I decided to give the show Weeds a try and thanks to the magic of Netflix online and the internet, I have watched the first three seasons and part of the fourth in the past week. (Yes, I am aware that I have watched over 24 hours of this show alone in under 7 days. I know I have a problem.) Overall, I have to say that I really, really like the show. Despite being a drug dealer Mary Louise Parker’s character comes off as one of the most realistic moms on television. She really does an amazing job with her character and it’s obvious that she deserves any awards that she has won for this show. Surprisingly she is outshined in the acting department by Elizabeth Perkins’ Celia Hodes character who may be one of the biggest bitches in the history of television. She does the most unbelievable bitchy, selfish things (starting with shipping her daughter off to boarding school in Mexico) that make you want to kill her, but you somehow never end up hating her and kind of miss her when she’s not around. Really a great job by the girlfriend from Big. Who thought you would have ever seen her again? There are some really well drawn characters on this show and some good acting performances. The writing is sharp, witty and more often than not laugh out loud funny.

That being said, this show has it’s flaws. The first two seasons are excellent and you can tell the story was mapped out very clearly. In season three and beyond this isn’t always the case. Some things are started and not re-visited without rhyme or reason. Nancy will do things that sometimes feel more like fanwank (Nancy in a thong! Nancy swimming in bra and panties! Nancy having random meaningless sex!) than a part of any overlying story. The show is still good, but it’s missing a lot of what made it the nice, quirky drama that it was in the first two seasons. Nancy crosses a line at some point and there is no going back. It’s no longer about providing for her kids, she’s in it for different reasons. (The picture I used is when I think this came to be.) It makes sense character-wise for this progression, but it’s kind of sad to see the moral gray line she was walking disappear. She still won’t mess with other drugs, only marijuana, but she’s also a lot more okay with some of the things that go along with being a drug dealer and that shouldn’t be okay. The show was recently renewed for a sixth season and I hope that the producer’s have a plan to get her back to being a good person by the time this thing is all said and done. I haven’t even made it to the fifth season yet and I’m already wondering where her breaking point is.

Regardless I highly recommend this show to anyone. It’s not a show about drug dealing or drugs, it’s a show about a family who happen to deal drugs. You don’t have to approve of what they do. It might actually be more enjoyable if you don’t because they don’t glorify drugs at all. It’s immediately shot to the top 5 of my active television show list (along with Lost, How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights). Which shouldn’t be surprising considering I watch True Blood every week despite the fact that it’s a vampire show 1/50th as good as Buffy or Angel (and that’s being generous). Check it out. If you have Netflix online the first two seasons are online or I am sure if you search the internet you can find them for free somewhere.