Monday, June 08, 2009

In the Weeds


We have been following the Showtime series,Weeds. Since we don't get the program, we wait for the DVD release. Season Four is out and we are doing our typical marathon.


This is the best way. If you can delay gratification (impossible in this day of instant everything), then you get the fun of watching a complete season over a few nights.
At first, we were attracted to the basic idea: a recently widowed suburban soccer mom (Mary-Louise Parker) decides to sell pot to make a living. The milf-gone-pot-dealer was the hook and the stoned jokes were aplenty, but this isn't enough to base an entire series on - although Kevin Nealon as the Peter Pan middle aged pothead is still very, very funny. The show had to have more than got-the-munchies gags and writer Jenji Kohan delivers. The show has won numerous awards.


The characters in every series have to develop. Weeds is very good at this and also at presenting the dangerous side of the drug dealing world. Nancy Botwin (Parker's character) started out as a meek, afraid and in over-her-head aspiring entrepreneur and now, she tells cops to back off, hardened street thugs she wants more action, is getting in bed (literally) with the Mexican drug cartel.

What's curious is that the very last thing that seems to be on her mind is the welfare of her family which is supposedly why she still involved with the harsh, merciless, but lucrative drug trade. There is a reckless, danger seeking side to Botwin that is unexplainable in sensible terms. Perhaps that is why we watch.

Mary-Louise Parker is luminous. The actress has one of those magnetic faces that can fill a lens with any emotion she chooses. Parker is at times absolutely beautiful, then looking a bit like an awkward teenager, a guilty mom, and then a slutty mistress. This season, they have certainly stepped up the nudity and adult situations.

That's why I watch.

I'm only kidding.


Not.

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