Episode Title: 'See Blue and Smell Cheese and Die'
Writer: David Holstein
Director: Julie Anne Robinson
Nancy (Mary Louis-Parker) is home from the hospital and everything appears to be under control, thanks to Jill (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Andy (Justin Kirk) who let Nancy know that they're "a thing." Of course any sense of normalcy surrounding the Botwins is usually disrupted quickly – by a Botwin. In this case, it's Shane (Alexander Gould), who let Nancy know with a Hallmark card that he's on the hunt for her shooter.
While Nancy and Silas (Hunter Parrish) go after Shane, Doug (Kevin Nealon) and Whit (Bruce Nozick) are fired from Vehement Capital. But before he left, Doug made sure the fund gave to charity – that charity being Doug and Whit's coffers.
Now in its eigth season, "Weeds" has greatly evolved and grown over the years, though not all fans are happy with the direction the show's taken. Some feel the show "jumped the shark" around season two or three while others love the heightened comedy and outrageous plot twists of the show's later seasons. If you're a part of the second group, this episode was for you.
As for me, I'm somewhere in the middle. "Weeds" did some course correcting in the past two seasons but the show's humor is often a little too silly for my taste. Such was the case in this episode, where we saw Andy attempting to coach a tween girls' roller derby team while Jill's husband, Scott turned into a caricature of an overzealous team parent. That and Nancy and Silas' encounter with Tim's bizarro girlfriend are examples of the kind of wacky, weird comedy that tends to polarize the show's fanbase. It's not my thing but clearly there's a segment of viewers who love these outrageous comedic strokes.
Plot-wise, we're seeing more of the "After Botwin" Nancy who's committed to doing the right thing, even when it comes to the guy who shot her in the head. She doesn't want to be responsible for "another messed up kid." But like Shane and Silas, it proves to be too late for Tim, as well. It's police officer in training, Shane who arrests him, which is all kinds of ironic.
As for Andy, he's trying his darndest to keep Jill on his arm but Scott isn't making it easy. After sitting through so many of Andy's failed relationships, I want this to work, especially considering the comedic chemistry between Justin Kirk and Jennifer Jason Leigh. But as I said earlier, this week's antics were too strange and tiresome for my liking.
Still, I've invested enough time in this show (which in earlier seasons was one of my favorites) to continue rooting for these characters to come out the other side alright. And it appears that's where things are headed, though the run to the end might not be as funny as the beginning.
