Weeds Season 7 Premiere Review

Overall Season Rating: B
Episode Rating: B


Weeds, the story of a suburban mom turned pot dealer, turned drug lord's wife, turned murderer's mom, turned prisoner. This premiere reaffirmed that Weeds is one of the most peculiar shows on television, sometimes too peculiar. I haven't been totally in love with the show since the family left Agrestic. It lost something when that happened, most notably it lost one of the best theme songs ever. I miss "Little Boxes" so much. With that said, season 7 begins differently than the others. Usually Weeds would end on a cliffhanger, and the next season would pick up basically right where the last one ended. That is not the case this year. There is also another change of location, two of them. I also was very pleased with the direction the characters had taken in the missing time. It's both hilarious, and just the right amount of believable. Weeds after all is a comedy, and a pretty dark comedy at that. We don't want it getting too realistic, and there are characters in this show that are so over the top it would be disappointing if they were not in silly and weird situations. I have high hopes for this season, and while I don't think it's the final season, I think I'm going to start hoping it is. With that, on to the review.

Spoilers below the fold.



Season 7 kicks off three years after the events of the the season 6 finale. If you don't remember, it happened like this. Esteban had found Nancy and their son Stevie, and planned to kill her. She instructs Andy to use "Plan C". Plan C turns out to mean he leave the country with Silas and Shane, and call the police to arrest her and Esteban. Three years later, Nancy is now at her parole hearing. A hearing that is happening much too early for one of the board members. I found this scene to be both great, and a little strange. I loved the back and forth arguing, but I do find it hard to believe he would not have been informed of this, or that he wouldn't have some kind of paper work from the Feds.

After a lot of arguing, Nancy is informed that she is being released, and sent to a halfway house. She is not happy at all and demands she be sent somewhere she will be protected from Esteban. This is understandable, and there really is no one better at saving their own skin than Nancy Botwin. However, she does not get the witness protection and is released. We briefly meet her cell mate, and it's clear she's been having some fun while in the stir. Before she leaves, the cell mate gives Nancy some oven mitts, and it's clear there is some other meaning there. More on this later of course. While the cell mate seemed nice enough, it turns out she had burned her boyfriend alive. This just shows you can't trust hot women who are in federal prison.

We then for the first time see what the other members of the Botwin clan have been up to. This is where the episode took that familiar Weeds turn. In any other show these scenes would be followed with "what???" but in Weeds it just makes sense. The family is now living in Copenhagen, Denmark. Shane, who I guess is now supposed to be about 18 maybe has been having a nice relationship with a puppeteer named Renatta. Sadly, this relationship is falling apart just as we are introduced to it. Apparently, she wanted to have children, and he is not ready. The fact that she appeared to be twice his age may have played into this. Silas is now a spokes model for some "flower water", which I assume is like Vitamin Water, but the Denmark kind. Like always, Silas is the only one who isn't a nut. Andy and Doug are running a tour service of Freetown Christiania. I checked Wikipedia, this is a real place. Andy apparently is running for the office of leader of Christiania, because he's always wanted to rule a country. All is well.

Meanwhile, Nancy arrives at the halfway house in Washington Heights in NYC(literally 10 min from where I live) and meets Agent Lipschitz there. She's pissed cause he was supposed to put her in witness protection, but he informs her it's no longer needed since Esteban was found dead. This was the reason he worked to get her released. The case is over, but she helped his career. We then meet Ed. Ed is the man in charge of halfway house, and he likes to explain rules and lessons with rhymes. I think it's supposed to be both annoying, and sweet. He allows Nancy to leave for two hours to feel free. Nancy continues to get her way by batting those big eyes of hers. Oh yeah, Mary-Louise Parker is just as amazing looking as always. I thought they should have had her look more run down from prison, but it also looks like she had a lot of friends in there. She is a friendly person after all.

On the outside Nancy goes to an internet cafe and speaks to her sister. Her sister has had Stevie this whole time, but he refers to Nancy as "Aunt Nancy". The sister cuts off the connection with Nancy looking horrified and hurt. Even though Nancy asked her not to, she tells the rest of the family pretty much right away that Nancy has been released. If you take the show's time literally here, she pretty much hung up on Nancy and then called the family that moment. They are surprised, and a knowledgeable viewer could guess what each member of the family would do. Shane immediately buys tickets to New York to find her, Andy tries to get him to stay but eventually caves, Doug just doesn't want to be left behind, and Silas doesn't want anything to do with her. Shane eventually gets everyone except Silas to come with him to New York. I assume Silas will follow soon after.

Nancy still on her two hour break, is in a spa. We find that the gloves she was given allow her to pick up a hot coal and reveal a key. The key leads to a car with a bag full of weapons in it. Nancy proceeds to take the bag. I'm sure these will be answered, but I have a few questions about that. Whose grenades and such are those? What does she plan to do with it? and most importantly where will she keep it? Ed told her there are random inspections of all property. I'm sure she'll figure something out, she's Nancy!

Well that was the premiere. I liked it, it made me smile, and I love these characters so much.  I just like seeing them act silly. Justin Kirk always has been one of my favs on the show, and he does not disappoint in this episode.

What did you all think?