Weeds – Season Seven

After six seasons of frantically and creatively finding courses of survival for her family, Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker) is back for a seventh season of mayhem in Showtime's sleeper smash, Weeds. In the season six finale, Nancy announced that Plan C will save her from her family, which unexpectedly meant taking the blame for murdering Pilar Zuzua, landing her in the dog house and separating from her family.

Unlike previous seasons, where chaos would carry over from one to the next, this one begins on a much calmer note. The season seven premiere fast forwards three years to Nancy’s release from prison. There is a misunderstanding about Nancy’s deal with an FBI officer to join the witness protection program upon her release, and instead she is sent to a halfway house in New York City.

Before leaving prison, Nancy and her female cellmate have a passionate goodbye, after which her cellmate gives her a pair of mysterious oven mitts. Upon arriving at the halfway house, Nancy learns her witness protection arrangement is unnecessary and is given two hours to roam free around New York. During her short time in the outside world, Nancy can’t control herself from starting some kind of trouble

The rest of the Botwin mispacha has moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, where Andy (Justin Kirk) had originally planned on fleeing to during the Esteban debacle. We pick up with Shane (Alexander Gould) getting kicked out of his much older girlfriend’s apartment for refusing to give her a baby. Silas (Hunter Parrish) is a male model who is reprimanded by his make-up artist for partying too hard. And Andy and Doug (Kevin Nealon) are attempting to run for some kind of political position. Though the men seem content without Nancy, when they learn her fate, Shane’s initial reaction is to go to New York and find her.

After a three-year hiatus from Nancy’s manipulative tendencies, we would think the Botwins would be more cautious about gravitating towards her so quickly. In the premiere, Shane and Nancy have parallel experiences; both are asked to leave a place they have come to view as their home. In comparison to the others, Shane has nothing left to lose so he chooses to go to New York, while Nancy has a lot to lose and still makes a hasty decision that could affect her future.

So we can only predict how the events of season seven will unfold. Now that the Botwins are no longer one unit escaping together, the two leaders, Shane and Nancy have to find a way to reunite somehow. The series is also generally centered around Nancy’s objective to find a way to build a business and support her family with the help of her profits.

Each season her business plan involves increasingly outrageous events conjured up by the writer of the series, Jenji Kohen. Though the original fun of Nancy’s marijuana dealing career has depleted as the series progresses, if you view the show for it’s shock value it becomes much more enjoyable. It is rumored that this may be the show’s final season on Showtime, so hopefully Jenji Kohen has prepared a season for viewers to savor rather than pick fault with.