After an uneven but mostly entertaining seventh season, the finale to the latest Weeds cycle left something to be desired. Band Aid solutions, a lack of real tension, and a cliffhanger out of fucking nowhere all made for a finale that was somewhat less thrilling than the airport stand-off of season six. Then again, once you’ve had Nancy turn herself into the FBI to save herself and her family from being murdered by a Mexican drug boss/mayor, it’s hard to figure out where to go from there.
You Lumber And You’re An Ass
Re-introducing Nancy’s sister Jill into the show as a jealous saboteur adds both humor and pathos. She gives the show’s writer yet another chance to satirize white suburbanites’ racist tendencies (“are we being home invasion robbed?” she asks when Heylia and Pierre appear), and the insults with which she and Nancy needle each other are so sisterly it hurts. She also provides an important foil for Nancy, whose machinations in the drug world seem slightly more understandable when weighed against Jill’s alternative of “dying on the vine” and becoming an unhappy, alcoholic housewife.
Of course, Nancy’s world is exciting to Jill even as she prepares to use it to keep Stevie from her forever; a routine pick-up of the jacked weed from Dmitri‘s three army stooges provides her endless fun in the form of bong hits and physical validation; she’s overjoyed when she comes out on top in one round of a game of “do her, don’t do her.” “Oh no, I lost the rape contest,” Nancy responds, wearily. I doubt Jill even realizes that rape is an omnipresent threat in the life of a female drug dealer who must constantly deal with men who are bigger, crazier, and more heavily armed than her.
I Fucked Up
The episode’s most touching moments come when Silas, aided by Wise Uncle Andy and a trip to Charles‘ funeral, realizes he did a really shitty thing to his mother (whether the jacking was intentional or not), and takes steps to try to make things right again between them. The look of simultaneous happiness and dread he has on his face when Nancy puts him in a headlock and smothers him with motherly love might be Hunter Parrish‘s finest acting yet, bless his smokin’ hot little heart. Has Silas finally realized he doesn’t need Nancy’s permission to be his own person? Hopefully, because if there’s anything I’ve learned from watching seven seasons of this show, it’s that the Botwins survive as a unit or not at all.
You Got Some Internal Valve Inside You, Kid, And It’s Turned Off
Officer Wallette has finally recognized that Shane is a sociopathic mama’s boy, and takes pleasure in telling him about the world of shit he’s going to unleash on his mother even as he himself appears close to unraveling. Nobody makes an NYPD pig feel stupid and gets away with it! Unless, of course, you have something he wants. “What the fuck do you have that I want?” asks Wallette incredulously. Cut to two months later with Nancy still roaming free, and Shane is secretly attending a police academy. Is he going to become an undercover cop of some sort? I find it hard to believe that this would convince a man having rage dreams about the woman who fucked him over to leave her un-touched, but maybe this will grow clearer in the next season (if there is one). Maybe he saw an opportunity to use Shane’s intelligence and sociopathic tendencies for his own personal gain.
May We Not Kill One Another
I know, let’s resolve the huge plot issues with a jump forward in time. There, that’s good. In an effort to get Silas out of the city and working the land again after Heylia’s assertion that Silas was happiest this way rang true, Nancy has purchased a family compound in Connecticut with a little help from Doug Wilson. When presented wth this idea, I guess the previously intractable Jill was like, “sure, sister I hate and wish to see suffer. I will totally move my three kids (two of my own, plus the one I am keeping from you for his own good) across the country and live on your drug estate paid for with grifted Wall Street money. Shall I bring the ambrosia?” Jill is unpredictable, I guess.
We now come to the season’s infuriating tacked on cliffhanger, one that feels even less earned than that “Who Killed Jenny?” plot line in The L Word. After faking us out with a toy laser, the camera pans over to an actual hit man hiding in the bushes with Nancy in his sights. Bang goes the gun, and the screen goes simultaneously dark. I’m sorry, but what the fuck, Weeds? You are so cheap sometimes. I’m having trouble even thinking of anyone who wants Nancy dead at this point; Esteban is gone, Heylia got what she wanted, and Wallette has struck some sort of deal with Shane. In any case, there’s no way the show would do another season without its star and it has yet to be explicitly cancelled, so I’m pretty sure Nancy will survive. (Maybe that gun shot was Shane killing the sniper?) Whether or not the show will survive is another story.
Amazing Quote Of The Week
“Of course she’s up there dancing some surrealist masked death dance. Huh, she’s put on a little weight.”
-Andy, on Maxine, at Charles‘ funeral. Apparently Andy’s former polyamorous lover got knocked up by some guy named “Lanny.” I’m pretty sure “Lanny” is not a real name, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Andy is the father.
Amazing Still Of The Week
Doug continues to handle the SEC lady using only his improbably attractive-to-her body. Too bad he couldn’t be nice to her for a little longer…he’s going to need all the help he can get as CFO of a horrifically criminal financial firm. How serendipitously timely.
