series wrap-up move, which... whatever, I'll watch it if they make it, but I won't be super happy about it. 

So it's off to the Hamptons for Nancy, Doug, and Andy this week, where the latter dons his Bill Sussman hat in yet another nod to Agrestic in order to convince the rich (and apparently, stupid) masses to invest with Vehement Capital. His ensuing drunken breakdown was great comedic fun ("You're gonna bend for me, bitch."), but mostly it was just a reminder that this character is essentially exactly where he was three seasons ago, complete with elaborate yarn spinning and unrequited crush on Nancy. Would that his loyal soldier days could be over, too. Back in Manhattan, Shane continues to be annoying, even for being mostly dead weight, and Silas unilaterally decides to dissolve the partnership and go off on his own after learning of Nancy's role in Emma's arrest. Nancy doesn't fight her son for the client database -- it was, after all, acquired somewhat unscrupulously --  but it does look like she will fight him for Andy next week. Until then! 
 

Weeds Recap: Miscommunication

 "Ahhhh, now I see!"   --Every Weeds fan who doesn't realize, doesn't care about or chooses to overlook the fact that even though some of the loose ends were tied this week, we've just had too many episodes lately of this show being a light-to-moderate chore to watch.

I'll admit that this episode was an improvement over most others this season, in that it finally brought some of the subplots together and might even deliver on that ol' storyline advancement we've all been hoping for. Still, everything was just a little too calculated -- it was much too obvious that every scene/detail from the past few episodes that seemed odd and pointless at the time was placed there for the express purpose of assisting the story. Sure, no one ever regarded this show as gritty realism, but I still value the escapist aspect of TV viewing. In fact, I value it kind of a lot and resent anything that yanks me out of the fictional world created by the show. Behold the contrived plot devices that put Nancy once again in the driver's seat: Shane forms something of a father-son relationship with the cop who mentored him, causing the latter to feel more compassion for Shane than for any other prisoner and thus making him more susceptible to Nancy's scheming; Silas screws Emma, then Emma screws Silas and Nancy, giving Nancy the perfect opportunity to get her son out of jail and her business back;  and Andy is generally useless and behaves uncharacteristically (though who can really say with the inconsistent characterization running rampant on this show?) like a baby brandishing a nail gun. God, just when I thought we would finally get to see a more emotionally cogent side of a frustrated, desperate Andy, he still winds up looking and sounding like a fucking clown. But whatever, because shrill Andy is kinda funny, I guess? (I am being facetious; I really do hate the way this character has been bastardized this season.)

What I liked, however, was the setup for the next episode (a real complication, finally!). In the immortal words of J. Walter Weatherman, that's why you don't make plans without first consulting with your business partner. Will Silas get arrested? Will he be forced to sell out Nancy to save himself?

Elsewhere, I guess the Vehement subplot is still unresolved. Oooookay. By the way, is that SEC overseer lady not the ultimate 21st century manifestation of the Alice personality on United States of Tara?

Weeds Recap: Watch It Burn

 "Babe, these are cops. I'm a drug dealer. You're a murderer. We can't all play on the same kickball team."  --Nancy

So, remember how last week's episode ended with a super-tense (ha!) gathering of family, lovers, business partners and feds that threatened to blow Nancy's cover and possibly send her back to prison? "Cats! Cats! Cats!" skips right over that awkwardness and straight into the morning-after, where Nancy wakes up in Foster Klein's gorgeous townhouse for the first time. They have some romantic repartee, which might be sexy (but probably not) if the chemistry between the two actors weren't sadly lacking.  I get that Legends of the Fall was a long time ago, but Aidan Quinn is still a decent-looking older guy, so why does he come off so smarmy here? (And were we supposed to buy their later scene as some sort of tearful farewell? Puh-lease. There's no way that anyone is buying these two as star-crossed lovers after such minor and unimpressive relationship development.) At any rate, romantic repartee exhausted, Nancy comes clean about the SEC investigation and her role in it. Hello! That I was not expecting; how is she ever going to stay afloat and out of prison if she burned the one sort-of bridge she had left? Oh, I get it: she acted selflessly because, having shagged him once, she's too gosh-darn fond of Klein to let him be unwittingly arrested for a crime he committed -- so fond, in fact, that she was willing to put her own freedom in tremendous jeopardy to save him. So I guess Nancy is sentimental and selfless now -- see what they did there? Either that, or she just wanted him out of her hair? Or she wanted him to be safe from the arson she'd been planning all along? So confused. Let's get back to the warehouse.

...Where Zoya is wreaking havoc on Silas and his models, but mostly on Andy, who's just trying to get his honest business off the ground. Poor guy. And not just because he's hitched his wagon to a decidedly not honest enterprise but because his character now seems relegated exclusively to comic relief. It's OK, though; he was pretty funny. I especially enjoyed him taunting Zoya with so little effort. Easiest mark ever, that one. It's funny, 'cause she's crazy. She really is crazy, though, and Andy wants her gone, and Nancy will take care of it, she promises, but first: the SEC. Oh, man, these guys are pissed! Nancy screwed up their investigation and she's a drug dealer? Whatever will happen? Anticlimax alert: Doug (Doug!) shows up to save the motherfucking day through blackmail. And it works! It turns out the SEC pension plan is tied up in Vehement Capital, and these feds are sleazy enough to drop their investigation and let everyone off the hook, just like that! God, I miss Roy Till. He may be dancing it up in that big gay club in the sky right now, but he was a legit law-enforcing antagonist.

Meanwhile, Shane uses his in with the police department to glean information on Pouncy House, but then gets busted by his new mentor. Oh, well, at least Nancy will finally have a chance to come to someone's rescue. Silas does his own research on the competition, by hiring and subsequently sleeping with Michelle Trachtenberg's character, Emma, who secretly runs the operation. Oh, man. I like Silas a lot, but I couldn't help but chuckle when it was revealed that she totally played him because he was too dumb and horny to pay attention. So now his business computer with all the clients' contact information is gone, which, OK, as far as cliffhanger endings go, this was a step in the right direction. On the other hand, the whole upside-down bike shop bit, while cute... how many people got that done in one night? How did they even get inside? Also: poor Andy!

Oh, and Nancy "takes care" of the Zoya problem by setting fire to Klein's house herself and making Zoya think the feds will pin it on her. It's all bullshit, but crazy Zoya buys it and she takes off for Vermont (OK, doesn't this woman have any parole conditions whatsoever?), where she'll be waiting for Nancy --"Soon," she promises -- so they can open their hotel for dogs and nary a cat or an Andy in sight, thankyouverymuch. OK, then. Two crises averted in one fell swoop. I'm a little fed up (no pun intended) with all these quick conflict resolutions; it made sense last season when the family was on the run, but now they are bound to one place -- and have been for almost an entire season -- with no real sense of danger. On the contrary: eeeeeverything's coming up roses for Nancy, freedom and townhouses just dropping into her lap. What, is Emma going to be Nancy's downfall this year? I highly doubt it. I keep thinking this whole thing is a ruse, lulling us into a false sense of security only to later introduce something lame, like Guillermo coming back or something. And the funny thing is, even that would be a welcome change of pace from what's currently going on with this show.

Weeds Recap: It's a Good Time For Many Things

"I like that you've rewritten history."   --Klein

Oh, boy. Is this for sure the final season of Weeds, because it is well past the halfway point and it shows no sign of wrapping up any time soon. On the contrary, it keeps piling on the new situations and plans and characters that couldn't possibly be more than vehicles for the protagonists' arcs. This week's episode was a particularly farcical clusterfuck of elements: lesbian rape, incestuous voyeurism, hickeys, functional alcoholics, rival shakedowns, illegal seafood, SEC surveillance... everything but the kitchen sink. And that non-cliffhanger of an ending read more like some sort of poorly executed Shakespearean parody -- let's get everyone in a room together and act out this awkward writing, even though there's no logical reason they should all be physically present here!

This show is no stranger to tense episode endings, but by now it's gotten to the point where they don't even really register anymore; we know Nancy will get out of this jam and the next one and be back on her merry felonious way before the following episode's second scene. I mean, is there actually any doubt this will get resolved in a couple of lines of dialogue next week? As if the SEC really gives a crap about a mini-empire of a barely illegal drug as long as Nancy makes good on helping them uncover their precious ponzi scheme. This whole season has failed to deliver a single worrisome predicament that didn't immediately get solved by magic. Remember the urine test? I don't expect all the cliffhangers to rival the U-Turn/Armenian gang gunpoint holdup -- we knew Nancy would come out the other end then, too -- but you've got to make me believe that these characters are at least in some sort of moderately sized pickle. Maybe something along the lines of coming home to find your best frenemy waiting by a swimming pool full of your now-ruined weed, every now and then. (Celia shoutout!)

Enough with these wacky Punky Brewster-style scrapes; and what's with all the tears and whining at the first sign of difficulty? ("I am not going back to prison, wah wah!") Give Nancy a real crisis to maneuver through already; it's tiiiiiime.
 

Weeds Recap: Third Base

"You have no idea what a good day this is turning out to be."  --Nancy

Whatever shadow of sentimentality last week's episode delivered (and who would have thought I would ever require more sentimentality from a TV show?) has been wiped clear away in "Vehement v. Vigorous," the corporate baseball game where most of this week's action takes place, and also the episode where the Botwin saga quickly reverts to treating everything like a big joke filled with self-interest and wrapped in glibness. This may seem like a silly complaint, but I see it as a bit of a problem when Entourage is out-profounding you on a week-by-week basis.

At any rate, Silas is back from California with 30 pounds of MILF weed, looking more beautiful and bitter than ever. And he has a plan -- no more direct-to-customer sales; you have to "insulate yourself," he says, then it's a whole bunch of "Heylia this, Heylia that." And guess who doesn't like that one little bit? I would say that Silas came up with his pyramid business plan to deliberately antagonize Nancy, but he actually seems genuinely committed to making the best of it, so much so that he ignores mommy's directive to get some sleep or "at least run a comb through your hair" (but only until she turns her back -- you can take the model out of the boy, but you can't take the vanity out of the former model, I guess). As for Nancy, she is just excited to return to what she does best: "selling dimebags [to rich douches] at local sporting events." Like Andy puts it, "a somewhat circular journey." Oh, but now Ed is back and he is pissed and he is out to nail her for sort of getting him fired. It seems like just yesterday that he was walking around, exuding world-weary-yet-idealistic charm and spewing off cute little rhymes. Now he is mostly running around, trying to locate the mystery man who inexplicably chose to give Nancy a job at a pretty high profile firm. Doug, of course, is in accidental disguise until the end, when he stupidly outs Nancy as a drug dealer to Ed and -- not for the first time -- demonstrates his inability to distinguish among heavyset black gentlemen. Doug's absurdity as a character hits a new nadir this week, as he spends an entire episode sporting honest-to-goodness man boobs as a result of the steroids he's been ingesting in preparation for the game. Granted, Doug has never much been one for self-respect, but come on!

Poor Ed is once again thwarted in his attempt to expose Nancy and possibly get his job back, because -- get this -- the SEC has just recruited Nancy to act as a mole at Vehement Capital Partners. Gah, I should have known that ridiculous storyline with Whit and Doug deciding to cook the books would turn out to be significant. And just when Nancy seemed to really take a liking to Mr. CEO! But, in true Nancy fashion, she doesn't seem too broken up about assisting on an investigation that could cost him his company and send him to prison. Not if it will get her out of the halfway house and that much close to getting her kid back. The new plot turn makes sense in retrospect, but it's pretty annoying that we're halfway through the season and Nancy has had everything she needed pretty much fall into her lap. She is much more interesting when given the chance to prove herself as a scrapper, and the season so far feels a bit like coasting, for both Nancy and the show. And I bet somehow Shane's new gig interning with the police is going to come into play as some sort of magical save for Nancy, as well. I do have to hand it to the Weeds folks -- they've always done a good job of laying the groundwork for future big events; I'm just worried that these presumed big events are not actually going to satisfy. Meanwhile, I am almost expecting Silas's brief foray into "model boxing" (which reminded me of the "boy fighting" on Arrested Development) to play a role in The Great Season 7 Master Plan, but I fail to see the connection at the moment.

All in all, a good -- if undeserved -- day for The Widow Botwin Scottson Reyes, and "Hello, lover," indeed! Zoya's back and none-too-happy to see Nancy all cozy with her bro; we all remember how the last person to betray the temperamental Zoya ended up, do we not?

Weeds Recap: Booby Trapped

"...I'm aware of all my people, wherever they are; I carry them, you know? Otherwise, they might slip away, and then what?"   --Nancy

One of my biggest gripes about Weeds as a show is that the flip tone and predominant shallowness of its comedy have been growing rather dissonant with the darker story elements introduced in later seasons. If my memory serves, the show started out with a good balance of cynicism and heart, yet somewhere along the way the dial just flat-out broke; I don't mind that the stakes keep escalating, but the characters' attitudes should adjust accordingly. Yes, there have been interludes here and there that suggested that they do indeed possess some depth and emotional maturity, but at the end of the day, Andy's character reel still includes more instances of buffoonery rather than those brief moments of wisdom and insight he's shown every now and then, so even when we are supposed to be appalled at Nancy's decisions as head-of-household, the implication is that she is doing the best she can as the only fully realized character in the entire operation. And on this I call bullshit on Jenji Kohan, because it is impossible -- not to mention boring -- for some of these characters, having been through all they've been through, to remain as aloof and irritatingly unscathed, psychologically speaking, as they were when the show debuted. It is this insistence on being by turns both a dramedy and a sitcom yet never a consistently believable mixture of the two that makes Weeds such a frustrating show and one that has become very difficult to review in a manner devoid of irony and snark. And so I am forced most of the time to treat it as the big joke it is trying to pass itself off as, yet I still await those episodes that will finally offer some sort of emotional payoff (to me) and general credibility (to the characters), and praise be to Jenji (I guess), "Object Impermanence" was the first such episode of this, the final season. (An aside: it's interesting that the episode gets its title from a theory of cognitive development; Heylia employs the phrase to accuse Nancy of failing to be aware of people that are outside of her immediate periphery, but Nancy herself has justifiable reason to be worried about this phenomenon as it pertains to Stevie.)

Amid some typical comedic situations involving (once-again) Pathetic Andy and his newest money-making scheme -- though I have to say the Copenhagen Wheel was a pretty good business idea that befit both his quirky intelligence and his boyish personality -- the episode did provide some encounters that were for once thought-provoking and analytically sound. I'm referring, of course, to the heated exchange between Nancy and Heylia, at long last. Heylia has such a humorless urban philosopher's way about her that it was difficult to determine whether she was actually aiming her shotgun's fire at Nancy and missing her repeatedly or whether she just meant to give her a little scare, though I cannot imagine Heylia doing anything in a playful fashion. At any rate, it was interesting to see the interplay between these two women, both survivors in their own right, both emotionally abandoned by loved ones, both fiercely protective and unapologetically exploitative of their families (one of whom forced the other out of her home and into the boonies, but hey, bygones). It's almost pathetic to learn also that Heylia, as chock-full of sassy badassery and self-righteousness as she is, is also deeply envious of Nancy for her ability to inspire loyalty -- albeit begrudging in Silas's case -- in her family without even trying.

The more compelling story this week, however, involved the showdown between Nancy and Silas, which was a long time coming and was handled quite well, I must admit. What better place for the long-awaited mother-son confrontation than in a booby-trapped field full of MILF weed -- the strain partly developed by Silas and the one that put Nancy on the map way back when, before human trafficking and drug kingpins and homicidal sons entered her life. And what better analogy for Nancy herself than the shot of her wandering through the grass maze, trying to find a way out of the mire of her own making while avoiding the disaster waiting around the corner and being approached by the occasional wounded party there for the purpose of some much-deserved reckoning? An adrenaline junkie through and through, there's no question that Nancy has acted selfishly more often than not, but bad parents love their kids too, and Nancy has always been good, if late, at the "grand gesture" stuff, as when she recounts to Silas the details of the day he was born ("I wanted to eat one of your toes so I could still keep a piece of you inside of me"), the significance of which -- in her mind -- is reasonable grounds for forgiveness. That Silas is still bitter and resentful over his mother's deceit regarding his paternity is baffling only to Nancy, whose arrogance and love of Husband No. 1 are displayed in equal measures when she asks Silas what difference any of it makes in his estimation of his dead father. Of course, even before he verbalizes it, we all know it is not Judah but Nancy who alone has fallen out of grace in Silas's eyes, and so he opts to stay behind at Heylia's bequest to help her harvest the current crop in exchange for being his and Nancy's supplier.

Meanwhile, back in NYC, Shane's brother-envy has reached new heights, prompting him to buy for dear old mommy the best present an ex-con drug dealer girl could ask for: a front business for her shady dealings. Andy is happy too, as he gets to peddle his revolutionary new bike to passersby, which is probably the exact kind of product that appeals to stoners. Doug continues to be a useless lout and oh my goodness, how could I forget about Nancy and Stevie: The Reunion set to the sounds of nostalgic music and Nancy's Important Speech, with which Martin Short (wtf kind of name is Steward Havens, anyway?) is pretty much as unimpressed as the rest of us. Still a sweet moment, though.

Weeds Recap: The Prodigal Daughter

"I'm not asking you to perjure yourself. Unless you want to."   --Nancy

I suppose I'll go through the motions of a proper recap, even though this whole episode can be summed up in a single phrase: The Return of Tonye Patano! If I can't have Celia, Heylia is definitely the next best thing. I can't wait to see what these two old gal pals will be up to once Heylia gets over her sassy antagonism! Nancy and Silas sought her out to buy weed from under direct orders of the judge handling the custody hearing; well, not a custody hearing so much as an almost entirely wasted cross-country trip, and not direct orders so much as a very loose interpretation thereof. There was supposed to be a custody hearing -- Nancy even brought Silas along as a character witness -- but Evil Jill got it postponed in hopes that Nancy would have difficulties flying out a second time. Nancy, alas, did not manage to see Stevie, in spite of Scott's surprising kindness and a very solid attempt to climb over his and Jill's fence, but she did manage to get a meeting with the judge, courtesy of Silas's soft spot for his mom -- perhaps Nancy was not completely crazy to select him as a character witness over Shane. Meanwhile, Andy broke up with the polyamorous couple with whom he shared a bed for five minutes, Shane finally enrolled in some college courses, and Doug discovered some fraud within his company. The end. Next week it looks like Dean is back as well, possibly living in the boonies with Heylia. Close, but still no Celia. Grrrr.            
                                     

Weeds Recap: Tick-Tock

"See? We can be a great team."   --Nancy

This week's episode was all a mad dash for Nancy to procure money for Stevie's preschool so that she can demonstrate reliability and self-sufficiency in any future custody battle with Evil Sister Jill. This dash involved getting a "real job" at Doug's new office, eliminating competition at said "real job" by outing the existing area dealer, sweet talking Silas into peddling their weed himself, then sweet talking Shane into giving her cash to buy more when Silas returned profitless but backed by a hefty client base. Cut to a scene that somehow managed to fit all Afghani cliches into a single 30-second conversation, all just to explain away a "glitch in the supply chain." Oh, boy. Is it wrong that I found the "women are stupid" comment funny?

The episode itself was actually pretty funny. I won't say the quality of the comedy is where it once was for this show, but "A Hole in Her Niqab" did make me laugh out loud for the first time this season: an Andy scene, of course, and not even a particularly clever one. There was just something about seeing him claw at his polyamorous married girlfriend's knob-less bedroom door in a failure to "escape" her Heffneresque husband that did it for me. There were also some mildly amusing penis/steroid jokes courtesy of Doug, but that guy isn't the comedy goldmine he used to be, either. But at least now we know that he got offered his swanky new job mostly because his company needs him for softball season.

Anyway. Even though Martin Short and especially Aidan Quinn were somewhat wasted as "special guest stars" this week, we can expect to see more of them in the future. This episode was really more about the fraught relationship between Nancy and her sons: Silas, whose resentment doesn't seem to be enough to turn him into the mean, punishing son he aspires to be, and Shane, whose guilty conscience doesn't quite motivate him to do what Nancy wants him to do. And so, Silas does his mother's bidding instead of sticking to his resolve to demand her respect, and Shane spends all his student loan money on re-creating her Agrestic bedroom instead of enrolling in college. As for Nancy, in spite of her drug business savvy and enterprising spirit (and sheer dumb luck in acquiring free legal representation and respectable employment at Doug's company), she hits roadblock after roadblock in her ongoing quest to get Stevie back, and I don't just mean physically back -- did anyone catch the part where Nancy is sending him a copy of The Real Mother Goose? I liked the final shot where she hopelessly looks on at her child being comforted by the only family he's ever known, accompanied by the sound of a kitchen timer ticking away and finally dinging. Nancy is reaching her boiling point.

I look forward to next week's custody hearing, and I hope the show does something special for Nancy's return to California. But I suppose a special appearance by Celia would be too much to hope for...

Weeds Recap: Become a Real Person

"Learned nothing from three years behind bars?"    --Andy

Well, my friend Ed was off this week, but he sure did work his magic from behind the scenes, getting Nancy into a drug class instead of kicking her ass back to prison for her little slip-up. And Shelby Keene is no mnemonic-rhyming nurturer, that's for sure. Like Nancy, Shelby comes from a past of drug-dealing, you see, so she is immune to Ms. Botwin's excuses for why she failed a urine test and fights with her roommates. Or at least she would have been if Nancy weren't so crazy-untouchable; of course Shelby is touched by Nancy's plight, what with her dead baby daddy and estranged child. To be fair, though, that speech really was pretty damn compelling, because sister Jill Price Hyphen Gray? Still a jerk of mythical proportions, believe it or not. Her newest bout of assholery includes asking Nancy to sign away permanent custody of Stevie, which means Nancy has to get her shit together before she can be released back into society and take back her kid. Dealing weed may not be the smartest move for her at this point, but it may be the quickest route to financial solvency.

As for her other two sons, Nancy sent one in pursuit of college admission and suffered through a cold reunion with the other, who is now using Lars's last name as his nom de pec. The poor bastard (pun intended) had narrowly escaped suffocation (in the name of art!) mere minutes prior to finding his mother rocking his outfit and stashing her high-frequency radio (get it?) in his apartment. Silas is justifiably angry still, but the satisfaction of giving Nancy money for cab fare must surely have helped some. Otherwise, it's just been another week, another hideous outfit for Nancy, but thankfully she wasn't wearing it when she propositioned Zoya's brother... Dmitri, is it? Come on, Nance: show some loyalty to your psychotic prison girlfriend and maybe bang some other tall dude, maybe one that doesn't share her parentage. Granted, it's been three years since you've done it hetero, so I get it: Nancy horny.

Poor Andy seems to have resumed his hopeless crush on his sister-in-law almost immediately, if his discomfort at seeing some flashes of Nancy were any indication. Unfortunately for him, she only wants him to research some of the dealers whose names were casually dropped during her drug class. But surely he can find temporary love with the pretentious artiste of Silas's lucrative, humiliating first NYC job. Other jobs offered in this episode? Wall Street accountant. To Doug. Am I missing something? Was Doug so good of an accountant as to warrant the amount of ass-kissing bestowed upon him this week? What is Doug even still doing on this show? He'd better go full idiot quick; this playing at being a semi-responsible adult isn't working for me.

Next week: Martin Short and Aidan Quinn guest star. What the what?

Weeds Recap: Working Girl

"So you're saying we should be wearing helmets around her now?"       --Andy

I'm on vacation this week, so I'll make this snappy.

As the Botwin boys (and Doug) arrive in the Big Apple looking for their matriarch, Nancy puts on a hideous outfit, sees them, makes prolonged eye contact with Silas, freaks out and flees. She has bigger fish to fry, you see; she wants back into the weed game, prompting the question: Is this really all she knows how to do? Would it have been so hard for her to at least try to learn the lamp repair game from the nice Hasidic man? But I digress. So she needs product to sell. What is there to do but trade for it the suitcase full of grenades belonging to Zoya's brother, a man Nancy will undoubtedly bang at a later date. But whatever. Aside from Nancy getting uncharacteristically high this week, the Botwins were boring. Even Silas and his male model-esque short-pants suit.

I want to talk about someone else this week -- Ed. Can I just say something? I love Ed. Only two episodes and Ed is already my new favorite character. Allow me to outline in detail the marshmallowy beauty of Ed:

Ed is totally papa bear warden to Nancy and her housemates but not in that annoying, paternalistic way some of us gals have come to expect from big guys who talk to us real slow, lest our wee bird brains are unable to follow non-rhyming words delivered at man-speed. Don't get me wrong: Ed is a big softie (he already got taken in by Nancy's big sad eyes once and will probably do so again next week) and I believe Ed would swiftly neutralize any potential threat to his cub-ettes, like some sort of awesome pimp superhero. But Ed doesn't patronize these women, because Ed doesn't underestimate them. (I guess the one surefire way for a woman to get a man's full attention is to be a proven criminal?) Ed is, dare I say, a feminist. In fact, Ed is the best kind of feminist, because Ed could care less what that word means; Ed just is it. And that's why I love Ed. Plus, his name is Ed! How perfect is that? I'll say it again, because I love it so gosh-darn much: Ed.

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?

You're Not Grounded: The Advent of Bad Parenting TV

In honor of Nancy Botwin's imminent return (Monday, August 16, 10 PM), about which I am as giddy as I am terrified.

It started with two Gilmore girls. With their trademark rapid dialogue and superhuman witticisms, Lorelei and Rory Gilmore mini-revolutionized the small screen mother-daughter rapport, setting a precedent that would be difficult to reverse. Even as sensible mothers and daughters acknowledged the scripted quality of the fictional relationship, we still lusted after the Gilmores’ dynamic. The grounding and punishment of unruly children were suddenly obsolete, because Rory was the sweet, obedient daughter every parent dreamed of, and it was Lorelei’s anti-authoritarian parenting style that created this angelic child. And thus spawned the belief that familial behavioral cycles could actually be constructive. What a crock.

Since then, the Gilmore phenomenon has escalated. As television evolved, the “cool” parents have devolved into just plain bad. Having just wrapped its second season, Showtime’s United States of Tara depicts a set of parents so ridiculously laissez-faire, it would make Ward Cleaver’s head spin. Half the time, the titular Tara and her husband Max have no clue what their kids are up to, and when they do, they all but hand them the keys to the gun cabinet. They might offer a half-hearted reprimand here and there but nothing that screams Involved Parent At Work. Take this exchange between Max and 15-year-old daughter Kate, on her way to meet not her Civics project partner but the dirtbaggiest of dirtbag boyfriends.

Max: It’s 9 o’clock, are you kidding me?

Kate: What, are you being, like, strict daddy now? Are you gonna take me to one of those purity balls?

Max: One hour. No negotiating.

Ummm, Max, I believe your exceedingly sexualized teen just negotiated the hell out of you. “I can’t seem to micromanage my daughter’s vagina,” Tara complains after finding a morning-after pill prescription in Kate’s backpack. I guess I’m supposed to feel for them but I just can’t muster the sympathy, when the most displeasure either of them show on the issue is, “I’m not real thrilled with you right now” — oh Max, you’re such a dad! Add an overly exaggerated wagging finger and faux grumpy voice and you’ve got all the ferocity of a Shirley Temple movie.

On one hand, I do have to hand it to Tara and Max, because it’s great to see TV parents who are incredibly and unconditionally supportive of their children in matters of sexual orientation and alternate post-high school endeavors. On the other hand, it is not normal for children to meet with zero opposition from their parents in every situation. Even Lorelei Gilmore had a prolonged estrangement from her adult daughter upon learning she had dropped out of Yale, and justifiably so — it was Yale! For free!

Probably sadder than a shitty parent, though, is one who degenerates into a shitty parent over time. Nancy Botwin, the heroine of the long-running Weeds — also on Showtime — has been steadily hitting a new low every season since the show’s inception in 2005. We all loved her as a recently widowed mother of two trying to keep a roof over her family’s head, but what started as a harmless (ha, ha) stint as a suburban marijuana dealer has turned our Nancy into a morally defunct shadow of her former self. All of a sudden, she’s complicit in human trafficking and getting knocked up by Mexican drug lords. Is this show even a comedy anymore? Because I swear these plotlines are coming straight out of an Inarritu film. Thank God for Andy, Nancy’s manchildish brother-in-law who still manages to bring comic relief to an increasingly tense viewing experience. 

Thus far, Nancy has turned a blind eye to the following events involving her sons: 17-year-old Silas schtupping his thirtysomething neighbor, 13-year-old Shane losing his virginity in a kiddie threesome, Silas selling weed, Shane getting drunk, etc. By the time the latest season finale rolled around and I watched [a possibly drunk] Shane deliver the final blow — by croquet mallet, to a woman’s head, most likely fatal — I simply picked my jaw off the floor and thought to myself, “Well, Nance, there’s no redemption from this one.”

Don’t get me wrong — I love the weekly Nancy-hits-rock-bottom-again drama. I drink it up like the sweet nectar of the gods who birthed it, because in spite of being more uncomfortable to watch than Dexter, the show’s writers are still among the best at dialogue and, aside from the rare Oedipal exception, generally adept at skirting the line between Holy Shit, Did That Just Happen? and Dear God, Look Away!

As entertainment, Weeds and Tara are justifiably cutting edge, but these same shows also make me want to swear off ever having children. When did cutting-edge television start meaning shock factor, pure and simple? We now have TV parents who are philanderers, drug dealers, even serial killers, for shit’s sake. All in all, stuff that would make Uncle Jesse blush straight through that dreamy olive complexion. And I get it. Parents are human beings too, and it’s scripted TV, and it’s why we love it. But suddenly you have bitches like Dina Lohan trying to be her daughter's BFF-who-hits-you-up-for-fifty-grand-once-in-a-while. Or Britney Spears losing custody to the likes of Kevin Federline. Or Jon and Kate dueling it out publicly to the point where you have a tough time deciding whom to write off as The Douche. (Yeah, OK, it’s Jon.)

Yes, I know these are highly publicized, Hollywood-adjacent cases and that the world (and certainly Hollywood) has always been full of shitty parents. I am not attempting to jump on the television-is-the-devil’s-playground train. However, it’s undeniable that society and the media are, to a certain extent, mutually influential.

Ultimately, I’ll continue to watch my favorite irresponsible mommies and daddies on TV, gleefully even. Maybe I’ll even steal furtive glances at tabloid headlines featuring Jon and The Lesser of Two Douches; there’s no real harm in it. Still, amidst all the shoddy parenting that currently seems to permeate both art and life, I have to wonder: which is imitating which?