Posted on: July 6, 2009 Posted by: John B. Moore Comments: 0

Talk about gateway drugs. What started out as a little pot dealing on the side to make ends meet has snowballed into gun smuggling and bringing illegal immigrants though a tunnel connecting the U.S. to Mexico. When Weeds, the quirky Showtime comedy/drama started four years ago, the premise was much tamer: recent widow and mother of two Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) was left with a family to raise and no job, so she started selling pot to neighbors in her upscale subdivision.

As the series moved on the drugs got bigger and so did the problems, escalating in last season’s fire that destroyed Botwin’s neighborhood and grow house. Season four, just out on DVD, finds Botwin, her two sons, her brother-in-law Andy (Justin Kirk) and eventually sad sack buddy Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon) temporarily holed up in a beachside border town outside of San Diego.

Botwin reconnects with her drug buddy Guerillmo (Guillermo Diaz) who sets her up in a maternity shop that serves as a front for a series of escalating smuggles. Season four finds Weeds moving into darker territory. There’s still plenty of awkward humor, thanks mainly to Andy and Doug’s new venture in smuggling aliens across the border, but the tone of the series is getting grimmer, with Nancy sleeping with the mayor of Tijuana, who incidentally is also a ruthless drug kingpin and owner of the tunnel.

The series also ends on its strongest cliffhanger in four years, with Nancy revealing her pregnancy to her boyfriend just after he finds out she tipped off the DEA to the drug tunnel.

Rating: 8.9 out of 10

Weeds: Season Four/DVD/2009/Lionsgate/262 mins.

Leave a Comment