Weeds is a family show in the sense that heroin is a headache tablet. Nancy, the main character, is a good mother in the same way that Vincent Van Gogh is the patron saint of plastic surgery. Watching Weeds with your young children is a good decision in the same way that driving your car through the front wall is a good idea if you’ve lost your house keys.
Weeds is about drugs and sex and crime and quotidian dysfunction, bad decisions as an art form, and drugs and drugs and drugs. It is also hilarious, a wonderful satire on the family values crowd, and probably as good an argument against the “war on drugs” as you’ll ever hear. I doubt anyone could watch it and conclude that the prohibitions in place do anything other than create the narco state that is contemporary America.
I also doubt you could watch a better advertisement for never going near drugs again. The whole show pivots on this wonderful paradox and along the way answers all your questions about how things would’ve turned out if you really did become the cool, hippie parent you used to imagine you would be.
It is the story of a woman whose husband has died and who has decided selling dope is a good way to support her family. Over the course of five series (with a sixth due to air in August), she gets dragged deeper and deeper into the world of organised crime, drug running and various other class-A felonies and moral byways.
The main characters of the ensemble cast are horrible human beings who do horrible things in the sort of morally weak, permissive way conservatives have always warned us would happen if we watched programs like this. And that’s just the kids.
The characters are played to the hilt by a great cast led by Mary-Louise Parker as the aforementioned Nancy. As good as she is, though, I think I prefer Elizabeth Perkins who plays another catastrophe of a mother, Celia.
Celia’s relationship with her 12-year-old daughter, Isabelle — whom she constantly chides for being fat, rude and a e-sbian — is reportable, though Isabelle’s willingness to stand up for herself is kind of inspiring, if tragic. Also good is Andy (Justin Kirk), Nancy’s brother-in-law, which also makes him the uncle of her two boys, a role he plays with inappropriate abandon, taking it upon himself to be the father they have lost and the father they should never have.
At half-an-hour per episode, the program is totally moreish: I swear, you will not be able to stop at one in a single sitting, and might even find yourself most of the way through an entire series in a single afternoon. The series has got better, if more outlandish as it has gone along. I mean, suspension of disbelief is the order of the day. But once you do that, enjoy the ride.
Once you’re done with Weeds, there’s this other great show no one’s heard of you should try and find. I think it’s called The Wires, The Wired, something like that.
Good one Tim. I watched Weeds when it was on free-to-air (9 I think) but they kept moving it and playing out of sequence. I hired the first 2 seasons on DVD and I haven’t seen subsequent series.
So I’m surprised at your ‘advertisement for never going near drugs again’ wrapup. In the early stages the smokers and sellers were portrayed kindly, especially the family she bought from. The DVD even had pot recipes as an extra.
It seems the later series have taken a different interesting route. I’ll have to re-engage.
Disclaimer: I actually gave up after many years of smoking not long after watching the DVD, so maybe there was a message.
Also try “Breaking Bad”, recently screening on SBS. High school chem teacher with terminal cancer decides to crystal methamphetamine to provide for his family in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Ern Malleys Cat. Tim Dunlop is correct. Later series, especially the last one currently available (the 5th season, I may have got my DVDs in Asia), do go somewhat jaw-droppingly close to the edge of credibility. Tarantinoesque. It is a miracle of writing and acting that you the audience are thoroughly engaged with these characters most of whom have some repellent behaviours. Even Nancy who had kind of held the moral high ground and held the show together, more or less loses it, or goes v close to the edge. And the short episodes make you feel almost like suing the makers; I mean they absolutely should be longer. Tim did not mention that the theme music (Little boxes) is performed by different interesting artists each episode which will have you rewinding and replaying (Elvis Costello; Kate & Anna McGarrigle! in french! eat your heart out Martha & Rufus, you didn’t cut it!).
Another thing that surprised was that with such a smart show with complicated interlocking stories, I expected a big team of writers–nope just a few, usually 2! (Australian low budget production houses take note.)
Finally, yet again Australian tv (was it 9? probably, they have form…..West Wing, Wired) when it was screened very late but erratically. This show was a big cult hit in the USA and anyone watching just the first series would have known that, but they blew it. (At least 7 persisted with Scrubs also on very late but more consistently, and repeated at earlier slots.)
Sorry for the slow reply, but glad to find some fans of the show. Nina, I’m one of the few people in the civilised world who hasn’t see The Wire, but I will get to it.
Ranto, big fan of Breaking Bad.
Just getting into Nurse Jackie too. So far so good.