The writers of Weeds have done for television what Victorian authors did for the novel – turned the genre on its head. Like their 19th century predecessors, the scribes at Weeds focus on what happens after a calamitous personal event, in this case, a death in the family. This is a series that began airing in the middle of Bush’s eight-year nightmare and poked him and his war-on-drugs entourage right in the eye. It put enough comic spin on the world of illegal drugs to make us all consider becoming dealers.
Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) is a desperate woman. Her husband has died, leaving her a mansion (and no doubt a toxic mortgage) in the southern California hills, a Range Rover and two kids to feed. While she doesn’t sound hard up, she has no occupation. She was content to leave it all to him, to play mommy and hang with the neighbours, ruminating in the afternoon sun about existence, California style.
It doesn’t take long before the bills begin to pile up and, as she finishes a meeting with her personal accountant, Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon), he fishes a joint from his desk and lights up. It’s for the stress, you see. Before you can say ‘illegal substance,’ she’s figured out that her whole neighbourhood smokes the stuff and she knows them all. Instant market. Now all she needs is a supply, which she finds down the hill in the person of Heylia James (Tonye Patano). Presto! A dealer is born.
The series artfully uses the prop of marijuana dealing and consuming as a way of attacking the dreariness in suburban life. Each episode opens with a rendition of ‘Little Boxes’, a song written by Malvina Reynolds in 1962 that mocks suburbia. As the credits role, the houses are of the same style, repeated into the smoggy horizon. Men dressed identically enter and leave the Daily Grind, the local coffee shop. Identically dressed school kids spill out of identical SUVs. No wonder they all wanna get high. The marijuana scene is the only thing out of the ordinary, the thing that puts the ordinary and bland into stark perspective.
But all is not the same once you go behind the faux-oak panels of all those front doors. Like Mad Men, the show is successful at revealing the pain, candor, rage and humour of ordinary people. Nancy’s younger son, Shane (Alexander Gould), still thinks he can see and talk to his father. The performance leaves Nancy speechless and she is unequipped to solve his problem. Her older son, Silas (Hunter Parrish), is 16 going on 20 and soon figures out his mother’s secret occupation, demanding a cut of the action. They muddle through, as do all families, but there is no mushy sentiment here. Nancy starts to believe that Shane can see his father and Silas is let in, becoming a junior dealer. Just life, Weeds-style, raw and unadulterated.
With the fourth season already available on DVD, and the show’s fifth season premiering this week on the US cable network Showtime, the show is adding Canadian content. Alanis Morissette is joining as Nancy’s obstetrician for seven episodes, a spoiler if there ever was one. Nancy? Pregnant? The only steady guy she had since her husband died was a Drug Enforcement Agency officer who was later murdered by rival dealers. The plot is thickening, just like a jungle of hydroponically-grown marijuana plants.
Seasons 1 to 4 available on DVD. The opening episode of Season 5 can be seen tonight at 9:30pm on Showtime.
