Diary of a Weeds virgin – What? The suburbs aren’t perfect?

(Season 1, Episodes 1-5)

Here’s the thing about Weeds: I’ve had no interest. It was easy enough to avoid it when it premiered, since people weren’t yet taking Showtime’s original programming seriously and I couldn’t even afford Showtime in the first place. As time has gone on and awards have been won, I’ve had more and more friends tell me that I have to watch it. I have Netflix, so I’ve been able to watch it for quite a while; I’ve just chosen not to.

I understand that it’s well-written and well-acted. It has Jeffrey Dean Morgan playing a dead dude (who isn’t having gh0st sex with his very alive ex-fiancee!) and Mary-Louise Parker. What more can you ask for? Well, yes. All of that sounds good on paper, but I have one major problem with the show: I find potheads really annoying.

I don’t think marijuana is bad, evil, or particularly harmful. It’s just a general irritation I have with the entire pot subculture that keeps me away from shows like Weeds. So, how, after being on the air for so long did they finally get me? The answer is two-pronged: Working from home and Netflix Watch Instantly. So I’ve watched the first half of season one, and I’ve collected my general impressions of the series so far:

Despite the fact that there is a lot of pot onscreen at all times, there’s very little screentime devoted to folks getting high. In fact, so far it’s mainly Nancy’s slacker brother-in-law, Andy, whose doing the majority of the smoking … while inappropriately IMing 15-year-old girls.

Weeds isn’t so much about marijuana itself as it is about what an upper-middle class woman will do to keep her station in life. To me, that’s much more appealing than a show that’s simply about selling pot. I find it interesting that when faced with the financial burden of her husband’s death, Nancy would rather sell drugs than get rid of her live-in housekeeper.

While the cast is especially strong, it’s nice to see a show with so many individually interesting characters. They are so well-written that even though Weeds centers around Nancy, I could see almost any character having a different series that centers ar0und him or her. I even find the children interesting, which doesn’t happen too often on a show like this.

I was worried about Elizabeth Perkins’ character, Celia. She was just one-dimensionally awful and bitchy in the pilot that I did not want to see any more of her. However, her reaction to both her husband’s adultery and her breast cancer have shown different and much more entertaining sides to her. In the last episode I watched, she tells Shane that she’s stopped giving a damn what other people think. She’s already crossed the ladies of the PTA by not making her muffins for the bake sale; I’m looking forward to whatever other dastardly deeds she comes up with. Also, her breast cancer seems like a very natural segue into using medical marijuana and finding out Nancy’s secret.

Nancy’s relationship with Conrad is really entertaining. I enjoy their uneasy friendship and tentative flirtation. They aren’t entirely sure what to think of each other, and it makes for a dynamic interaction. It’s not overplayed, it’s just an interesting thing  going on in the background. I’m excited to see where, if anywhere, it leads.

Also, good for Kevin Nealon getting work. Life can be hard for SNL alumni not named Will Ferrell, so it’s nice to see him out there collecting a steady paycheck.

While Weeds exceeded my expectations, it’s not a perfect show. One of my main problems with it is how aggressively edgy the characters are. I know that this show is supposed to show the slightly seedy underbelly of perfect upper-middle class domesticity, but I’m pretty sure that could be accomplished without a school psychologist telling a student that he is “a bitch-ass white boy.” Seriously. No one who works in a school system talks like that to a 10-year-old. I don’t care if they are in California. Nobody on this show treats children as if they are children. If there were a few characters who did this, I could buy it, but every single adult treating every single child like this is not believable to me.

Now that I’m getting ready to watch the last half of the season, I have a few questions going in; mainly I’m hoping to find out more about Nancy’s back story. How did she get started in the pot business? How did she meet Conrad and Heylia? She’s definitely the “cool mom”; was she always that way, or was that something that started to happen after her husband’s death? Speaking of which, why, exactly are they so broke? Did the money really go into their new kitchen, as the PTA ladies said in the pilot?

One last note: That theme song is insane. It’s been stuck in my head for the past few days, but I kind of love it. I’ve read online that a lot of people can’t stand it. What do you think?

Clacked by Kona Gallagher
on Jan 09, 2009 @ 13:03 EST5EDT