Mary-Louis Parker as Nancy Botwin and Justin Chatwin as Josh Wilson (Season 8: episode 12)
Photo: MICHAEL DESMOND/Showtime
There was a time when Weeds was the buzziest show around, when you couldn’t open an Esquire without finding Mary Louise Parker smirking on its pages, when the show seemed scandalous and notable. That was about eight years ago. As of last night, Weeds is no more. The show finished its eighth season with an hour-long series finale that jumped a few years into the future, giving us a glimpse of where the Botwins et al ended up. (Rich, mostly.) But Weeds took what can generously be called a meandering path to that finale — a path that had more detours and dead ends than any reasonable show should be able to pull off. Here’s a quick list of some of the many things Nancy has done over the course of this show.
- Decided to sell pot
- Tripped a child
- Sold drugs at her son’s soccer game
- Blackmailed a high-school drug dealer
- Resisted her frenemy/neighbor Celia’s sexual advances
- Pawned her engagement ring
- Was fired on in a drive-by shooting (escaped unscathed)
- Did basically nothing after her 9-year-old made faux-terrorist videos
- Entangled herself in her brother-in-law Andy’s sex life
- Had unprotected sex with a rival drug dealer on the hood of his car
- Rebuffed that drug dealer’s more romantic overtures
- Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble
- Opened a bakery as a front
- Passive-aggressively put a hit out on the guard who stole from her front-bakery
- Met and fell for Peter, who turned out to be a DEA agent
- Orchestrated an insurance-fraud scheme to burn down her front-bakery, which funded a new marijuana-growing collective
- Sort of helped Andy apply for rabbinical school
- Secretly eloped with Peter the DEA agent (after like, three dates) to prevent him from ever testifying against her
- Bought a grow house
- Used fake Canadian identification for a woman named “Lacy LaPlanteâ€
- Leveraged her secret marriage with Peter to have him take down another rival drug lord
- Bought Silas a car to comfort him after his girlfriend’s abortion
- Had seemingly no reaction to a dog biting off most of Andy’s toes
- Started selling MILF weed, so named by Snoop Dogg himself
- Used information gleaned from Peter to help some of her drug-trafficking pals
- Schemed with Conrad to ditch Peter
- Discovered Peter had wire-tapped her
- Smooched Conrad
- Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble
- Refused to let Silas in on the drug-dealing action
- Used an axe to chop down Silas’s door
- Found herself being held at gunpoint by a variety of drug traffickers after Silas stole her stash
- Fired Lupita after years of diligent service
- Let Silas in on the drug-dealing action
- Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble
- Became a drug mule for U-Turn
- Did a “brick dance†for Guillermo, which was basically just using her feminine wiles to get out of trouble
- Tried to evade DEA questioning about Peter’s death
- Used her feminine wiles to get a job working for the town planner
- Was fired on in another drive-by shooting (unscathed, again, though this time her comrade Marvin was hit)
- Incited Marvin to jealousy, so much so that Marvin killed U-Turn
- Slept with the town planner
- Befriended Peter’s ex-wife
- Gave Peter’s ex-wife his insurance settlement in a faux-penance for, you know, getting him killed
- Got blackmailed by a private investigator working for Peter’s ex-wife
- Threatened to murder Celia, and actually held a knife to her throat
- Got a U-Turn tattoo
- Moved her grow-house to Celia’s house
- Smooched Conrad
- Convinced Guillermo to start a wildfire
- Burned her own house down
- Moved to Ren Mar, which borders Tijuana
- Smuggled prescription drugs back and forth across the border
- Was attacked by birds
- Continued working for Guillermo as a mule
- Smothered her grandmother-in-law with a pillow, by request
- Made out with Andy in the Mexican desert (as part of a cover story, but … come on)
- Ditched Andy in the Mexican desert
- Convinced Guillermo not to kill Celia
- Opened a maternity store at Guillermo’s behest
- Employed Celia at said maternity store
- Discovered a tunnel that connected her store to Mexico, which Guillermo et al used for drug and human trafficking
- Met Esteban, politician and drug kingpin
- Got spanked by Esteban
- Met the lion Esteban kept in his home
- Started dating Esteban in earnest
- Took ayahuasca with Esteban
- Narced on Guillermo and Esteban
- Admitted to Esteban that she was pregnant with his child
- Shipped Shane off to live with her lunatic sister Jill
- Burned through several bodyguards Esteban assigned to her
- Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble
- Refused to pay any kind of ransom to get Celia back
- Moved to Mexico to live with Esteban
- Tricked Andy into helping her deliver her child in the United States
- Listed Andy on baby Stevie’s birth certificate
- Survived being shot at by one of Pilar’s assassins
- Shot Cesar
- Married Esteban
- Put a hit out on Pilar
- Got Guillermo moved to a Mexican jail
- Got Esteban sent to prison
- Benefited from Shane murdering Pilar
- Fled Mexico, on account of Shane murdering Pilar
- Rescued her OB-GYN from a hostage scenario
- Did not acknowledge absence of Celia
- Moved to Seattle
- Changed her identity and the identities of the rest of the Botwin clan
- Crossed a picket line to work in a hotel
- Started selling pot from the hotel
- Tried to dissolve the romantic tension between her and Andy
- Got entangled with more rival drug dealers
- Moved to Montana
- Bought an RV
- Decided to live off the grid under the assumed identities
- Moved to Michigan
- Manipulated a former teacher she once had an affair with
- Did not notice that Silas discovered Judah was not his biological father
- Helped Andy “reinvent†quaaludes
- Submitted to a long interview with a journalist, detailing her ridiculous life
- Got kidnapped by Guillermo and Esteban
- Again out-smarted Guillermo and Esteban, ensuring they both went back to prison
- Confessed to murdering Pilar
- Went to prison for three years
- Became involved in a prison romance
- Received a Russian prison tattoo
- Moved to halfway house in New York
- Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble
- Convinced the far-flung Botwins to move to New York with her
- Started dealing drugs again, thanks to a hook-up from her prison-girlfriend’s brother
- Became briefly infamous thanks to her signature U-Turn tattoo
- Let Silas in on the drug-dealing action, again
- Traded weapons for drugs
- Took her lunatic sister Jill to court to regain custody of Stevie
- Returned to Agrestic to beg Heylia for a drug supply
- Gave Silas to Heylia as an indentured servant in exchange for more MILF weed
- Became an informant for the SEC
- Renegged on informing for the SEC
- Re-upped with the SEC
- Bargained to get Shane out of jail
- Went head-to-head with Silas when he started a rival drug operation
- Continued legal action against Jill
- Joined forces with Jill
- Moved to Connecticut
- Let Jill and Jill’s twin daughters move in
- Made up with Silas
- Was shot in the head
- Survived being shot in the head
- Helped her shooter, who turned out to be Peter’s son, avoid prosecution
- Started dealing pot again
- Started working for a medical marijuana facility
- Let Silas in on the legal drug-dealing action
- Started working for a marketing company
- Met and started dating a rabbi
- Developed a con-game with Jill, to scam the marketing company
- Went back to dealing pot with Silas
- Moved back to California
- Got back into business with Conrad
- Got back into business with Guillermo
- Had sex with Andy on the spot where Judah died
- TIMEJUMP
- Opened a chain of legal dispensaries, married the rabbi, lived in Connecticut, was widowed for a fourth time after the rabbi crashed his car
- Threw Stevie a bar mitzvah party
- Begged Andy to let her move in with him
- Smoked a joint
- Was still sad
We obviously left “drank iced coffee†off the list.
Farewell, Weeds! Those first, oh, three seasons were a real fun ride.