Weeds: The Brick Dance
By fred | September 6, 2007
(S03E03) Yes, I’m pretty late and didn’t get to watch this episode until now, even though it aired last week. Anyways, straight to the point. I remember last week (well, that would make it two weeks from now actually) when I said i enjoyed watching Californication more than Weeds.
Well, things are now reversed, some might even say “back to normal”. Even though if there’s one thing things are not, on Weeds, it’s back to normal. And I have to say, I love it!
I could summarize why I love this season of Weeds so much in one word : changes. Ok, I almost wrote consequences, and I gotta admit the two are a close thing, but more than the fact than things do have consequences, I love the changes.
Because typically on series or sitcoms nothing ever changes, it’s like a rule. People love the show, and the characters, for what they are - so it shouldn’t change. And it is a reality, changing things is a risky thing to do, as you never know how it will go.
Maybe people will not like the changes, maybe they’ll find that the show lost its “thing”, that make it so special. But if writers - and everyone involved - get it right, it’s just awesome. And they pulled it off, Weeds is just awesome.
I love to see how much as changed, as illustrated by the very fact that Nancy isn’t trying to hide her whole drug business from her kids anymore, quite the opposite now in fact. It’s open discussion at dinner, and recruiting them to get the dope ready! You could maybe wonder if she still cares, sometimes, about consequences.
Back on those, consequences. Did Nancy ever think, consider even, that having so much drug all over the place could be a bad idea? Imagine one DEA agent knock on your door, since one of them has been MIA for a little while now. And the two of you were married.
BTW I liked that this plot didn’t just “disappear”.
But while there are consequences on the show, and changes, lots of them, one thing keeps pretty consistent though. Nancy. While her life might fall apart from every angle, and after a couple of years (trying to) be in the drug business, she still has no clue of how things are supposed to be done. One perfect example of her untouched naiveté, to call it that, is when she was asked to go get a “package” and bring it back to U-Turn.
Now I would imagine that anyone in her situation wouldn’t argue with the guy. “He owns you ass, bitch!” When a drug dealer who you work for, not by choice but because you owe him money, lots of it, when that guy who likes to play with his gun, and when he’s already threatens your life and your children’s lives, one thing you do not do is asked what’s in the package!
“But, you know, if it’s illegal then I don’t want to do it…”
Seriously, the girl still has no clue as to how serious the whole thing is. She never really grasped how even her own little drug dealing was actually something “big”, not to let everyone know about and that precautions should be taken. And now that it’s all coming down on her, she still doesn’t get how seriously bad she got herself into.
Or at least, she doesn’t act as if she did.
But that’s Nancy, and seeing her trying to find herself out of this mess seems to be like it’s gonna be a lot of fun.
One last thing before I go, there was a couple of jokes funny about Andy getting enlisted to go to Iraq, but mostly it felt a bit forced and out of place. Writers have political convictions, that’s good. Doesn’t mean they bring throw them into their show and it’ll be alright. I’m not sure where they’re going with this, but this feels to me like it’s a bit too much.
Focus back on Nancy and her family. How she used to try to hold everything together while doing her drug deals under the table, and how she’ll try the same now that it’s all in the open. Weeds wasn’t really ever about wars, or big drug deals, DEA agents and weapons all over the place; it was about yet another dysfunctional family where the single mom resorted to selling drugs as a way to keep looking after her family.
Still, it was “normal” people in “normal” situation, only with pot.
