‘Weeds’: A River Runs Through It

Crucial Plot Point Number Two: Just when we thought the fictional town of Agrestic was a convenient metaphor for all of consumerist California, they go and turn it into the state’s rear end (“Some people say a horseshoe, others, a smile�). To dig it out of the fiscal gunk it’s mired in, they’re going to have to allow the adjoining town of Majestic to build a sewage pipeline through Agrestic.

Crucial Character Development: Shane is just the most adorable thing, with his Beatles haircut and those doe eyes. Last night, even before leaving for school in the morning, he fudged his Mom’s apparently first-ever résumé (turns out Nancy Botwin never got past her second semester at Berkeley), which didn’t fool her interviewer but still managed to get his dope-pushing mother “a real job.� “I’m just proud of you,� said the sad little sweetie, who will apparently do anything for his “scary drug lady� mother.

On a Scale of 1 to Pathetic: Uncle Andy (Justin Kirk) warded off total redundancy with a couple of snappy anti-nationalistic one-liners (“We’re the fucking insurgency; we’re a death-laden nations of religious hypocrites�) but did little last night except hold a cigarette lighter to his bare ass while his doomed partner took snapshots, Lynndie England style.

Major Disappointment: Nancy, despite our best justifications (she’s honest; she’s purdy; she’s doing what she’s gotta do), is the worst mother on television: Her boys are rolling in muck. Silas, for one, carried a bag of weed out of the kitchen and was apparently off to sell it on the streets, wearing a glow-in-the-dark road worker’s vest, and all she can say is, “We’ll discuss this later.�

Scattered Redeeming Moments: Nancy is the snuggliest mother on television: The way she looks at those boys when she asks if the creepy man who was inquiring about her dead second husband has been lurking in the yard is convincing and lovely and positively dreamy.

Crucial One-Liner: “If you’re gonna poop, make sure you can flush.� —Emma Pearse