Photo courtesy of Showtime
‘Weeds’: Mayor Unleashes the Beast on Nancy
With Celia’s over-the-top behavior this episode — her slurred speech skewing into baby talk, her fratty jokes falling off the beat — Weeds has once again veered into campy, wacky, quirky territory. We blame the writers, who failed to divulge why our friend has stepped so far into crazy land: Was it simply the jail time, poverty, and retail job? She’s taking some sort of drug, which Isabelle attempts to replace with a breakfast bar. But there’s nary a word on what it is, or what effects it’s having.
Nancy, often the most lethargic of quippers this season, does what she does best this week: showing impeccable irony in the face of absurd crisis. Sincerity, too. On a spontaneous date with the Mexican mayor, Nancy retires to the restroom just as a shoot-up goes down in the restaurant. When they decide to wait for their lunch, Nancy’s maternal wisdom melds with her valley-girl nonchalance as they discuss their greatest fears: heights for him; not being able to breathe after being shot at for Nancy. “I guess we all have our things,†Nancy reflects, melting the politician (and us, too).
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While the mayor introduces Nancy to his lion, the rest of her family deals with their inner beasts. Uncle Andy and Doug pat themselves on the back for helping the economy by smuggling a crew of sweet, unpaying Mexicans into the country. Celia cleans out the maternity-store register for a sniff of some sort of Mexican upper. Silas and his irritating MILF lover come up with a plan to grow in the back of her overly quaint cheese store. And Shane wallops a friendly surfer dude in the face with a lunch tray on his first day at school. “Don’t fuck with me,†he taunts as Dan, king of the school, writhes on the ground. Isabelle gawks at the scene with sweet regard. “Another school, another first day, another sweaty glass of social stigma,†she coos. “If only life were a Judd Apatow film.†This, we think, is better. —Emma Pearse