Weeds
Season 2
Mary Louise Parker
2 DVD 12 Episodes

Nancy Botwin’s (Mary Louise Parker) adventures continue seamlessly from season one in season two of Weeds. Having discovered that the man she has been flirting and eventually falling for is a DEA agent Nancy has some thinking to do. The usual list of players is back for the second season with Conrad still being Conrad all moony eyed over Nancy. Heylia as tough as nails with some of the best comic lines in the show also returns along with Vaneeta.

The unsung comic heros of Weeds though are the characters of Doug and Celia. Doug is played to a faultless greedy, self involved, narcissistic perfection by Kevin Nealon. When Doug isn’t high or playing fast and loose with city finances he is looking to get high and watch porn. Celia on the other hand is a peerless drinker, anti drug crusader, cancer survivor and general pain in the ass who is so mean and spiteful it is hilarious. New this season is the character of U-Turn who adds an element of street threat and his own bizarre comic twist to the series.

The joy of Weeds is its unrelenting randomness with the Queen of Disaster the Empress of Hubris Nancy Botwin simultaneously revelling and complaining about the chaos around her. While the show centres around Nancy and her various levels of arrogance and ignorance the humour of the show is all about how those around her react to the chaos Nancy creates. Other than Nancy’s ability to generate chaos the complete lack of moral fibre in the other characters in the show only compounds the chaos which makes for comic moments that are as dark as they are funny.

It is possible to enter into the Weeds story from the second season but it would be best to pick up season one of Weeds first. Jenji Kohan is to be credited not only with the creation and writing of Weeds but with an amazing resilience and an ability to rescue spiralling story lines with randomness and chaos and maintain audience suspension of disbelief. Weeds is definitely worth your time with one caveat – there is lots of sex in season two a lot of sex and for a television show it is pretty explicit.

 

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