Grid Effect

Up and down, good and bad, memorable and forgettable, this is the basic tenor of this Weeds season. No consistency, no inspiration and no boredom. Much as we expected, this episode was no different. If you look back this season, they are basically doing an every-other juggling act. In which one episode kind of meanders to the end, then there is some “cliffhanger” that usually ends with a closeup of Nancy looking happy or intense or whatever. Then the following episode is actually substantive from top to bottom.

For the most part, this episode fell into the latter. We have three promising storylines in Doug and Andy’s smuggling caper (obviously competition was going to be an issue), Shane asserting himself at his new school (loved Isabelle’s Judd Apatow line) and Silas going into the business with his mom of a girlfriend (what?) proved to be a pleasant surprise, though it was riddled with bad writing like, “Sandwiches are bullshit”. All three of these premises should they be executed properly, could turn out quite enjoyable. Then again, this series has been known to sabotage their own material, so we’ll see.

For some reason, when we think of Doug Wilson and Andy Botwin, this isn't what comes to mind.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Celia. And we aren’t even sure what the point is, exactly. Is it supposed to be funny? All the scenes in the maternity store came across as time filler, or some sort of contractual obligation the show has that guarantees Elizabeth Perkins a certain amount of screen time. In short, I’m not sure if it’s the acting, the writing or some combination of the two, but we’ve never felt less sympathy for a sympathetic character. Either way, it is really distracting, and the only chance for her scenes to be redeemable now is if she is sharing the camera with Allie Grant.

The highlight of Nancy’s storyline was that after three and a half seasons of fucking random drug dealers, we finally saw her bare tits (correct me if we have before). I’m not going to comment on the quality, because this isn’t that kind of site, at least not most of the time. But we will say that we were disappointed (but not surprised) that a pair of tits were the highlight. Even with the nudity it just feels so rehashed and tired.

Esteban isn’t charming. Even though we’re supposed to think he is, we generally think he is kind of a douchebag. On top of that they don’t seem to have any chemistry together, which makes their scenes seem even longer. And for only the second time we’re actually actively rooting against Nancy, the person we were at least supposed to root for on some level. You can call it evolution of the series or whatever, but it’s not really the same series it was three seasons ago. They are the same characters with the same history and everything else, but nothing about them now is even remotely similar to their personalities in season one or even two. And in the arc of the show, it has only been a few months, if that.

We’ve gone over this before, but for every time they use the same plot device (gets in trouble, is bailed out by her attractiveness, thrives on it, guy in turn ends up dead or crippled in some way because of it), we feel obligated to repeat it. We’re willing to bet that by season’s end we will have reason to want to see Esteban dead. We’re kind of hoping Guillermo kills them both, but we’d venture to guess that he spares Nancy for some implausible reason. Never the less, it’s always good to know what turns your protagonist on, and in this case it is watching a mountain lion eat a goat. Which is totally normal.

We will say this for Nancy’s arc, she did have the best line of the episode. When imploring Shane to attend school: “You’re going to grow up and become a doctor, a lawyer, or a business executive”.

It’s probably necessary to distance ourselves from this series because even when we enjoy it, we still come off as jaded. So let us just say that it was a solid episode for the most part. For all our bitching and moaning, 3/4 of this episode we’d recommend. But between the two mind-numbing storylines, the only reason we’re giving Parker a better mark for the episode than Perkins, is she happens to be much more integral to the series. Otherwise we’d be happy if they abandoned it all together.

Still, good episode, though.