The Final(e) Word

by Catherine Giordano

I get it. Series finales are hard. But that doesn’t mean the writers get to cop out and give us a poor series finale.

Breaking Bad ends good.
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There are three types of bad endings.

The ambiguous ending: If I wanted to figure it out for myself, I’d be in the writer’s room.

The slip-shod ending which leaves all the loose ends hanging—it makes me feel that the closing bell rang and everyone in the writers room just left

The just-plain-wrong-ending: We know what happened at the end and the story is pretty well wrapped up, but we feel cheated somehow.

The most famous ambiguous ending was The Sopranos.  The screen just went black.  I thought something had gone wrong with my TV or DVR, and it cut the show off just minutes before the end. I thought I’ll catch the ending when they rerun it for the West Coast.  Eventually, I found out, that was the ending. The ending is whatever you want it to be. Not cool!

The most famous slip-shod ending was Lost.  The show hadn’t made sense for the last few seasons, but I kept watching. I thought that since I had already put so much time into the series, I might as well ride it out to the end.  What was that ending about? They were all in God’s waiting room having some mass hallucination.
 

The most famous just-plain-wrong ending was the Seinfeld series finale. All the characters go to prison. Just because they were all not very nice people, if you thought about it or a minute, didn’t mean that we didn’t love them.  In a comedy, character traits are exaggerated—that is what makes it funny. But the characters don’t stray too far from reality—that is why we recognize ourselves in them.

Now we have the Breaking Bad finale. The show did everything right. Mr. White had triumphed because he accomplished what he had set out to do--provide financially for his family. Yes, he died at the end, but he had cancer. It would have been unrealistic for him to have had a second remission. His death was sad, but really if he had gone on living, it would have been even sadder. He had burned his bridges, his bridges to humanity. He had allowed himself to become corrupted by evil. There was nothing left for him.

Nonetheless, Mr. White’s death is noble. Mr. White uses his superior cunning to get revenge for the death of his brother-in-law and rids the world of a murderous den of jackels who had no humanity to begin with. And he saves Jesse. At the last minute he knows that Jesse was just a troubled kid and that he had dragged him into a hell-hole.

It was so fitting that Jesse not only escapes, but that he kills Todd mano-a-mano. Todd could have been mowed down in the machine gun fire like the rest of his gang, but he survives long enough to be killed by Jesse. It is like Jesse is killing the evil that took residence in his heart.  At the end, he drives off, laughing manically, free at last. Jesse has a future.

The loose ends are all tied up.  Even the ricin that was woven in and out of the plot for many seasons had a final role to play. Mr. White uses it to eliminate Lydia, the genteel drug mastermind who lets others do her dirty work while she reaps millions through her international amphetamine dealing business.  Mr. White plants the ricin in a packet of Stevia which Lydia uses in her tea thereby poisoning her. (A bit far-fetched, but so neat.)

Weeds also had a great series finale. They used the flash forward technique. The family has gone their separate ways, but they have reunited for the bar mitzvah of the youngest son.  Their problems have not all evaporated, but they have all settled into the lives that are right for them. Fortunately, weed has been legalized so life is good for the two who remain in the business.—Nancy Botwin and her eldest son Shane.  In the last minutes of the finale, the Botwin clan all sort of drift out onto the porch one by one and sit quietly together side by side as a light snow falls. Tomorrow they will go their separate ways, but tonight they are a family and old wounds have healed.

The season finale of Dexter was a disappointment. We did not want to see Debra die—she could have overcome her past sins.  But, I was OK with it—sometimes “good” people die and “evil” people survive. The producer said in an interview that when Dexter pulls the plug on Debra it was not a mercy killing, and that makes me even more confused about the ending. I totally saw it as a mercy killing. After burying Debra at sea, as penance for his murders, and most especially for the death of his sister, he drives his boat at top speed into an on-rushing hurricane. Swallowed by a hurricane, a great metaphor, for a person who was engulfed by murderous urges.

   

But then we find Dexter is alive. His penance will be to live a life of isolation. It’s kind of ambiguous. Will his penance last only a few years or is it a lifetime sentence?  It also feels wrong. If he has chosen not to die, shouldn’t it have been because he would not abandon his son. 

He has left the boy in the care of Hannah, not the first person to come to mind when someone says "loving mother.” I think Hannah loved Harrison enough to be a good mother with Dexter at her side as husband and father, but on her own?  No way.  She is essentially a selfish person—she murdered an old woman, her benefactor, because she could not wait to inherit her business after the woman’s natural death.  She murdered a number of others also—anyone who was a threat to her. My feeling is she will soon tire of the responsibility of a child, and who knows what happens to the poor kid then.

Now, I understand that it might have been a bit strange to see Hannah and Dexter walk hand in hand into the sunset even if they were totally reformed from their previous murderous ways. Evil must be punished!  But on the other hand, neither had much of a conscience--they could have shrugged off their previous murderous ways and walked off into that sunset.  In real life, evil is not always punished.

I thought the best ending for Dexter was for him to die saving his sister from Oliver Saxon and then Hannah goes off to pursue new interests and Debra marries Quinn and takes care of Harrison and becomes a novelist, writing crime novels, one of which is a book titled "Dexter." Debra getting all maternal and “normal-lifey” is a bit of stretch, but possible.

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Even the tying off of loose ends was not done very well.  Who was the person seen in the video being forced to kill for “The Brain Surgeon?”  Why did Dr. Vogel think that psychopaths were a gift to civilization? As for the killing of Oliver by Dexter, it seemed perfunctory.  It should have been the central emotional high of the episode. Dexter’s final kill!

Finales are hard. We don’t want to see our favorite characters go. But if they must go, we want them to go out right. Don’t let a great series break bad.

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Showtime's Weeds "It's Time" Series Finale #812

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The title of Season 8 Episode 12 is “It’s Time.” Yes, it is time to say goodbye to the Botwins. I’m going to miss them. Since I always do this thing where I rename the episode, I rename this one, “It’s Time to Say Goodbye.

This was one of the best series finales I have ever seen for a TV series. Earlier in the season, I named one of the episodes “Happily Ever After.” As the season wore on, it looked like we were not going to get a “happily ever after,” but in episode 12, we did. Mostly.

The season began eight years after the point at which we left the Botwins a week ago.  Little Stevie is 13 years old now. The whole clan, including old friends, is getting together for Stevie’s bar mitzvah.

A lot has happened in the eight years. Andy left Nancy and moved back to California. (The consummation of his feelings for Nancy apparently broke the spell she had cast over him.) He had joined Nancy’s household to help her with her young sons after Nancy’s husband (Andy’s brother) died. However, the real reason he came to live with Nancy is that he was “lost.” In psycho-babble talk, “He needed to find himself.”  He was never going to do that until he got away from Nancy.

Andy now owns a restaurant in Ren Mar, California. It’s a small place--the kind where you come in and eat whatever the chef has chosen to make that night. He is not married, but he has a daughter that he co-parent’s with the girl’s mother, who is just a friend, not a lover. Andy has not spoken to Nancy since he left. But he stays in touch with Silas, his nephew, and that is how Nancy gets news about Andy. (Silas by the way, married Megan, and they now have a baby.)

After that that fateful encounter with Andy, Nancy married Rabbi Dave and converted to Judaism. Dave adopted Nancy’s son, Stevie. She now lives a quiet life as a suburban matron. Now that would be a “happily ever after” except she is a widow again. A car accident this time.

This is the black-widow moment of the show. Nancy has been married four times and every husband has died. Her first husband, Judah, died of a heart attack. Her second husband, the DEA agent Peter, died at the hands of drug dealers. Her third husband,   Mexican drug lord and politician, Esteban, was murdered in prison. Her last husband, Rabbi Dave, died in a car accident. Nancy is now using a match-making service to find dates (and maybe her fifth husband).

Despite being a widow again, Nancy is doing well. Marijuana has been legalized in most of the country, and she has a chain of 50 stores called “The Good Seed Marijuana Café.”  (Silas buys a pack of “Dragon Puffs” in a drug store. One small question: Is that the Botwin brand?  Also, Silas is a partner in Nancy’s business; he does the growing, so why would he buy his weed in a drug store? Just so we can see that it is being sold over-the counter and not just in medical marijuana dispensaries?)

Nancy has also improved her wardrobe. She used to where sexy shamta’s, skimpy dresses that came close to baring all. Now she dresses with a little more class. Still sexy, but classy sexy.

Doug is in seventh heaven, living as a very rich guru with female acolytes in constant attendance. Night and day, if you catch my drift. But Doug is a good guy at heart; his group helps the homeless.  

The tobacco company guy from South Carolina, Crick, reappears to tell Nancy that Starbucks wants to buy the business. Nancy owns 51% of the business, and refuses to sell. (The remaining 49% is apparently split between Silas, Conrad, Guillermo, Doug, and Crick. (One small question: How did Nancy wind up with 51% while the others have to split the 49%. Just so Nancy can refuse to sell?) But in the end, she goes along with her partners and agrees to sell. Nancy is now most likely out of the weed business for good.

Shane has not been doing too well. He’s a crooked cop, an alcoholic, and a womanizer—all no doubt thanks to his “mentor” Mitch. (One small question:  Shane is sporting a large bushy mustache. I thought police had to be clean shaven.  I’m guessing the purpose of the mustache is to make Shane look older and bit depraved.) But even here we have a “happily ever after” waiting in the wings--Nancy persuades him to go to rehab.

Stevie seems to be a well adjusted young man, but he has a moment of disequilibrium when Guillermo tells him the truth about his biological father. (Nancy had told him only that his father was a politician who died.) This leads to an identity crisis. “I don’t know who I am,” Stevie says. He’s being bar-mitzvahed, but he questions whether of not he is a Jew. “I’m not one of the chosen,” he says. “My father was Catholic, my mother was Methodist I don’t know what my religion is. It may turn out to be “No “God-ism.” Lucky for Nancy, kids are resilient. He’s having a good time at his party. At one point, he takes the microphone to give a little speech, and he announces that he loves his mother.

Stevie wants to go to boarding school where he can play soccer. Nancy doesn’t want him to go, but she finally relents. She realizes that for the first time in her life, she is going to be entirely alone.  Andy and Nancy have a final tête-à-tête. “Come back” she says, with tears in her voice.“Come back.” Andy gently tells her no. “I have a life I like.  I’m not leaving it.” Then Nancy says she will go to Ren Mar to live with him. Again, Andy says no. Nancy will have to move into the next stage of her life on her own. I have a feeling Nancy will be OK. She’s a very rich woman now with great business skills. I hope she starts a foundation.  

The final moment of the show starts with Nancy sitting on the porch steps in front of her house in a light snowfall. The music for this scene is “With Arms Outstretched." The lyrics are ”16 miles to the promised land and I promise you I’m doing the best I can.” One by one, Doug, Silas, Andy, and Shane come out of the house and sit silently with her as they pass around a joint. They sit stone-faced for a while, but soon smiles break out, even broad grins. See, it is happily ever after, after all.

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Showtime Weeds "God Willing and the Creek Don't Rise"

Ah, home sweet home! The Botwins are back in Agrestic (now reincarnated as Regrestic) where it all started. The opening credit’s visuals have reverted to scenes of Agrestic.  (It looks just the way it did when we first met the Botwins.)  And the Ticky-Tacky song is being sung sweetly. It's episode 11 or Season 8 entitled "God Willing and the Creek Don't Rise."  

It’s “Old Home Week” in Agrestic/Regrestic.  So many of the characters we once knew and loved are back in the picture.  Some are important to the plot, some are just cameos. So, while I love the actual name of this episode, I’m going to rename it “Everything Old is New Again.”

Nancy reconnects with Conrad. They talk about old times and new times and high times.  Nancy has a plan to grow medical marijuana and she wants Conrad back in the game with her. Conrad has reformed; he’s getting married, he wants no part of it.  Nancy is persistent. She meets up with Conrad at a dance studio where he is taking dance lessons for his wedding. (Don’t couples usually do the dance-lesson thing together—why is Conrad dancing with Nancy?  Perhaps the producers just wanted us to see them cheek to cheek again.)  Nancy continues to try to persuade him to join her venture; Conrad still refuses.

Andy reconnects with Yael, who works at a Hebrew school. They were an item for a season, and Andy has decided that she is the only girl in the world for him.  She doesn’t remember him. That is the “you-sure-know-how-to-hurt-a-guy” moment of the week.  And, indeed, Andy is hurt.  Andy is screaming his angst from the rooftops. “We are dying meat.” We are utterly alone.”  "There is no plan … but a slow certain decomposition."  A soliloquy to rival Hamlet’s.

Silas reconnects with his high school sweetheart, “the deaf girl,” Megan. He had gotten her pregnant (he now confesses that he did it deliberately) and her parents sent Megan way. Silas tells Megan that she is the only girl her has ever loved. It turns out Megan still loves him too, so all is good between Silas and Megan.  (But don’t get too comfortable, next week’s show is an hour long, and who knows what plot twists await us.)

Meanwhile, back in Connecticut, Shane is busted by internal affairs for joy-riding in an impounded car. The agents tell Shane he can go to prison or he can rat out his mentor, Mitch. Shane denounces Mitch to the agents, and it looks like he is about to give state’s evidence.  But, he then denounces the agents too, refuses to give any evidence, and slams his badge on the table. Whereupon Mitch enters the room, and he and all the agents have a good laugh. The “agents” were imposters and Mitch was only testing Shane’s loyalty.  Mitch is slapping Shane on the back, Shane takes his badge back—being a policemen is really important to him, but is he just going to laugh off this “practical joke”?

Doug has decided to get out of the homeless shelter business. He decides that the religion business can be much more lucrative. His first disciples are his tribe of the homeless. Their sacrament is weed. Doug always has a new scheme.

Nancy is determined to move ahead with her business plan to grow medical marijuana.  She has purchased five acres of land near Agrestic. However, her old nemesis, Guillermo, who came this close to killing her in a previous season, has claimed Agrestic as his territory. Nancy will have to enlist him before proceeding. Conrad tries to warn her off, but Nancy is nothing if not a risk taker. She finds Guillermo in a park having at a birthday party for his daughter. Guillermo is not in a forgiving mood, and he pulls a gun on Nancy. Conrad arrives in the nick of time; he has a gun of his own, and we have one of those three-way gun showdowns. Conrad tells Nancy he’s in, and Guillermo is persuaded by the promise of riches, along with respectability, to join forces with them.

Later Conrad and Nancy are at Conrad’s wedding reception discussing their new business venture. Nancy is anticipating success, “God willing and the creek don’t rise,” she says. Conrad responds “The creek, she always rises.” This is the ”life-has-taught-me-to be-a-fatalist, pessimistic- cynic” moment of the week.

Shane is all lovey-dovey with Megan. Andy is there too, drowning his sorrows. Nancy asks Andy to leave with her, and she takes him to the suburban street where Judah, Nancy’s husband, died of a heart attack while out on a run. As they stand in front of a house on this quiet street, Andy tells her he’s got to move on, but Nancy begs him to stay. It’s an emotional scene that ends with some passionate splendor in the grass. 

Will Nancy and Andy finally be a couple? (It’s so Biblical when the dead husband ‘s brother marries the widow.) I don’t think so. After their moment of passion, Andy, more confused and distraught than ever, leaves Nancy in the grass and runs away. Now it is Nancy who is distraught as her cries of “Andy, Andy” are ignored.

The season finale is next Sunday. One whole hour to wrap everything up.  How do you think they will end up? 

This picture of Nancy with Guillermo is from http://examiner.com

Showtime Weeds #810 “It’s In Their Blood”

The Ticky-Tacky song, that plays each week during the opening credits, a unique version of the song each week, sounded a bit soulful this week and was definitely more mellow than in recent weeks. Does it portend good things for the Botwins?

 

Nancy is invited to Shabbos dinner by Rabbi Dave to meet his friends. This is an important event so Nancy has to find just the right outfit and accessories (e.g. shoes). Nancy usually lets it all hang out, but for this dinner she wisely chooses something more conservative--a brown high-necked sheath dress. (Is it tobacco brown?)

 

During this dinner she discovers that Rabbi Dave has only been a widow for 15 months.  This scares Nancy off. She feels that it is too soon for Rabbi Dave to form a new relationship because it took her much longer to get over the death of her husband Judah. When she gets home, Andy asks her how the evening went. She says “Good shoes, bad timing.”  I’m renaming this episode “Good Shoes, Bad Timing” just because I I think it sounds deep and profound.  Also, because there is a lot of bad timing going on in the Botwin household.

 

On the previous episode, Andy married a young lady he had only met that day. I think he felt like I felt when I got married—he just didn’t want to date anymore. Things are not working out that well. The lady is 22 years old and sweet, but she is a bit of a child bride.  She married Andy because she thought it would be a fun thing to do. The you sure-know-how-to-hurt-a-guy moment of the week is when Andy’s bride says, “You remind me of my father.” Andy realizes that this marriage is not going to last past day two. (I don’t think the marriage has even been consummated, although that would be unusual for Andy who usually consummates within hours if not minutes.)  Bad timing—in that Andy was born at least 20 years after the date of his bride’s birth.

 

Silas wants to take his plants from the lab where he has been working so he can develop them for his new tobacco industry partner. He makes a late night visit to the lab and bad timing—he is caught.  He has to leave the plants behind and he is fired.

 

Shane and Angela had a bit of bad timing in the last episode when Ice P’s gang discovered them driving around in Ice P’s car. Ice P’s guys liberated the car and left the two rookie cops by the side of the road. But Shane and Angela have some good timing this week when they find the car. The two gang members are involved in some homo-erotic activities so they don’t see Shane and Angela.  Shane tases them with possibly disastrous consequence for the “bottom.”  (There’s something about that car that makes everyone who rides in it romantically inclined.)

 

Doug has taken all his homeless people to a motel where they are doing some loud group therapy.  He’s doing the positive thinking shtick . A motel employee, a young woman, comes to the door to tell them to keep the noise down and ends up joining the group. Is her arrival some good timing for Doug?  Will Cupid’s arrow strike? (No double-entendre intended.)

 

The tobacco people have given Shane $350,000 to start developing marijuana for them.  No contract, just a handshake, because a handshake is all the good-ol-boys in South Carolina need.  (And besides they can’t be associated with the venture.) The tobacco guy explains that no one has ever gone back on a handshake before. But none of them had ever met Nancy before. She has plans for that money and it doesn’t involve Big Tobacco. The money has arrived just in the nick of time. She wants to return to Agrestic, California, back where our story began.  Her plan is to do medical marijuana the right way. Sell the marijuana without the pharmaceutical setting, sell it in a boutique.  Perhaps she’ll add some candles, and music, and arty stuff.

 

One more episode and then we’ll have the one-hour series finale.  Weeds is out of time.



This picture is from www.tvequals.com

Showtime Weeds Episode 809 “Saplings”

Season 8, episode 9, only three more to come before we leave the Botwins forever.  Make the most of it. I watch each episode twice every week. 

Episode 809 is named “Saplings.” It refers to a line in the show about bending the sapling so it will grow in the desired way. Nancy says she had no luck bending the sapling. Of course she did! Silas grows weed and Shane is embarking on a life of crime. Both act to satisfy their desires heedless of risks. I’d say the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Doug managed to get one resident into his homeless shelter, and he figured he was home free. Only the next day, the social worker shows up with a whole tribe of homeless, gathered from the overflow of every shelter in a 100 mile radius. These people are now all Doug’s, and they are an ornery lot. He’s got to keep them happy, or he’ll slip below 85% occupancy, lose everything, and probably go to jail. But Doug will work it out. He and Nancy—they are both survivors.

Silas does not like working for Big Pharma, so he is very receptive when s Big Tobacco comes calling. They want to set him up in an extra-legal grow-lab so they will be ready as soon as marijuana is made legal. Silas and the tobacco company rep seal the deal with a handshake over Nancy’s objections. The most ominous moment of the week is when Nancy asks what happens if Silas get caught and the tobacco company guy says,“Then this meeting never happened.”

By the way, the tobacco company has a mock-up of the marijuana ciggies package.  The brand is “Kemo Sabes.”  A cute name, right?  It means “my friends.” The “Duh-how-could-I-missed-that moment of the week occurs when Nancy points out the “Kemo Sabes” sounds like chemotherapy. Not exactly the connotation tobacco company would want.   

The I-know just-how-she-feels moment of the week is when Nancy says to Silas, “I know you are an adult, but I’m still your mother” as she tries to dissuade Silas from joining up with Big Tobacco. Sigh!

Shane takes one of the impounded cars out for a joy ride and invites Angela, his new lady-friend who is also a cop (They met at the police academy) to hop in for a ride. The license plate reads “Ice P” so we know they are headed for trouble. Soon they are parked and loving it up. Unfortunately, they are spotted by members of Ice P’s gangwho recognize the car . They steal Angela’s gun, and throw both of them half-naked out of the car as they repossess the vehicle and drive off. Someone is gonna have some ‘splaining to do.

Rabbi Dave got it on with Nancy in the last episode and the Hebrew school boys are all abuzz with the gossip about the rabbi diddling a goy under the ark. Dave confesses to Andy that it is true, except it was in his office, not under the ark.  This is the that-makes-it-all-good-then moment of the week. Rabbi Dave, Andy, and one of the Hebrew school boys all head to a waffle restaurant for a heart-to-heart.

Andy tells Dave not to feel guilty about his tryst with Nancy. There’s no covenant against it in Judaism, he says, “as long as it is not with a child, or a donkey, or a Gibbonite, according to Deuteronomy.”  He also warns Dave that Nancy hasn’t truly loved anyone since Judah dies.  Dave plaintively asks, “Do you think she’s capable of loving someone.”  Andy doesn’t know the answer.  I think the rabbi has fallen hard. There is a glimmer of hope that Nancy has some feelings for him too.

Jill has left town and Andy soul searching.  He wants to resign from the “girl-of-the –month club and settle down. Andy notices the pretty girl-next-door waitress iwith the bubbly personality.  She’s sweet, she’s adorable, and Andy knows he has met “The One.”  They get hitched at City Hall that very day.

"Saplings" is a perfectly good name for this episoe, but I am going to name it “Kemo Sabes” because, in a way, everyone has fond new friends.

 

I noticed that the opening song “Ticky-Tacky” has calmed down a lot to a more normal tempo and volume.  Perhaps that is an indication that the Botwins are calming down also.

 

 

                                  This is the logo for "Weeds"

Weeds on Showtime: #808

The name of Showtime's "Weeds" episode 8 of season 8 is “Five Miles from Yetzer Hara.” (“Yetzer hara” is Hebrew for evil. The rabbi explains to Nancy that God places us equidistant from good and evil, and we must choose.)

I’m changing the name to “From Better to Worse.” Things were getting better on Weeds, but now they are getting worse. The opening Ticky-Tacky song should clue you in that things are not going well. Each week the rendition of the song is angrier, louder, more raucous.  

Nancy did so well at her new job as a rep for a pharmaceutical company—she received a whole new, very large, territory. It is going to require her to be away from home for two weeks at a time. She doesn’t like having to be away from her young son, little Stevie.   

Her dilemma is solved when a doctor’s receptionist offers to buy all her samples of generic adderall—it’s called “speed” by users. She then resells them to the local college kids for $10 a pill. At first Nancy refuses, but it’s not long before she gives in to temptation. She got out of dealing weed; but now she’s dealing prescription drugs. She’s also back to lying. She tells her boss that her car with all her samples inside was stolen. (He gives her mores samples.) She’s also back to partying. We see her dancing wildly at a frat party.

And there’s more of Nancy being bad. She seduces the rabbi. I don’t think she takes rejection well. His refusal to do the nasty on short acquaintance only made her totally determined to have her way with him. It’s unclear what Nancy feels, but the rabbi is obviously falling in love with her.

Jill learns that she is not pregnant. She’s starting menopause early. Her messed up hormones resulted in a false positive on the pregnancy test. Andy is angry at her because she knew three weeks ago that she was not pregnant.  Andy was all psyched up about fatherhood and he is very disappointed. Jill tells Andy, “What do you want—crying babies or screaming orgasms?” This is my “when-you-put-it-that-way-the-answer-seems-obvious” moment of the week. But it turns out that Andy chooses babies, and he and Jill break up.

Shane is working with crocked cops. When the cops impound cars, they sometimes “lose the paperwork.” They are selling the cars. Shane is shocked, but then the cops hand him his cut. Now Shane is back to loving his job.

Doug is scamming—getting funds by claiming to be running a homeless shelter. He needs to get some people living at his shelter. No shelter clients, no more money. Worse yet, he could be charged with fraud. He attempts to persuade a feisty homeless woman to move into his shelter; she finds his pleas annoying and sticks him with a pen knife. But Doug has a work-around. He swipes some of Nancy’s medical marijuana pills, grinds them up, and sprinkles the resulting powder in a sandwich. The woman eats it, and apparently is blissed-out enough for Doug to transport her to the shelter. Crisis averted.

Silas is unhappy about marijuana being made into pills. I guess he is just a traditionalist.  The marijuana mystique is lost if you just swallow a pill. The ritual is part of the high; a pill is ticky-tacky. I have a feeling that Silas is going to go extra-legal real soon.   

Everyone on Weeds has fallen from the straight and narrow, except maybe little Stevie.  But he’s only five.  Maybe he’ll be next and we’ll see him dealing illicit Twinkies to his kindergarten classmates.

I found this picture at http://weedsconfessions.tumblr.com

Weeds on Showtime #807 "Unfreeze"

Things are starting to gel for the Botwin clan. Everyone is going legit and making it work.

 Andy has a job. Several seasons ago, Andy started studying to be a rabbi. He did it to get close to a woman he was pursuing, and it didn’t last very long. The rabbi business  and the woman. But that training has now been a boon. The training and the next door neighbor who is a rabbi have gotten Andy a job. He is teaching Hebrew school. The bunch of unruly boys at the Hebrew school tested him to see what they could get away with, but Andy’s innate ability to handle any situation soon had the boys under his spell. 

Nancy has a job. She is a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company.  She gets put to the test also. She is sent out to the most hostile doctor on their roster. She has been set up to fail. But Nancy has that innate ability to handle any situation and she prevails. It involves some muffins, some doctor way-laying in a parking garage, and some just old fashioned doctor-laying in the parking garage, but she gets to leave her samples and wins the doctor as a customer for her firm’s drugs. Whatever else you say about Nancy, she knows how to sell drugs.

Shane has a job. He’s on some sort of mysterious assignment now that he has graduated from the police academy.

Silas has a job. He’s in seventh heaven working on developing the best-legal-marijuana- ever for the same pharmaceutical company that Nancy works for.  

There’s some doubt as to who is the biological father of Jill’s baby, Andy or Doug, but Andy steps up. He wants to be the father of the baby. He wants to stay with Jill.  Jill is happy with the arrangement.  Do I hear wedding bells?

The Botwin clan going straight.  Who would have thunk it?

The not-to be-missed moment of the week:  Nancy’s triumphant smile when her nemesis at her new job, who set her up for failure, learns that Nancy has triumphed.

I found this picture at http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net

Note: I posted Andy’s (actor Justin Kirk) picture. He’s so very handsome. No wonder all the ladies want a piece of him. If I were a teenager, I’d want this picture hanging on my wall. 

Weeds on Showtime: Happily Ever After?

The show appears to be resolving the issues of the various characters and heading towards a happily-ever-after ending.  Or is it all just red herrings.

Nancy appears to be staying in the drug business, but now it’s the legal drug business.  She dumped a few bales of weed into the neighbor’s wood chipper—she felt like she needed to be free of the deadly-reefer drug. Her oldest son Silas, had all the plants in his grow house stolen.  So the family is fresh out of the “Mary-Jane.

Nancy meets a man while attending Stevie’s (her youngest son) soccer game. He helps her get a job at his drug firm. Wouldn’t you know it, they are developing synthetic marijuana, so Nancy is right in her element. She gets Silas a job there as a researcher  which is another perfect fit. The two of them appear to be going legit. It could mean a happily-ever-after future for them both.

Andy and Jill had a falling out.  Andy had sex with a babe at the skating rink, and so to get even, Jill had sex with Doug. (Ewww.) However, it appears that they have decided to let bygones be bygones, and they are back together. So Andy will possibly marry the sister of his dead brother’s wife. Jill is a handful and Andy is lust-addled—so will this be happily- ever-after for them? Maybe.

Shane, nancy’s middle son, seems set on a career as a policeman, and he is dating a little cutie that he met at the police academy. This could definitely be happily-ever-after.

We are left only with a finding a man for Nancy. I thought her second husband, the DEA agent ,might resurface. But lately she has been getting friendly with her next door neighbor.  Friendly, but not too friendly. He is a rabbi and does not engage in recreational sex. He appears to be a good, gentle, and understanding man. He may be just what Nancy needs.  But does he need her—she’s a wild and crazy gal. But, it would bring the story full circle. Nancy is a shiksa who married a Jewish man and now she might marry another Jewish man, a rabbi, no less.  This could be the happily-ever-after for Nancy.



http://mettelray.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/weeds_tv_series_wallpaper_3_1024.jpg

Weeds "Only Judy Can Judge"

Season 8 Episode 4 continues with the theme of one big happy family.  Nancy, her three sons (Silas, Shane and Stevie), her dead first husband’s brother (Andy) her sister (Jill), Jill’s daughters, and even a friend-of-the family* (Doug) are all living under one roof. Silas and Shane have even each invited a friend to join the dinner party on the patio. Nancy tempts fate by standing at the head of the table to repeat the toast she was in the midst of giving when she was shot. No one is shot..

[*I could also describe Doug as Nancy’s former employer (twice over), former sex partner, and former partner-in-crime, but friend of the family seems to best describe his current relationship to Nancy.]

Sweetest Moment of the Week:  Nancy and little Stevie go for a late night swim in the neighbor's pool. Stevie starts to emotionally reconnect with his mother after her long absence (prison, hospitalization, and for a time, Jill’s refusal to allow Nancy to see the boy who was in Jill’s care while Nancy was in prison.)

Dirtiest Moment of the Week: Doug gets into a war with a neighbor, and the excrement keeps escalating. It begins with the neighbor’s dog leaving a smelly token of his visit on the porch of the Nancy’s family’s home. It goes from bad to “oh-no, I can’t believe they did that.”

Coolest Moment of the Week: This is the coolest moment every week. The show opens with the song “Little Boxes” written by Malvina Reynolds.  (“Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky, Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same.”)  This was the theme music for the show’s first few seasons, but then it was dropped.  Now that Nancy and family are back in suburbia (Connecticut now; Agrestic, California before) the theme song is back. Each week it is sung by a different vocalist with a different arrangement which makes the song new each time. I look forward to seeing what they will do with the song each week. As the song plays, a fast–motion hand is drawing the history of the show, depicting all the places Nancy has lived since Season 1, Episode 1. (Even if you don’t watch the show, catch the opening credits and song.)  

This is still a great show.  Get the DVD and watch from the beginning.

Weeds "See Blue and Smell Cheese and Die"

Season 8/ Episode 3

You can feel the show wrapping up loose ends and coming to a close.  It’s like at the end of August (even in Florida) you can feel the impending autumn in the air even though it is still hot.  And Weeds is still plenty hot.
 

Nancy’s brother-in-law Andy has been putting in some serious sack-time with Nancy’s sister.  Even in Nancy’s hospital room.  Don’t worry, it wasn’t weird.  Nancy was in a coma at the time.  Anyhow,  Jill’s husband has left her,  Jill’s kids are starting to warm up to Andy when he becomes their hockey coach, and I think  Jill may be “The One” for Andy..  Will Andy finally give up womanizing and settle down.

Speaking of "The One", will Nancy and her second husband, Peter Scottson, be reunited? Nancy secretly married him in the second season, but he was a DEA agent and he was killed. Tragically, Nancy’s drug dealings appear to have played a role in his death.  Death makes the likelihood of a reunion between the two a tad unlikely, but, hey, this is TV.  .  Also, as I remember it, he is presumed dead; I don’t think they ever found a body. Perhaps his death was faked and he’s been working undercover all this time.  I always liked Peter and I’d like to see him and Nancy back together. 

 

The reason I starting to hope for this reunion is because Nancy’s son , Shane has discovered “the shooter” –the person who shot Nancy in the head.  It is Peter’s son from his first marriage Tim, who blames Nancy for his father’s death.  Perhaps Peter’s son has been added to the show as a foreshadowing of Peter’s return.  Nancy is clearly a “manizer” (if men can womanize, why can’t women womanize.?), but perhaps she will settle down at the end of the last season..

But I digress.  Back to the plot. When Nancy and her older son, Silas, learn what Shane his discovered, a mad dash ensues to find Tim and get him into hiding before Shane finds him and kills him.  All three of them find Tim at about the same time, but Shane does not kill Tim, he arrests him. 

Shane, who killed a woman in a previous season when he overheard her plotting to kill Nancy, and who has shown psychopathological tendencies ever since, has joined the police force. 

See what I mean about wrapping up the loose ends.

Weeds on Showime

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