“Little houses, little houses, and they’re all made of ticky tacky…”
What the hell is ticky tacky?
Oh well. Hot mom + marijuana = Showtime’s Weeds.
BQB here with another TV review.
This is another show I never watched when it was on for the first few years, then I got into it once streaming media came around in a big way.
Uber MILF Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise-Parker) has her life turned upside when her husband dies from a heart attack unexpectedly at age forty.
She’s been a suburban housewife forever, but with two kids to raise and bills to pay, she turns to a life of crime i.e. marijuana dealing. Her product comes to be known as “MILF weed” due to her Milfyness as well as a chance encounter with Snoop Dogg (playing himself)
The first few seasons are the best of the series. Here, the story isn’t so much about the marijuana as it is about hum drum suburban life, how Nancy is able to make tons of money selling to her neighbors who, on the surface, are stuck up yuppies but given the chance to spark a doob and party, they do – often in funny, sometimes in tragic ways.
Kevin Nealon as family friend Doug Wilson helps Nancy in her illegal endeavors. His role in this show as a degenerate scumbag is his best work since SNL.
Meanwhile, Nancy ruins her chances at being nominated mother of the year by bringing her young sons into the business. (Hunter Parrish as Silas and Alexander Gould aka the voice of Nemo in 2003’s Finding Nemo as Shane.)
What really makes the show early on is the love/hate relationship between Nancy and her frenemy Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins). Celia is that super perfect/judgmental mom who serves as Nancy’s foil, first by trying to ruin her and later as joining her in the drug game.
While the first few seasons in suburbia are the best, the show eventually moves on and the Botwins find themselves in crazy situations every season. Often, it seems like series creator Jenji Kohan (now the creator of Orange is the New Black) was trying to outdo herself in each season with the wacky, borderline but not quite shark jumping predicaments the Botwins get into (Nancy marrying a Mexican drug kingpin, the Botwins going on the run being two big examples that stand out in my mind.)
Overall it is funny, and there are some interesting cliffhangers and plot twists. Not to repeat myself, but IMO, the suburbia seasons were the best and then it gets a little goofy from thereon.
I credit this series with giving us more of Mary Louise Parker. Though she’d been an actress for years (she had a role in 2002’s Red Dragon that springs to mind) this was the show that really put her over the top and now I get to see her in more stuff.
Works for me because she is fabulous.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Bookshelf Battle 