Episode Title: 'Messy'
Writer: Jenji Kohan
Director: Michael Trim
Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) isn't dead… yet. But after making seven seasons worth of enemies, Silas (Hunter Parrish) and Shane (Alexander Gould) sit beside their comatose mother in her hospital bed, wondering if it's the DEA, a Mexican drug cartel or one of their ex-girlfriends who's responsible for trying to off Nancy.
"Weeds" returned from a jaw-dropping cliffhanger to find Andy, Jill, Doug, Silas and Shane reeling with Nancy out of commission and possibly on her death bed. And what does Team Botwin do when Nancy isn't around to pull their strings? Talk about her incessantly.
For a final season opener, 'Messy' didn't hit the ground running (aside from Shane's attempt to catch the shooter). Instead, we watched the gang bring their brand of wildly inappropriate behavior (see: vagina weights and fondling a woman in a coma) to a hospital. However, the shenanigans weren't funny enough to distract from the question of who wants Nancy Botwin dead.
Which begs the question of where this final season is headed? Thankfully, we got a clue at the end of this episode (and also from the animated opening sequence depicting the Botwin family's travels thus far).
Just as Nancy and her long suffering extended family put their differences aside, one long forgotten relation is still upset with Nancy after all these years. And can you blame him? First, DEA Agent, Peter Scottson's son, Tim (Daryl Sabara) got bitten by Shane at a karate tournament, then Nancy married his father, which later resulted in his death at the hands of the Armenian mafia.
Despite putting Nancy in a coma, it appears Tim already regrets his actions, as we saw at the end of the premiere. Still, that probably won't stop Shane, who's now way more psychotic than when Tim first encountered him, from taking another bite. But let's not forgot that Tim has some anger management issues of his own, which we saw way back in the first season.
Bringing back a minor nemesis from season one is a fitting, though predictable path to take in 'Weeds'' final season. Though I'd much prefer to see Heylia and Conrad again, the reveal of Tim Scottson as the shooter certainly put an interesting button on a rather "talky" episode. Are we in store for a showdown between emotionally damaged borderline psychotic fatherless sons? If this is 'Weeds' we're talking about, that sounds about right.
