Weeds (TV series)

Weeds
Created by	Jenji Kohan
Starring	Mary-Louise Parker Elizabeth Perkins (season 1–5) Tonye Patano (season 1–3) Romany Malco (season 1–3) Indigo (season 1–3) Hunter Parrish Alexander Gould Andy Milder (regular, season 3) Allie Grant (regular, season 3–5) Justin Kirk Kevin Nealon
Opening theme	"Little Boxes" (episodes 1–38 and briefly in 57)
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	7
No. of episodes	78 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Jenji Kohan Craig Zisk (season 3–present) Roberto Benabib (season 3–present) Matthew Salsberg (season 6–present) Mark A. Burley (co-) (season 4–present) Scott Ellis (co-) (season 6–present) Lisa I. Vinnecour (co-) (season 6–present)
Producers	Lisa I. Vinnecour (season 5) Danielle Weinstock (co-) (season 1) Matthew Salsberg (supervising) (season 3) Mark A. Burley (supervising) (season 1–3) Devon K. Shepard (supervising) (season 1–2) Victoria Morrow (supervising) (season 6–present) Shawn Schepps (supervising) (season 2) Barry Safchik & Michael Platt (co-) (season 2) Paul Cajero (co-) (season 2) Carla Corwin (co-) (season 3) Rolin Jones (supervising) (season 4) Leslie D. Waldman (produced by) (season 6) Chris Offut (co-) (season 5) Scott Ellis (supervising) (season 5) Vanessa Resein (supervising) (season 5) Stephan Falk (supervising) (season 7–present) Michael Trim (season 6–present)
Running time	26 minutes
Production companies	Lionsgate Television Tilted Productions Showtime
Original release
Network	Showtime
Release	August 7, 2005 (2005-08-07) – present

Weeds is an American television comedy created by Jenji Kohan with the help of Jacob Todd and produced by Tilted Productions in association with Lionsgate Television. The central character is Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker), a widowed mother of two boys, later three boys. Over the course of the show, she and her family become more entangled in illegal activities.

The primary locale of the first three seasons is in the faux town of Agrestic, California in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. During seasons four and five, the Botwins live in the fictional beachside of Ren Mar, California in the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. During the sixth season, the family relocates to Seattle, Washington before moving to Dearborn, Michigan. In between seasons six and seven, Nancy serves a prison sentence in Danbury prison in Connecticut while her sons and brother-in-law live in Copenhagen, Denmark. At the beginning of season seven, Nancy moves into a recovery house in New York City where she reunites with her family.

Kohan, whose credits include Tracey Takes On..., Mad About You, Sex and the City and Gilmore Girls, is the executive producer of the series alongside Roberto Benabib, of Little City fame. Matthew Salsberg and Craig Zisk have joined the production team as executive producers in later seasons.

The show debuted on the Showtime cable network on August 7, 2005, earning the channel's highest ratings, and the debut of the fifth season had 1.3 million viewers. In 2010, TV Guide Network bought the airing rights, providing audiences free of charge. Among the awards the show has received include two Satellite Awards, one Golden Globe Award, Writers Guild of America Award, Young Artist Award, and an Emmy Award.

Production

Stevenson Ranch, California, a filming location for Weeds.

The show is inspired by crime series such as The Shield and The Sopranos, in the sense of the antihero serving as the protagonist while retaining their own moral code, which usually goes against the norms of society. The title, according to Kohan, refers "to a lot of things", including marijuana and widow's weeds; however, it mainly alludes to "hardy plants struggling to survive." The basic premise, as illustrated by the lyrics of the opening song from the first three seasons, satirizes how off-color characters struggle with fake suburban reality, in which everything is "all style, no substance". According to Kohan, she initially went to pitch the series for HBO and the network dismissed it. Robert Greenblatt invested in the show and Showtime later approved.

The exteriors for the show's first two seasons were shot almost exclusively in Stevenson Ranch, a suburban area of Santa Clarita Valley, California. The shot of the large fountain and Agrestic sign seen in the introduction of seasons 1–3 was shot at the corner of Stevenson Ranch Parkway and Holmes Place. The name "Stevenson Ranch" was digitally replaced with "Agrestic" initially (and with "Majestic" in later episodes). The overhead, satellite picture displayed at the beginning of the show's introduction (seasons 1–3) is of Calabasas Hills, a gated community in Calabasas, California. The shot of the "It's A Grind" coffee shop in the introduction (seasons 1–3) is of an It's A Grind in Castaic, California. The show was originally filmed at Red Studios, previously known as Ren-Mar studios. The show moved to Universal Studios Los Angeles for season 7, and is now mentioned on the studio tour. A version of this Wikipedia page served as the introduction for the season 5 episode titled "Where the Sidewalk Ends".

Jenji Kohan and Roberto Benabib serve as showrunners and production leaders. Kohan is also the head writer as she has written each season's premiere and finale episode. Writer Matthew Salsberg and director Craig Zisk have joined the panel of executive producers in later seasons.

Season synopses

Season 1

Nancy Botwin's family live in Agrestic, the fictional suburb of Los Angeles. Her husband, Judah, died of a heart attack while jogging with their youngest son, a few weeks before the series' pilot. Nancy's children, Silas and Shane, both attend Agrestic's public school system in the early seasons of the show. During season 1, Silas was 15 years old and Shane was 10.

To support her upper middle class lifestyle, Nancy begins dealing marijuana to her affluent neighbors and friends. Andy Botwin, Judah's younger brother, moves into the house after Judah's death to help Nancy out, though he also seems to be there to freeload, and often disrupts Nancy's life. Nancy's supplier is Heylia James, a major distributor in Los Angeles' West Adams district whom she met through Heylia's nephew, Conrad (who is Andy's friend). After losing customers to a medical store, Nancy begins baking and selling pot-laced brownies. Acting on the advice of her accountant, city councilman Doug Wilson, she opens a retail bakery, stocked with Costco baked goods, as a front for her drug sales. Silas begins dating Megan, an attractive deaf girl at his school. Shane, troubled by his father's death, acts out, such as biting the foot of another child in a martial-arts tournament, earning him the nickname "Strange Botwin" from his fellow classmates.

Nancy's chief antagonist is her neighbor, Celia Hodes, a manic, image-obsessed, and manipulative person. Celia is president of the Agrestic PTA, and does not get along with her cheating husband Dean, nor does she get along with her sexually active 15-year-old daughter, Quinn (Silas' previous girlfriend), whom she sends off to boarding school in Mexico after the pilot. Her younger daughter, 11-year-old Isabelle, is overweight and constantly the target of her mother's passive-aggressive comments, though Isabelle seems to be mature for her age, and confident. Isabelle reveals late in the season that she is a lesbian, much to her mother's chagrin. Toward the end of the season, Celia is diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. The brush with her own mortality softens her abrasive personality and leads her to treat her own daughter with more courtesy and respect for a time. She quickly returns to form after her recovery. However, before her surgery, she meets Conrad and has sex with him. After Andy is notified to report immediately for his previously agreed-on military service (where he will be trained and then sent to Iraq) or be sentenced to a military prison, he announces that he is studying to become a rabbi as a dodge to avoid his military obligation.

Drug dealing turns out to be more difficult than Nancy thought, as she discovers when she expands her customer base to Valley State College and hires Sanjay, a student at the college, to be her on-campus dealer. She is soon threatened by a rival drug dealer – Alejandro – who considers it his territory. She then has a brief sexual encounter with him. Also at Valley College, her entire stash of product is stolen by a campus security guard during a fake arrest, threatening the survival of her lifestyle and family. Unbeknownst to her, Conrad and some of his friends pay a visit to the security guard, attacking and severely beating him. The net result is that the guard politely returns the marijuana to a puzzled Nancy, apologizes profusely, and offers to assist her and her business in any way he can. Nancy and Peter Scottson, the single father of the kid bitten by Shane in a karate tournament, develop a mutual attraction, and they end up sleeping together. There is also a mutual attraction between Nancy and Conrad, much to Heylia's annoyance. The season closes with Conrad convincing Nancy to expand by becoming a grower as well as a dealer. They form a "team" that includes Doug, Dean, Sanjay, Andy, and Alejandro. However, Nancy then encounters a shocking complication: she learns that her new boyfriend Peter (Martin Donovan) is a DEA agent.

Season 2

The second season, while still comedic, has a much darker tone, as Nancy becomes increasingly involved in the more dangerous aspects of the drug world. In season 2, Silas was 16 years old and Shane was 11. Ignoring Heylia's advice, Nancy and Conrad start their own small-scale growing operation and eventually rent a suburban "grow-house"—a place where they can grow marijuana indoors using artificial light and hydroponics. She welcomes other people into her business, including her brother-in-law Andy and accountant (and customer) Doug. During this season, Peter Scottson tells Nancy he knows she is a drug dealer, but considers her too small time to be worth busting, and the two are married as part of a deal to legally protect Nancy from Peter testifying in a court of law. While Nancy's drug activities increase, Celia runs for, and wins, Doug's spot on the town council. Her victory is due to the incompetence of her husband Dean (a lawyer), who forgot to file Doug's paperwork, leaving him off the ballot. She immediately launches a drug-free campaign across Agrestic complete with drug-free zone signs and surveillance cameras. Doug and Celia share a strong desire for revenge on Dean, which inspires a brief sexual liaison.

Silas and Megan's relationship threatens to split apart once she leaves for college (she, a very serious student, has gotten into Princeton, while mediocre student Silas is going to a local school). Silas attempts to get her pregnant to prevent this, but instead his success leads to an abortion and a violent confrontation with Megan's father, ending the relationship. Andy tries to develop a relationship with an attractive, sexually formidable administrator, Yael Hoffman, at his rabbinical school, but the relationship falls apart once he drops out due to an incident at the grow house where a dog bites off two of his toes, which he thinks will invalidate him for military duty.

As the season progresses, Nancy's children become more aware of her illegal activities, though the two sons deal with the issue in quite different ways. Shane continues to have problems fitting in at school and his friends begin to ridicule him for his sexual inexperience, though being hypocritical. To solve this problem, his uncle Andy takes him to a massage parlor to get a "happy ending" hand job. Gaining confidence, Shane joins the debate team in order to get closer to Gretchen (a girl Shane kicked in the hallway), who later becomes his girlfriend. However, he later breaks up with her because of an infatuation with Andy's crazed ex-girlfriend, Kat. Silas, on the other hand, takes out his frustrations by committing acts of vandalism, most notably stealing Celia's drug-free zone signs and cameras, which he sees as helping his mother. Meanwhile, Nancy has received threats from an Armenian group of dealers who have grow houses all around hers and see her as encroaching on their territory. Nancy tells Peter, and he has them all arrested.

Nancy and Conrad's drug business becomes a hit as Conrad's strain of plant (which Snoop Dogg dubs "MILFweed" during a chance meeting at a recording studio) pleases their customers; but their high profile causes trouble. Initially, Nancy's marriage to a DEA agent keeps her on top while her Armenian rivals were busted, but her marriage to Peter deteriorates after she tips off Heylia when the DEA plans to raid her house and Peter pressures her to quit dealing. For Nancy, the final straw is when Peter comes over for dinner and manhandles Silas. Nancy calls Conrad and tells him that she doesn't love Peter but will string him along until the current harvest is done; Peter hears the conversation with wireless surveillance. Meanwhile, Doug and Celia plan to leave their spouses. Celia tells Dean, but Doug refuses to leave his wife, Dana, stating that "she's a sweetheart" and their affair ends. Dean kicks Celia out of the house and demands a divorce.

The season concludes with a complex series of betrayals, as Peter demands of Nancy and Conrad all of the cash from a quick sale of their crop. Secretly, Heylia hires Armenian mobsters to kill Peter as she believes Peter is planning to kill Conrad after the deal. Nancy's buyer, U-Turn (Page Kennedy), demands the entire crop of weed at gunpoint. Having just killed Peter, the Armenian mobsters arrive at the same time and expect the proceeds from the big sale to pay for their hit, but finding that U-Turn plans on stealing the weed and that there is no money, decide they will take the weed instead. Only then does Nancy discover that Silas has decided to force his way into the business through having stolen the entire batch of weed, and then demanded to be part of the business. Having just hidden the batch in his car trunk, he is approached by Celia and a police officer for the theft of the drug-free zone signs and surveillance cameras, as Celia has footage of Silas stealing the last camera. This leaves Nancy at the grow house, in a Mexican standoff with both the gangsters and the mobsters pointing guns at her in a season-ending cliffhanger.

Season 3

The third season of Weeds begins with the fallout from the botched drug deal of the season 2 finale: Celia finds and destroys the entire harvest; U-Turn pays the mobsters to leave Nancy and him alone; Silas is arrested and sentenced to community service; Sanjay (Maulik Pancholy), comes out of the closet, but U-Turn forces him to have sex with a woman who becomes pregnant with his child. During season 3, Silas and Shane remain the same age, however, as the season proceeds Shane turns 11.

During the first half of the season, Nancy works to pay off her debt to U-Turn based on Celia's destruction of an entire pot harvest and U-Turn saving her life. Nancy also gets a legitimate job working for Sullivan Groff (Matthew Modine), a crooked developer from the neighboring community of Majestic, and she soon becomes his lover. Celia, who has also been intimate with Groff, resents Nancy for this.

Silas begins selling pot for his mother using the alias Judah and meets Tara (Mary-Kate Olsen), an evangelical Christian who enjoys smoking pot and helps him sell it too. Shane and Isabelle become outcasts at the heavily-religious Majestic summer school and form a friendship. Shane is also having conversations with his dead father, who he insists is really there, as familial stress increases. Nancy gets called in by the DEA, and is terrified that she is being busted. But it turns out that they've found out about her marriage to Peter Scottson, and have a hefty life insurance policy to give her.

At U-Turn's behest, Conrad and Heylia start a grow business. U-Turn sees talent in Nancy and trains her to be his lieutenant, while simultaneously starting a war with rival Mexican dealers. When U-Turn has a heart attack while jogging, Marvin suffocates him to death and becomes the new boss of U-Turn's crew. Marvin botches an attempted truce with the Mexicans, allowing Nancy to clear all debts for her and Conrad and end the gang war.

Debt-free, but feeling lonely, Nancy attempts to befriend Peter's ex-wife, Valerie. The two bond over their troubled lives. Their friendship turns sour when Valerie demands the money from Peter's life-insurance payout, which she feels she has earned by her years married to him and the child they have together. Nancy promises to give it to her, but has to first use most of it to replace the money Doug "borrowed" from the Agrestic treasury to help Nancy get back in business, pay his divorce lawyer, and get laser eye surgery. Despite giving her several smaller payments, Valerie believes that Nancy will never give her her full due and that Peter had an off-the-books stash of cash of which Nancy knows the location, so she hires a private investigator to trail Nancy. The investigator finds out Nancy is a drug dealer and blackmails her for most of the remaining life-insurance money in exchange for not telling Valerie or the DEA. Nancy pays the money but ensures the investigator won't come after her again by blackmailing him for blackmailing her. Nancy confronts Valerie by telling her that she would have gotten the money despite Nancy having no obligation to give it to her, but that now, due to Valerie's investigator, Nancy no longer has any money to give Valerie.

Meanwhile, the nearby Christian community of Majestic has been attempting a hostile takeover of Agrestic, with Doug leading the charge due to the large amount of money it will bring in. But Groff's gift—a new house in Majestic—to Celia leads to jealousy, and Doug begins sabotaging the Majestic city infrastructure, although it is already too late, as Celia brings it to a public referendum. To get back at Groff, Doug steals the giant cross from Majestic's megachurch, eventually putting it inside the grow house. Meanwhile, Dean has a motorcycle accident, which forces Celia to take care of him against her will. Heylia and Conrad are forced to move the grow operation and Nancy negotiates the use of Celia's off-the-books house in Majestic. Andy has a brief excursion into the pornographic film industry, also at Celia's off-the-books house, and later befriends a group of bikers while trying to score with one of its female members; they want him to start selling their weed. Nancy and Conrad become lovers while hanging out at the grow house, but Conrad realizes he has no future with her. Nancy turns to Guillermo—the leader of the Mexican dealers—to get protection when the bikers threaten her family after she refuses to sell their low-quality "ditch weed". Guillermo decides to burn down the bikers' marijuana field, causing a huge fire which spreads to the Agrestic area. At that time, thermal cameras spot the stolen cross and the DEA moves in.

Nancy, meanwhile, takes advantage of the fire and pours gasoline throughout her house and lights it with a match, ensuring that she and her family will be leaving and moving on, and there will be no evidence of their drug activities.

Season 4

On November 5, 2007, Showtime ordered 13 new episodes for a fourth season of Weeds. The fourth season started on Monday, June 16, 2008 and concluded on Monday, September 15, 2008. The season opener "Mother Thinks the Birds are After Her" was the last episode with "Little Boxes" as the theme song. The opening credits of subsequent episodes, after a recap of previous episodes, begin with a video title card unique to each episode. For the second episode of the season, for example, a highway sign reads "Weeds", "Created By", and "Jenji Kohan"—the embedded text used for all title cards since the show's inception. Each title card also has a prop or part of the setting morph into a marijuana leaf. In the highway sign example, a downward arrow designating a lane becomes a slightly larger pot leaf. Silas is now 17 and Shane is 13.

Having lost both her Agrestic grow house and her residential house in fires, Nancy relocates her family to the fictional California town of Ren Mar, near the Tijuana-San Diego border. They move in with Andy and Judah's father in Ren Mar. Guillermo hires Nancy to bring by car what she believes to be illegal drugs from Mexico, but, as she finds out after delivery, they are actually legal asthma inhalers used to test Nancy's smuggling ability. Celia is in jail due to being the official lessee of Nancy's grow house where she bargains to spy on Nancy in exchange for her release. Guillermo's men catch Celia spying but Nancy convinces them to spare Celia's life. Andy enters a coyote partnership with Doug, who has recently moved to Ren Mar to evade questions about Agrestic's finances. Isabelle is unenthusiastic about moving from Ren Mar to her father in Detroit and pesters her mother Celia until she lets her daughter stay with her. Silas sets up a grow room in the rear of a gourmet cheese shop owned by a neighbor (Julie Bowen) who is an attractive thirtiesh woman. Despite knowing that Silas is under 18, she becomes intimate with him. She reveals to Silas that her interests in him are just financial and physical, causing a heartbroken Silas to spurn her advances and to end their business relationship. Meanwhile, at school Shane attacks without provocation the most popular boy to acquire a fearsome reputation. He also attracts the admiring attention of Simone and Harmony, with whom he loses his virginity in a threesome.

Guillermo's boss, who has so far remained unknown to Nancy, has her open a maternity store which she believes is solely for money laundering. But she finds in the back of the store an underground tunnel entrance, and is told it is for transporting marijuana from Tijuana. Nancy later learns that the tunnel helps transport other controlled substances as well as guns and women. Shocked, Nancy informs DEA Captain Roy Till of the tunnel, though she has begun a sexual relationship with Guillermo's crime boss, the now revealed Esteban Reyes (Demián Bichir) who is also Mayor of Tijuana. The resulting DEA raid and shootout at the maternity shop ends with most of the Mexican drug runners arrested.

While working at Nancy's store, the availability of drugs from the tunnel leads to Celia abusing them. Isabelle and Dean stage an intervention which spurs Celia to enter rehab and to make amends to her family. Dean rejects her attempted amends, insisting that she instead locate and make amends to their oldest daughter, Quinn, who departed during the show's inaugural episode for a Mexican boarding school named Casa Reforma. Quinn, newly graduated, has her mother drugged upon her arrival and held captive with the aid of Quinn's boyfriend, a self-styled Mexican revolutionary, in order to extract a ransom of $200,000.

Esteban discovers that it was Nancy who had alerted the DEA to his smuggling tunnel, captures and intends to have her killed. But after Nancy discloses that she is with his child, a likely boy (he has only daughters), he spares her. At home, Shane steals Silas' weed, and Simone and Harmony help him to sell it at school. Doug had fallen for an illegal alien he names "Mermex" as she unsuccessfully tried to enter the United States by beach. After much searching, Doug locates her and uses his coyote enterprise to get her into California. Instead of gratefully rewarding Doug's efforts, Mermex is repelled by his unapologetic nature and genital warts. She has instead fallen in love and slept with Andy, now a folk hero known as "El Andy." A scorned Doug turns Mermex into immigration. Realizing that poverty effectively denies him from having to pay any judgments, Doug dares in writing for his estranged wife daring her to take him to court and then appears to prepare to hang himself, but actually masturbates using auto-erotic asphyxiation. Andy wonders if he is in love with Nancy and questions why he has stayed with the family for so long.

Season 5

The season 5 debut attracted 1.2 million viewers, with a rerun on the same night adding another 500,000 viewers for a cumulative 1.7 million. In season 5, Silas was 18 and Shane was 14.

After Nancy informs Esteban that she's pregnant, he allows her to live but has bodyguards assigned to her and forces her to undergo a chorionic villus sampling to be sure the baby is a boy and his. Anxious for her Shane's safety, Nancy has Andy take him to her sister, Jill Price-Grey (Jennifer Jason Leigh). In the later episodes, Jill arrives back with Shane and Andy. Jill explains that Shane took pictures on his phone of her having sex with Andy. Meanwhile, Silas draws up a new plan to start a legal medical marijuana business, which Nancy funds. The bodyguard mysteriously disappears and Nancy panics because he was probably murdered.

Quinn's attempt to extort money from Celia's family or friends fails, since none of them are willing to pay any ransom, and her later plan to kill Celia and sell her organs doesn't pan out due to her having had cancer. This leads to an internal dispute between Quinn and Rudolfo, and their relationship ends. Celia tries to get Rudolfo to let her stay with him but he drugs her and puts her on a bus to Texas. With nowhere else to go, she ends up squatting in Nancy's garage, where she finds the body of the missing bodyguard. The new bodyguard catches DEA agent Captain Roy Till and Nancy calls Esteban, who has Till killed. Andy suggests that he and Nancy have an abortion and flee with US$180,000 he found in Judah's old bank account, because she will never be free if she has a baby with a Mexican drug lord. Nancy instead leaves a note for Andy, saying she, Shane, and Silas have moved in with Esteban.

Six months later, Esteban proposes to Nancy and she accepts, but Pilar (Kate del Castillo), a powerful woman in Mexican politics, forces Esteban to break off his engagement to Nancy. Cesar, Esteban's chief aide, arranges a birthing room in the house, so there will be no record of the baby's birth. Escaping Esteban's house with Andy's aid, Nancy gets to her obstetrician, Dr. Audra Kitson (Alanis Morissette), who takes her to the hospital and delivers the baby. To protect his political career, Esteban will not sign the birth certificate. Nancy moves back in with Andy, who agrees to sign the birth certificate, hoping she'll free herself from Esteban; he also gets Nancy to give the baby a Bris, much to Esteban's dismay.

Shane witnesses violence at the hands of Esteban's bodyguard. He continues to sell pot at school and when a teacher steals a bunch of product, Shane reacts violently. Shane goes to the teacher's apartment with Isabelle and Esteban's bodyguard and kills the teacher's pet bird with a gun.

Esteban wants to see his son and comes to Nancy's door to ask her to marry him again. Simultaneously, an assassin trying to kill Nancy accidentally shoots Shane in his left shoulder. Nancy confronts Cesar, who admits that he has been an informant for Pilar, who arranged the assassination, of which Nancy was the intended target. The hit was not completed because Cesar could not bring himself to do it. Nancy keeps the betrayal from Esteban in exchange for shooting Cesar in the arm, like Shane had been. Esteban finds himself replaced as a candidate for governor, but with encouragement from Nancy, he runs as an independent.

Silas and Doug's shop is having problems; as Doug keeps eating their products, he is stoned all the time, and does not keep up his work responsibilities. The policeman in their pay begins demanding more money or he will cause them troubles. But then, they are raided by a sting set up by Internal Affairs against the cop, and they lose all of their pot. They go to Dean to help them get it back. Meanwhile Celia, who had been working in retail at the mall, gets a job as a cosmetics seller for a Mary Kay-like company. Unable to sell the products, Celia gets Dean to give the pot to her and starts selling it packaged with the cosmetics.

Doug finds out that Celia stole their pot and he and Dean plot revenge. After Shane is unexpectedly shot in the arm, Shane eschews painkillers, saying he prefers the pain. Instead, he begins drinking alcohol—sneaking it from the refrigerator as desired. Silas refuses to go abroad to study, expressing worry that Shane is going to "crack up".

Andy begins a relationship with Audra, with the family moving into Esteban's house, as Nancy and Esteban get married at home. Nancy visits Guillermo in prison to have him arrange the assassination of Pilar in exchange for Nancy getting Guillermo extradited to Mexico. Esteban becomes the front-runner for governor despite Pilar's rejection, but he is arrested in Mexico for suspicion of conspiracy, racketeering and tax evasion. Nancy and Cesar go to get Esteban from jail, but they find out on national television that Esteban had been already released and is rerunning for governor. Pilar had had him arrested and is blackmailing him into joining her ticket and becoming her puppet in exchange for being freed, while letting Esteban free despite the evidence Pilar has on him. Pilar confronts Nancy and tells her that she and Esteban must do everything Pilar dictates. Andy announces that he is going to propose to Audra, with his mother's ring, previously given to Nancy by her late husband Judah. Nancy is upset and initially refuses to give Andy the ring, but later relents.

Thereafter, Celia gathers Doug, Dean, Sanjay, Ignacio, and Isabelle—teaming them up to sell marijuana in a deliberate echo of season one when Nancy did the same. Pilar discreetly, but forcibly, escorts Nancy from a fund-raising party. As they walk by a pool on the outside deck, Pilar reveals to Nancy that she was aware of her actions. Pilar then suggests that the unfortunate deaths of Shane and Silas, appearing to be accidental, would generate a sympathy vote for Esteban. Nancy then warns Pilar that she will kill her if she takes such attempts toward her children. Without warning, Pilar is hit in the head by an unseen third party and ends up floating face down in the pool bleeding profusely from the head. Shane appears next to Nancy, holding the croquet mallet he just used to murder Pilar.

The fifth season finale episode premiered on Monday, August 31, 2009, averaging 1.3 million viewers, up versus season 4's finale that averaged 1 million.

Season 6

The sixth season premiered on Monday August 16, 2010 at 10ET/PT on Showtime.

The Botwin family flees north in the wake of Shane's killing of Pilar. Andy joins them after Audra breaks off their relationship. Being unable to cross the Canadian border without the baby's birth certificate, Nancy, Andy, Silas, Shane and Stevie assume new identities as "The Newmans" (as Nathalie, Randy, Mike, Shawn and Avi, respectively) and settle in Seattle, Washington. Silas is 19 in this season with Shane, 15, and Stevie, three months.

Nancy, Andy and Silas take menial jobs as scab labor at a local hotel, where Nancy discovers the resident drug dealer to be on strike. Seeing an opportunity to fill that void, she seeks out a local distributor (Hamilton) and, realizing she does not have enough money to buy much marijuana, she instead buys up the seller's trimmings and produces hashish, using the hotel's laundry equipment. While the rest of the family works, Shane babysits Stevie. Back in southern California, Esteban tasks Cesar and Ignacio with finding Nancy and bringing back his son. While looking for clues at the Ren Mar house, they encounter Doug and coerce him into helping find the Botwins.

As Nancy and Andy begin to leave the weed dealer's house, they are confronted by two police officers and asked about the unpaid parking tickets from the stolen license plates on Andy's minivan, resulting in the decision that the family would flee again. Cesar and Ignacio receive a phone call from OnStar about the location of the van (which blew a tire when Andy tried to remove the police boot with a blowtorch). Cesar, Ignacio, and Doug then travel to Seattle and search for clues in the van. After Nancy convinces Silas to steal his girlfriend's car, she spots Doug tied up in the back of Cesar's car at the motel and Cesar arguing with the manager. As she panics and attempts to gather the family, a series of issues amount, culminating with Shane calling to tell her he had been kidnapped by Cesar and Ignacio.

Cesar negotiates a trade with Nancy: Shane for Stevie. Despite agreeing, Nancy meets Cesar with Gayle's crossbow hidden in a bassinet, then shoots Cesar in the leg. She receives a phone call from Ignacio, who unintentionally tells her about his run in with her three sons, Andy, and Doug at the local diner. When Nancy arrives there, she joins the group at the table and attempts to negotiate with Ignacio by holding a gun under the table. Ignacio calls her bluff – Shane then takes the gun. Ignacio reluctantly folds to Shane. Now the Botwin family and Doug continue off-the-grid living according to Andy. During the flee, they stop at a carnival, much to Andy's disapproval. They end up winning a RV, but without proper identification they are unable to claim it. Liking the idea of RV travel, they purchase an older used RV and travel to an out-of-the-way trailer park. Andy and Doug pose as a preacher and assistant, taking appropriate donations. A frustrated Nancy goes to a bar and has sex with the bartender. The next day she finds out the bartender has a wife who is also her neighbor and they are subsequently chased out of town.

As the Botwins continue their nomadic lifestyle on the run in their RV, they stop in Colorado. They continue to bargain for the trimmings of other dealers' weed. In Aspen, Colorado, Nancy and Andy drop off Silas and Shane to sell hash. When Stevie's feces are an abnormal color, Nancy decides he needs a pediatrician. Shane discovers Silas wants to apply for college, and Silas in turn learns Shane doesn't have any of his own back up plans. At the pediatrician's office, Nancy sees herself on the TV listed as a missing person. The doctor says Stevie is fine, but suggests the baby may not be bonding with her, and that the baby's lifestyle could be a factor, making her rethink their way of life. Andy suggests moving to Denmark, with which Nancy agrees.

The group travels to Nancy's hometown, Dearborn, Michigan, where they stay with Nancy's former high school teacher Mr. Schiff (Richard Dreyfuss), with whom she had a sexual relationship from the age of 14. Silas discovers that Judah is not his biological father; in fact, his father is Nancy's former boyfriend Lars. The Botwins are found by an investigative journalist named Vaughn, who is writing an article about Nancy. She gives him the information he needs to write her story in exchange for cash to buy passports. Doug returns to Agrestic, retitled Regrestic after the fire, where he tries to win back his wife. Mr. Schiff steals money from a post office for plane tickets to Copenhagen for the family, himself included. Silas says goodbye to Nancy, intending to stay behind with Lars. Nancy goes to meet Vaughn a final time before leaving, only to find his room has been ransacked with Esteban and Guillermo waiting for her.

Esteban and Guillermo take Nancy to the airport, where they plan to find Stevie. Nancy makes contact with Andy, telling him they are going to use "Plan C". After Esteban threatens Silas and takes Stevie, Nancy agrees to leave the airport with them, and they tell her that they intend to kill her. Andy, Silas, Shane and Mr. Schiff board the plane to Copenhagen (via Paris), but Mr. Schiff is arrested for robbing the post office. As Nancy leaves the airport, the FBI are waiting for them outside. As part of "Plan C", she confesses to the murder of Pilar, thus saving her own life after ensuring the safety of her family, and in particular, Shane.

Season 7

The seventh season premiered on June 27, 2011 at 10 E/9 C on Showtime. As the season picks up, Nancy has spent three years in prison and now lives in a strictly monitored halfway house in New York City, while the family meet after the other Botwins had spent three years in Denmark. Silas is 22, Shane is 18, and Stevie is 4.

Nancy learns that she will be released from prison early, though she did not even serve half of her sentence. She is placed into a halfway house in New York City where she has to serve the rest of her sentence. She had hoped to go into witness protection to evade Esteban; however, Agent Lipschitz tells her that Esteban was stabbed, and found dead. When she left from prison, her lesbian lover and cellmate, Zoya, gave her oven mits to find a key to get into the trunk of a car. In there were explosives which Zoya stole from her brother. Apparently, Zoya had wanted Nancy to sell them to someone on the black market, but instead Nancy sells them to start a deal with Zoya's brother for weed.

Andy, Doug, Silas, and Shane had been living in Copenhagen for the last three years. Shane was a puppeteer with his now ex-girlfriend, Silas had been a model for "some flower water", and Andy and Doug were giving tours of Copenhagen under the name "Wonderful Wonderful Tours" (much like premiere of season five, Wonderful Wonderful). They learn from Jill, who has been raising Stevie to believe Nancy is his aunt, that Nancy has been released and is in a halfway house in New York City. Andy, Doug, Silas, and Shane travel to New York City to find Nancy, much to her dismay.

Nancy flees upon seeing them. Silas and Doug leave the halfway house. Silas tries to start up his modeling career in New York City (under the name Silas Guinard, the last name of his biological father Lars Guinard), and Doug finds an old college buddy.

Andy and Shane meet Nancy when she comes back to the halfway house from a job interview. During the reunion, she is submitted for a random drug test. Which is administered because it is suspected that she had just smoked weed. This marked the second time she has smoked weed on screen.

Much to Nancy's chagrin, Jill reveals to Nancy she wants to take custody of Stevie, causing immense stress for Nancy and worsening her situation.

Nancy and Silas fly to California to attend a custody hearing requested by Jill, but when they arrive they find out it was postponed by Jill's lawyer. This infuriates Nancy and she immediately drives to Jill's house to visit Stevie. After being refused visitation and making a scene, Scott who is Jill's husband strikes a deal with Nancy to allow her to webcam with Stevie in secret. Meanwhile, Silas attempts to bargain with the judge handling the custody case to have the hearing resumed. The judge agrees to meet with Nancy in his office, advising her to "return to those who helped you succeed... Be the Nancy that raised Silas." Nancy later attempts to obtain pot from her first supplier Heylia James while in California only to be greeted with a shotgun pointed at her and Silas.

Cast and characters

The cast of Weeds during Season 2, Left to Right: Romany Malco, Tonye Patano, Mary-Louise Parker, Kevin Nealon, Elizabeth Perkins, and Justin Kirk. This image was also used for the Season 2 DVD box set.

Main article: List of Weeds characters

The leading character is Nancy Price Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker), a housewife from southern California who becomes a pot dealer after her husband Judah (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) dies. Although her drug-dealing career only achieves mixed success, she eventually rises to the highest levels of an international drug-smuggling cartel. Nancy remarries twice during the series. First, she has an under-the-radar wedding with Peter Scottson (Martin Donovan), a DEA agent, who was later killed. In later seasons, she marries Esteban Reyes (Demián Bichir), the fictional mayor of Tijuana and leader of a cartel, who is also murdered by the seventh season. In the wake of Judah's death, Nancy has Judah's brother, Andy (Justin Kirk), help by living with her. Andy is initially a fun-loving slacker but later emerges as a primary father figure in the Botwin household.

Nancy begins the series with two sons, and post-Judah's death, they are raised haphazardly. The eldest, Silas (Hunter Parrish), who was sexually promiscuous since the show's debut, later follows in his mother's footsteps as a cannabis dealer, grower, and dispensary operator. Shane (Alexander Gould) is an intelligent boy who is poorly socialized and deeply affected by his father's death. As the series goes on, Shane begins to have conversations with his dead father. Moreover, he was bullied in his local public school during the first three seasons, and subsequently, upon moving to Ren Mar, Shane loses his virginity and becomes a temporary alcoholic. By the fifth and sixth seasons, he executed Esteban's dangerous ex-wife with a croquet mallet by the pool deck, as she had a hostile discussion with Nancy and threatened her sons' lives. In the fifth season, Stevie Ray Botwin (portrayed by uncredited babies) was born to Nancy and Esteban.

Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins) was Nancy's friend and principal antagonist. She is obsessed with her personal image and alternatively manipulates or ignores those around her that do not fit neatly into that image. She has a distasteful marriage with Dean (Andy Milder), whom she regards as a "loser asshole"; they divorce in the latter. Many other characters also despise her. Her older daughter, Quinn (Haley Hudson), kidnaps her as revenge for shipping her to a reform school in Mexico. She is demanding and manipulative over her youngest daughter Isabelle's (Allie Grant) "weight problem" and is critical of her sexual orientation. Celia had an openly hostile relationship with Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon). By the end of season one, she has breast cancer and is cured with chemo therapy. Doug Wilson (Nealon) begins the series as an accountant and city councilman for the town of Agrestic. However, due to poor choices and misfortune, he loses his privileged lifestyle and becomes a drifter who follows the Botwin family during seasons four through seven. Doug is friends with many characters in the series including Andy, Dean and Sanjay Patel (Maulik Pancholy), and all four are aiding Nancy to sell marijuana, as retailers.

The show has a changing cast of major supporting characters. Heylia James (Tonye Patano) and her family (Conrad and Vaneeta, portrayed by Romany Malco and Indigo) play a key role during the first three seasons. They are wholesalers who supply marijuana to Nancy, who in turn distributes to retail customers. Conrad later develops his own strain of marijuana (MILF weed) from which Nancy sells. When Nancy moves to Ren Mar, the characters in Esteban's drug cartel take a leading role. Other key characters included Nancy's housekeeper, Lupita (Renée Victor); rival drug dealers; DEA agents including her second husband, Peter; romantic interests of Andy, Silas, and Shane; and the residents of Ren Mar. This trend continues during the sixth season; however, as the story sees Nancy on the run, most introduced characters have only minor roles and only appear in one or two episodes. An exception to this is Warren Schiff (Richard Dreyfuss), who also has an affectionate love for Nancy after being her math teacher in high school.

Episodes

Main article: List of Weeds episodes

As of November 15, 2010, 76 original episodes of Weeds have been produced and broadcast. The first season began August 8, 2005 and consisted of 10 episodes. The second season premiered on August 14, 2006, airing 12 episodes. The third season debuted on August 13, 2007, airing 15 episodes. The fourth season began June 16, 2008, and the fifth season on June 8, 2009, each with a total of 13 episodes. The sixth season, with 13 more episodes, began airing in August 2010.

Some of the show's episodes encountered leaks. It had appeared on the Internet prior to their showing. Jenji Kohan has stated that she does not mind episodes being distributed on the internet in this way, saying, "Revenue aside, I don't expect to get rich on Weeds. I'm excited it's out there. Showtime is great, but it does have a limited audience."

In 2006, before Season 2 started airing on Showtime, the first few episodes were leaked online. Before the third season began the first two episodes appeared online on July 22, 2007 (nearly a month before the August 13 premiere date). The third episode appeared online on July 24, with the fourth appearing just three days later. The fourth episode was, however, an incomplete version—among other things, some dubbed lines were not complete (notably part of a voice mail message by U-Turn is spoken by a distinctly different actor), and a card simply reading "End Credits" was inserted instead of the actual credits. On August 1, 2010, the first episodes of season 6 leaked online. Due to the high quality of the leaked episodes, downloaders of the torrents speculated that they were leaked intentionally to garner interest in the show and to create internet buzz. Episode leaks of other Showtime programs such as Californication and Dexter were seen as giving weight to this theory.

Media

Opening music

"Little Boxes" is the opening song for the first three seasons of the show; the version recorded by Malvina Reynolds is used during the first season. In seasons 2 and 3, the song is performed by various artists. In season 4, the Malvina Reynolds version opens the first episode. Thereafter, the original titles and music are replaced by a short clip, different for each episode, which bears relevance to the plot or some scene later in the episode.

Season 1

• Malvina Reynolds

Season 2

1. Elvis Costello
2. Death Cab for Cutie
3. Engelbert Humperdinck
4. Kate & Anna McGarrigle (in French)
5. Maestro Charles Barnett
6. Aidan Hawken
7. Ozomatli
8. The Submarines
9. Tim DeLaughter of Polyphonic Spree
10. Regina Spektor
11. Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice
12. Malvina Reynolds

Season 3

1. Randy Newman
2. Angelique Kidjo
3. Kinky (in Spanish)
4. Donovan
5. Billy Bob Thornton
6. The Shins
7. The Individuals
8. Man Man
9. Joan Baez
10. The Decemberists
11. Michael Franti
12. Persephone's Bees (partly in Russian)
13. Laurie Berkner
14. Linkin Park
15. Malvina Reynolds (opening)
    & Pete Seeger (closing)

Soundtracks

The music supervisors for the show include Gary Calamar (along with music coordinator Alyson Vidoli) (27 episodes), Amine Ramer (4 episodes), and Bruce Gilbert (3 episodes). The original score is provided by composers, Brandon Jay and Gwendolyn Sanford.

Weeds: Music from the Original Series

• Released September 13, 2005

1. Malvina Reynolds – "Little Boxes"
2. Nellie McKay – "David"
3. Peggy Lee – "A Doodlin' Song"
4. Sufjan Stevens – "All The Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands"
5. Michael Franti & Spearhead – "Ganja Babe"
6. All Too Much – "More Than A Friend"
7. Sons & Daughters – "Blood"
8. The New Pornographers – "The Laws Have Changed"
9. Joey Santiago – "Fake Purse"
10. NRBQ – "Wacky Tobacky"
11. Marion Black – "Who Knows"
12. Martin Creed – "I Can't Move"
13. The Mountain Goats – "Cotton"
14. Joey Santiago – "Birthday Video"
15. Flogging Molly – "If I Ever Leave This World Alive"
16. The Be Good Tanyas – "The Littlest Birds"
17. Hill Of Beans – "Satan Lend Me a Dollar"

Weeds: Music from the Original Series, Volume 2

• Released October 17, 2006

1. Elvis Costello – "Little Boxes"
2. Zeroleen – "All Good"
3. Of Montreal – "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games"
4. Jenny Owen Youngs – "Fuck Was I"
5. Fern Jones – "Strange Things Are Happening"
6. (The Real) Tuesday Weld – "Bathtime In Clerkenwell"
7. Gwendolyn Sanford & Brandon Jay – "Shane Digs Gretchen"
8. Rogue Wave – "Kicking The Heart Out"
9. Regina Spektor – "The Ghost of Corporate Future"
10. Dengue Fever – "One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula"
11. Aidan Hawken – "Neighborhood"
12. Squirrel Nut Zippers – "It Ain't You"
13. Gwendolyn Sanford & Brandon Jay – "From Agrestic to Las Vegas"
14. The 88 – "Not Enough"
15. Sufjan Stevens – "Holland"
16. Gwendolyn Sanford & Brandon Jay – "Huskaroo TV Spot"
17. The Mopes - "You Look Like A Gorilla"

Weeds: Music from the Original Series, Volume 3

• Released June 3, 2008 as digital-only release, retail release July 8.

1. Randy Newman – "Little Boxes"
2. Page France – "Chariot"
3. That 1 Guy – "Buttmachine"
4. Beirut – "Scenic World"
5. The Dresden Dolls – "Girl Anachronism"
6. Ween – "You Fucked Up"
7. Oh No! Oh My! – "Walk In The Park"
8. Illinois – "Nosebleed"
9. Great Lake Swimmers – "Your Rocky Spine"
10. Mr. Smolin – "The Earth Keeps Turning On"
11. Kevin Nealon – "Just Like The Superdome"
12. State Radio – "Keepsake"
13. Eleni Mandell – "Let's Drive Away"
14. The Shins – "Little Boxes" (iTunes Exclusive)

Weeds: Music from the Original Series, Volume 4

• Released June 9, 2009

1. DeVotchKa – "A New World"
2. Nortec Collective – "Tengo La Voz"
3. Greg Weeks – "Made"
4. The Free Design – "Love You"
5. That Handsome Devil – "Mexico"
6. Miss Li – "Don't Try To Fool Me"
7. Tunng – "Bullets"
8. Mucca Pazza – "Borino Oro"
9. Los Mono – "Se Puede"
10. Linus of Hollywood – "Thank You For Making Me Feel Better"
11. The Mountain Goats – "International Small Arms Traffic Blues"
12. Toots & The Maytals – "Celia"
13. Soul Swingers – "Brighter Tomorrow"

DVD and Blu-ray releases

DVD Name	# of Ep	Release dates
		Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
Season One	10	July 11, 2006	September 3, 2007	July 18, 2007
Season Two	12	July 24, 2007	January 7, 2008	May 28, 2008
Season Three	15	June 3, 2008	May 26, 2008	July 8, 2009
Season Four	13	June 2, 2009	November, 2009	March 17, 2010
Season Five	13	January 19, 2010	TBA	November 24, 2010
Season Six	13	February 22, 2011	TBA	TBA

The Region 1 Season One DVD is only available in 4:3 pan and scan format. The Region 2 and 4 releases are all in anamorphic widescreen. Season one was released on Blu-ray on May 29, 2007, and Season two was released on July 24, 2007. Both seasons include all episodes in 1080p widescreen with Dolby Digital EX sound and either DTS-HD (season one) or LPCM (season two), as well as extras exclusive to the Blu-ray release. Season three was released on Blu-ray on June 3, 2008. Seasons one to three on Blu-ray are multi-region discs; however, season four has been region-locked to region A only. This is due to a lack of broad international pick-up by non-US broadcasters at the time of release. This implies that Showtime does not wish to prejudice any future transmission rights negotiations by having the season available to own before it could be broadcast in the countries concerned.

In late 2009, Weeds seasons four and five have been aired in at least one region B country, namely The Netherlands. Subsequently, a region 2 DVD of Season 4 has indeed been released. However, the region 2 DVD release was not accompanied by a region B Blu-ray. Showtime have not commented on whether they ever anticipate releasing a region B Blu-ray version, or if any further non-US transmission rights are agreed. The same region locking has been applied to Blu-ray for season five.

An extra feature on the Season Two DVD was rejected by the British Board of Film Classification since it was regarded as "likely [...] to promote and encourage the use of illegal drugs".

Books

On August 7, 2007, Simon Spotlight, a division of Simon and Schuster, published In the Weeds: The Official Guide to the Showtime Series by Kera Bolonik, which features interviews with the show's creator, its writers and crew, and the entire cast. It also features detailed character and plot descriptions, recipes, trivia and behind-the-scenes information.

Reception

In its first year, Weeds was the highest rated series for Showtime. Its fourth-season premiere attracted 1.3 million viewers to Showtime, the channel's highest-ever viewership; the season as a whole averaged 962,000 viewers. Season 5 premiered to 1.2 million viewers, with a rerun on the same night adding another 500,000 viewers for a cumulative 1.7 million. The final episode of the show's fifth season aired on August 31, 2009 and attracted 1.3 million viewers.

Slate magazine named the character of Nancy Botwin as one of the best on television and one of the reasons they were looking forward to the return of the show in fall 2007. TIME magazine's James Poniewozik named it one of the Top 10 Returning Series of 2007, ranking it at #9. The New York Times opined the show is "transforming for Showtime." Metacritic scored season two, four and five a score of 78, 67 and 73 respectively.

Awards and nominations

Main article: List of Weeds awards and nominations

Won

Award	Title	Credit	Year
Satellite Awards	Actress in a Series, Comedy or Musical	Mary-Louise Parker	2005
Golden Globe Awards	Best Performance by a TV Actress in a Musical or Comedy	Mary-Louise Parker	2006
Writers Guild of America	Episodic Comedy	Jenji Kohan	2006
Young Artist Awards	Best Supporting Young Actor – Television Series	Alexander Gould	2006
Satellite Awards	Actor in a Series, Comedy or Musical	Justin Kirk	2008
Emmy Awards	Outstanding Cinematography for a Half-Hour Series	Michael Trim, Director of Photography	2010

Nominated

Golden Globe Awards

Best TV Series-Comedy (2006, 2007, 2009)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-series, or TV Movie Elizabeth Perkins (2006): Best Performance by a TV Supporting Actress Elizabeth Perkins (2006, 2007)

Best Performance by a TV Actress in a Musical or Comedy Mary-Louise Parker (2005, 2007, 2008)

Best Performance by a TV Supporting Actor Justin Kirk (2007)

Screen Actors Guild

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series Mary-Louise Parker (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009)

Ensemble In A Comedy Series (2007, 2009)

Satellite Awards

Outstanding Actress in a Series-Comedy Elizabeth Perkins (2005)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-series, or TV Movie Elizabeth Perkins(2006)

Best Actress in a Series, Comedy or Musical Mary-Louise Parker (2006, 2008)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series, or TV Movie Justin Kirk (2007)

Best Television Series, Comedy or Musical (2007, 2008)

Emmy Awards

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Elizabeth Perkins (2006, 2007, 2009)

Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series Craig Zisk, for the episode Good Shit Lollipop (2006)

Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series (2006, 2007)

Outstanding Main Title Design (2006)

Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series, for the episode Good Shit Lollipop (2006)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series Mary-Louise Parker (2007, 2008, 2009)

Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series, for the episode Mrs. Botwin's Neighborhood (2007)

Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series, for the episode Crush Girl Love Panic (2007)

Outstanding Comedy Series (2009)

External links

• Official websites:
  • Official website on Showtime
  • Official website on Showcase
• Weeds at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com