Weeds is an American comedy-drama television program developed for the Showtime network by Lionsgate Television. The woman responsible for the creation of the series is Jenji Kohan.
Weeds’ plot is basically about a housewife whose husband dies suddenly and thus must find a way to make money and continue her affluent suburban lifestyle. She becomes her neighborhood’s marijuana dealer in order to keep her income up and continue her lifestyle.
The TV series name, Weeds, seems to refer both to the plant that the protagonist sells (marijuana) as well as widow’s weeds which is what one would wear when one’s husband dies and becomes a widow. Additionally, it may refer to American suburbs which grow quickly like weeds and contain many people who are indistinguishable; just like weeds.
The theme for the series which begins at the opening of each show is “Little Boxes”, a song that stresses the sameness of suburban life and is a very nice song to be used for this series that involves that aspect of suburban culture.
Weeds currently has five seasons and began to play in 2005. It was the highest rated series for Showtime in its first year and has been considered a definite success for the channel. On average, the season has attracted 962,000 viewers.
A total of 1.7 million viewers which is made up of 1.2 million viewers for the beginning and an additional .5 million viewers later for the rerun later that night mean that Showtime was quite happy with the success bringing in 1.7 million people to watch Weeds.
Much of the scenery and exterior shots on the show are shot in California in places like Santa Clarita Valley and Calabasas, California.
Nancy Botwin is the protagonist who is the housewife whose husband dies. She lives the typical affluent suburban life style in a very nice neighborhood where one wouldn’t think much about drugs or other seedy type activity. However, after her husband’s quick death while out jogging, she must find a way to make ends meet which leads her to begin selling marijuana to her neighbors and friends. Later on, she must continue to expand her customer base which brings on more challenges and obstacles.
Celia is Nancy’s best enemy and friend. She is in a marriage that is particularly unhappy which may explain why she is so attracted to various vices like alcohol and trying to take others down in order to “teach them a lesson”. However, her friend/enemy status is interesting in contrast to Nancy.
Weeds’ Season 1 begins with Nancy’s husband dying which is the catalyst for the basis of the show which involves Nancy entering the marijuana dealings to keep her affluent suburban life alive.
Her children both attend the public school system but in order for Nancy to continue to support their upper middle class lifestyle in the suburbs, she must sell marijuana to her neighbors and friends.
At one point, some of Nancy’s customers begin to go to the medical marijuana shop because its quality is much higher than the quality of Nancy’s marijuana. For this reason, Nancy is forced to make baked goods using her cooking skills to find a new way to sell her inferior quality weed. She does a good job of this and covers up her sales by actually making her own bakery and putting Costco’s products on her shelves as her own.
Weeds is a very good television show and if the plot and characters seems like something that you might like, you should definitely check out Showtime and see the show for yourself. If you cannot watch it right now, you can at least look at the clips and other videos online about the show by searching for “Weeds” in any search engine.
