It’s been a long, winding, frustrating season, but with these four episodes, my Weeds Virgin Diary comes to an end. At the beginning of the season, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to the end, but those Damn Botwins keep on sucking me back in.
Season 5, Episode 10 “Perro Insano”
If I weren’t so close to the end, and if I hadn’t heard good things about the final episodes of Season 5, I would be done right now. Shane has basically become a complete caricature; floating around the pool and boozing it up, while her mom blithely sits on her new drug lord husband’s lap. Oh, yes, her drug lord husband. Not drug lord boyfriend, or even drug lord babydaddy, but drug lord effing husband. They got married with an Entenmann’s cake, and suddenly Nancy Botwin became not only the stupidest person in the world, but probably the worst.
Never mind the fact that she basically thrust fatherhood upon Andy and then snatched it a way in a fit of selfishness that was impressive even for her, but she’s fully embraced the drug lord lifestyle, going to jail and ordering a hit on Pilar. For Christ’s sake, woman. Ordering a hit? Who are you?
Season 5, Episode 11 “Ducks and Tigers”
Nancy actually made a parenting decision I agree with: breastfeeding. So, there’s that. I said something positive about Nancy Botwin! Here’s another. She seems to once again be realizing how terrible of a mother she’s been to Shane and Silas, so that’s nice too. Of course, this realization manifests itself in self-pity, as Nancy’s realizations so often do, so I’m not expecting anything to actually come of it. Especially now that her self-reflection has been interrupted by what I’m guessing is a Pilar-orchestrated arrest of Esteban.
In other non-Nancy news, it’s nice to see Andy and Audra getting along so well. She’s finally seeing through the fact that he was obsessed with his sister-in-law and doesn’t really have a job to see the important things: he’s a ridiculously good cook and he’s good in bed. Now that he’s playing to his strengths, maybe Andy can move on with his life.
Celia’s also moving on, into the tired cliche of middle-aged lesbianism. I don’t know why this is a pop culture trend, but if movies and TV are to be believed, once you hit your mid-40s, your life suddenly turns into a late-night Skinemax women in prison movie. It’s kind of bizarre to me, but I do love how it’s spurring Isabelle into helping her dad and Doug get back at Celia.
Season 5, Episode 12 “Glue”
So there’s a whole lot of, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could go back to Agrestic?” talk in this episode. Do I smell yet another series reboot? Are we about to leave Mexico and the drug lords behind? Are we going to get back to what this show was five seasons ago? That would certainly be interesting.
What this episode really did was serve as a reminder as to why Andy is by far my favorite character out of everyone. I especially love him now that he’s moved on from Nancy, because he’s calling her on her shit more and more. I just about died when he brought up the fact that she burned Agrestic to the ground and she said, “So I made some sacrifices for my family.” Wow. Just, wow. Andy, of course, comes right back at her with, “No, what you sacrificed was your family,” which is so true and so, so beautiful.
Even the stupid Celia-as-Nancy storyline seems to be coming to an end, as Celia finally realizes how stressful it is to drink so much caffeine and keep the law and drug dealers off of your back. I’m looking forward to the finale to see where these fools all end up.
Season 5, Episode 13 “All About My Mom”
Well, I was right in that it looks like we’re saying goodbye to Mexico and drug lords, but I was very wrong in thinking that the series was just going to end up where it began. Because this series certainly did not begin with Shane as a murderer. Shane killed Pilar! With a croquet mallet! I certainly didn’t see that coming (clearly, neither did Pilar).
Now I know it’s silly to question what Nancy will do in this situation as if she’s a real parent, but I still can’t help myself. So your 14-year-old-son brutally murders someone right in front of you, and doesn’t seem negatively affected by this at all. This must be disturbing for Nancy on some level, right? Of course, Pilar was only still alive in the first place because Nancy was too inept to get her killed on her own. So… where do you go as a parent? “No Shane, Mommy was supposed to kill the mean lady.” That’s about the only admonishment she can give, right? Sure, her son’s a sociopath, but honestly, what does she expect?
Out of everyone, I didn’t expect this episode to end with Pilar’s death– especially since it looked like that was how Alanis Morissette was going to leave the show. The ending scene with her and Andy is actually my great disappointment with this episode. I liked that Andy was moving on and growing up. I believed him when he said that he was in love with Audra. But even if that’s not true, he’s a stand-up guy. I just have trouble believing that when faced with a crossbow, he would just hightail it out of there and leave his fiancee behind. I could buy that from just about anyone else on this show, but not Andy.
So it’s been an interesting season– the show has had a lot of low points, and dear lord, I do loathe Nancy Botwin. However, I’m going to be tuning into season 6. As much as this show frustrates me, it’s still compelling– and I’ll admit it: I want to see what happens when the Botwins go on the run.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Jul 26, 2010 @ 15:00 EST5EDT
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