Weeds Season 7 Episode 1

I watched seasons 1-6 last summer in a very short period time of 3 weeks and it was amazing (seasons 4+5 seemed a little weak though) and it helps that this show is only 25 minutes long. God bless Showtime.



But let's return to this interestingly different season 7 premiere. It was not bad nor crappy, but it had a new feeling to it - New York / Copenhagen atmosphere :) I personally cannot wait what happens when Andy and boys finally reunite with Nancy after 3 years. And what a horrible sister she has - amazingly played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. I feel like this show needs a new bitch, there's still a huge void left to fill after Celia's (the excellent Elizabeth Perkins) disappearance. And how cute was the lesbian scene in prison? Nancy really is full of surprises. God, love her. That twisted mind of hers always goes full speed. 7,5/10

Weeds reboots again, they are hitting the reset button on this show more than a kid playing a tough video game, but this time it just didn't do it for me.





I've hated Shane since the beginning, but he did not handle the time jump at all. I can't take him seriously as an adult and his whole backstory was really lame in my book. They didn't utilize Doug or Andy that well either.





The show just seems tired right now. Nancy vs. the world can only last for so long. Been there, done that, as the kids say. The episode offered little in the form of originality and pretty much stuck to the show's usual formula. Disappointed big time with the premiere.

Weeds hasn't necessarily followed a realistic path from beginning to end. What began as a great and humorous look into a suburban mother trying to take care of her children by relying on selling weed turned into an insane skewering of the original concept of the show. Nancy Botwin went from offbeat mom to ridiculously self-centered criminal who, for some reason, finds herself getting involved in things that are way over her head. I've never agreed with the path Jenji Kohan chose for her characters to go on throughout these past six seasons, and as season seven starts, I still don't agree. But whatever. I'm watching the show now for resolution, and so far, I'm not exactly pulled in by the story we're being introduced to.





Season 7 sort of tries to mix things up here by jumping ahead three years after Nancy gave herself up to the police. We get to see the aftermath of her prison release and what's going on with Andy, Silas, Shane and Doug in Copenhagen. There's some big reveals, such as the fact that Nancy is being released three years early because Estaben was killed in prison, which means there's no need for her to be in jail anymore. However, my immediate problem with the premiere is how Jenji Kohan seems incapable of learning from the mistakes of each previous season. While Season 6 had its issues, it sort of had the perfect balance between believable moments and the insanity of the past couple of seasons that helped me remember why I even liked these characters in the first place.





The first ten minutes of the premiere almost eradicated any goodwill I had left towards the show. Nancy seems to have began some sort of lesbian relationship with her cellmate and is now apparently running arms deals for her (this is tentative, of course, we only learn of this at the end). She gets put in a halfway house with a guy who gives her rules in a rhyming manner so that "the lessons stick." In Copenhagen, things are even more insane: Shane is living and sleeping with Renata, a puppeteer who ends up throwing him out, Silas is a model for a "flower-water" type product and seems obsessed with the way he looks now, Andy runs some sort of weird tour guide and claims he's in the running to become the ruler of some weird country… and Doug is just Doug, doing nothing of importance as usual.





I will say this before I go on too much of a rant: I enjoyed the episode for the most part. I mean, it's not as if I watched this and found it to be something I'll never watch again. It was funny in parts and Mary Louise Parker, despite her character's insanity, is still a very watchable actress and very talented as well. She does good work here as usual, and I still think all of the other actors are good actors who are doing their best with sketchy scripts. But God, those scripts… the writing of this show has gone down the tubes. Seriously, Shane with a puppeteer, sleeping her? And Silas as a self-centered idiot obsessed with the zits on his face? The writers made us believe we'd be seeing a new side of Silas and instead we're getting this weird new look at him. For the most part, Shane, Andy and Doug are the same, although Shane as the new "leader" or decision-maker is a bit weird. And Andy just seems like a goofy guy going along for the ride. I did like Shane's need to get to America and recognizing exactly what his mother did for him by taking the blame for Pilar's death. It's all the minor details that Jenji Kohan chose to include about the characters that annoyed me.





And that final scene seems to indicate that Nancy Botwin is not done getting into her hijinks quite yet. Why can't she just settle down? What's the reason for the self-destructiveness? We'll probably never get an answer to these questions, because the writers have screwed themselves over for too long. I'll keep watching the season because I want to see how this show comes to a close if this truly is the last season. But man, they have some work to do here.

Jenji Kohan made a wise decision in essentially rebooting her brainchild cable series. We pick up on the day of Nancy's release from prison into a halfway house in NYC three years after having confessed to murder for Shane and the others escaping to Copenhagen. She apparently had taken up a relationship with her cell mate and is given instructions of it being the "key to their release." In Copenhagen Doug and Andy now run tours of under the name Wonderful Wonderful Tours, Silas is a model for beverages and has dyed his hair, and Shane breaks up with his puppeteer girlfriend. When the gang gets wind of her release they decide to fly to New York to see her. The problem with Weeds only being half an hour is that we only get so much time as exposition which is largely what this episode served as to give us information of what is come and lay the groundwork before the real drama can happen. So it's a shame that we get such a brief glimpse and maybe this should've been a double episode or even a two episode back to back thing at least to give us a larger taste. Not saying I don't like it, the series definitely needed a fresh start. Killing off Esteban and getting the FBI gone is certainly a good step, but what was up with the grenades in the back of the car. Weeds may have gone downhill these past few years but Season 6 gave me more of what I wanted out of it in that I've realized that it's infinitely watchable and before you know it the episode is over and you want to start another one. Far to soon for a verdict yet but I'm optimistic that this may be the fixer that Weeds needs because if this doesn't work nothing will.

I know what you guys will say, this episode was not perfect, which I agree, but it was the closest we could have gotten, to a fresh renewal of the series.





Nancy's lesbian experience was delightful. Nancy was being Nancy: incredibly unpredictable and that is why we love her so much. Congratulations to Mary-Louise Parker for being such an amazing good actress.





Then, we see what the guys are now in Copenhagen, Shane had an affair with a girl that performs with him with marionettes, Silas is some kind of model, Andy is a tour guide that is running for President (?) and Doug... is smoking.





When the four of them learn that Nancy is out of prison, Shane buys tickets for everybody but Silas (which I thought was brilliant as Silas is always complaining that he is better without Nancy) and the moment where Andy is being all confused thinking if he should go or not is just excellent.





In my opinion, the only moment that did not get me was the last moments where we see a possible future storyline where we could see a Nancy selling weapons (which I do not think would go well with her character). Except that, the show is going in a new direction, a better direction.

Bags was a superb and interesting premiere of Weeds seventh season. I enjoyed watching this episode because viewers were thrown into the lives of the characters three years down the road from where season 6 left off. I thought it was interesting to see how every one dealt with their circumstances. This season still holds the feel of the series and a lot of new doors have been opened which could and I'm sure will lead to some insane things happening. I hope that we get to see things progress quickly. I like the new characters we have been introduced to. I enjoy this show for what it is, and have not expected it to be realistically similar to my life or that of anyone I know which makes it all the funner to watch. This series offers fantasy, escapism and entertainment. I look forward to watching the next episode to see how things start playing out!!!!!!!