Pulling Out The Weeds

A few years ago I was sick with a terrible cold and left to bed for a few days. While channel surfing I discovered this thing on my cable system called On Demand. I quickly realized that I could watch full episodes of TV shows anytime I wanted. While scanning the menu I picked up on a show about a widow with two boys from a wealthy suburb, just in the throws of life after her husband had died. It was called Weeds. It chronicled the life of Nancy Botwin, a California housewife who was left in financial ruin by her husbands demise. Nancy, needing the steady flow of cash that it took to keep her idyllic suburban home running, teamed up with some ordinary people like herself and began running a successful pot dealing operation.

The show had me mesmerized. As you can imagine, being a pot dealer in suburban California, was never quite what it seemed. Nancy got herself into some sticky and dangerous situations and she got herself out of some dangerous and sticky situations. I have watched through 5 seasons of Nancy and her crazy family as they navigate through the life of a drug dealer. Tonite begins Season 6 of Weeds and I can't help wondering what will happen now that seemingly every bad thing that could happen to this crew has already happened. I wonder if the show jumped shark too long ago and I was just too "stoned" by the allure of the plot to notice.

But the show has yet to bore me. As a matter of fact it has done the complete opposite; it has shocked me and left me wanting more. Mary Louise Parker is the herione/villian, to which she plays to perfection, and her boys have grown into little villians in those past 5 years also. I am anxiously awaiting tonite's premier because I can't envision how this season could possibly play out. When we last left the Botwin's, Nancy had married a big Mexican drug cartel, politician man, who would have killed her but for the fact that she was pregnant with his son. So instead of killing her he married her.

Nancy's boys took to the family business like ducks to water. Her oldest boy, Silas, became a pot growing legend, creating his own chronic strain of dope and opened a medicinal marijuana joint only to be strong armed by some dirty cops. Younger brother Shane, we have watched morph from a young, super intelligent child who brilliantly helped the family navigate through a few on the run moments, to a school drug dealing, sex with 2 whore-y girls at once having, teacher threatening, killer. That would be Mr. Killer, because he successfully killed Nancy's nemesis in the season finale of Season 5.

So tonite begins the biggest pot of sh*t stew I have seen this crew in and I'm wondering where it will play out from here. The casting is superb, with Kevin Nealon, Elizabeth Perkins, Justin Kirk and a slew of shifty characters to round it out. If you haven't seen the show I highly recommend you start from the beginning seasons and work your way up to the present. You may find that you are just as enamored as I was. It certainly makes for interesting TV viewing, if nothing else.

I am cautiously optimistic about tonite's premier and looking foreward to getting caught up in the crazy drama of Weeds.