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Saturday, October 08, 2005

Weeds

MLPWeeds.jpg
I downloaded a few episodes of Weeds a while back and finally got around to checking them out this week. Chris from prosaic.nu coincidentally just started watching the show, too, which reminded me to post something about it.

Weeds plays more like a straight up one-camera sitcom (a la Sex & the City) than recent ad libbed cable verité fare like The Comeback or Curb Your Enthusiasm or Fat Actress. It took me a little while to get into the rhythm of the show since some elements (most notably the incredibly stereotypical but completely hilarious Black Family Which Selleth The Drugs To Our White Heroine) are played for big satirical laughs while others (Mary Louise Parker's spiralling control issues in the wake of her husband's death) go for more dramatic emotions.

The result has more in common with the depressing absurdities of American Beauty than the arch wink-winks of Desperate Housewives. I can still find quite a few DH comparisons--most notably in Elizabeth Perkins' character of Celia, who shares some of Bree's seething-undercurrent. Celia could drink Bree under the table, though, and she's probably the only character on television who could best her in a drag-out cat fight or a verbal sparring match. And that's really saying something--Perkins is hilarious and mean and one of my favorite new characters on television this season.

The center of the show, though, is Mary-Louise Parker's Nancy. As usual, she's brilliant at holding a myriad of emotions just under the surface of her face and her quirky comedic timing & odd line deliveries are just right. I spent most of the first three episodes of the series comparing and contrasting Nancy with Lorelai Gilmore in my mind--aside from the fact that Lauren Graham & MLP could pass for sisters, their characters share many similarities. Nancy's sort of like Lorelai with the rug of the Stars Hollow's Support Network yanked out from under her feet, trying to face her troubles with the wit that has always served her well but finding herself somewhat alone in a pool of quicksand. At the end of the first episode she finds herself collapsing in tears into the arms of her dealer's son, the only person in her life who knows enough about her to be sympathetic but is at enough of a distance to not become an enemy when she shows some weakness.

I'm not sure how Weeds will balance its mixture of the absurd and the dramatic over the rest of the season but I'm really looking forward to checking out the rest of it.

Also: Sufjan Stevens on the soundtrack and a cute little gay drug dealer.

Update 10/18: Turns out Weeds was created by Gilmore Girls producer Jenji Kohan. So that explains the whole "Nancy is Lorelai, only stoned" thing. Thanks, teh internets!

Posted at 01:47 PM

Comments

001. Damon

I was kind of looking forward to watching this show until you compared it to Desperate Housewives and Gilmore Girls.

/me ducks!

Posted at 04:16PM on Saturday, October 08, 2005

002. Damon

Watched the first two episodes of Weeds last night. It's good! The first episode was a great setup -- did all the things a first episode should do (ie, a young man in underpants). The second one didn't really go anywhere, but it was fun to watch. My only complaint so far: Thirty minutes is too short.

Posted at 12:17PM on Sunday, October 09, 2005

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