Weeds — The Whole Blah Damn Thing, or How to Pull the Plug on Bubbie in Three Easy Steps
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- July
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So my co-worker tells me yesterday that his brother-in-law’s mother-in-law is the actress who plays Bubbie on Weeds.
I guess I should say she’s the actress who played Bubbie, because after last night I’m guessing she’s looking for acting work. Still, a pretty neat little connection to what is becoming an ever more darkly humorous take on the issues of our day.
Last night’s episode, “The Whole Blah Damn Thing,” took on euthanasia. I’m conflicted. I’m having a problem swallowing the moral lessons of a show that I’m not convinced is really trying to take a stand one way or another.
I mean, sure, there’s the overarching “pot isn’t so bad” theme, but when a soccer mom is having bricks of it crammed into her door panels — and a criminally unwelcome foreign national crammed under her back seat — I have to think a lot of the moralizing is tongue in cheek.
So that’s why I don’t know how to take it when the terminally morose Shane starts lobbying for his newfound grandma’s demise. Albert Brooks’s Lenny, not at all surprisingly, played it perfectly. It’s his mother. He doesn’t want to see his suffer, but what kind of good son pulls the plug on the woman who reared him, even if she tore down his self esteem at every turn?
And he raises the specter that mercy killing might be as much about the relief of the grieving as the relief of the dying. No doubt Andy wants to put Bubbie out of his own misery as much as her own. (His dissertation on life’s blah’s fell flat for me, personally.) Silas, ironically, is the only one to raise the idea that killing grandma might not be the right thing to do.
But then along comes Nancy — aka “Not Francy ” — game as ever. She’ll put a pillow over Bubbie’s face as easily as she’ll smuggle drugs wholesale across the border. She’s neither convinced nor concerned that it’s the right thing to do. It just seems like the thing to do. And Bubbie never liked her anyway, right?
Much like she transcended from widowed mom needing to provide for her family to drug runner, she can don any hat she likes. The audience can bounce the issues about like political beach balls all they want. She’s not so engaged.
And yet, rather than come off as frustratingly detached and unbelievable, Mary Louise Parker’s Nancy is as captivating as ever. I not only want to know what she’ll do next, but how and why.
I actually thought Bubbie was going to live to vegetate another day after Shane and Lenny’s heart-to-heart, by the way. That was actually a nice moment there.
While the Botwins were bidding one of their own adieu, Celia was finaging her way out of jail. She’s Captain Till’s rat now, and if she doesn’t bring back some high quality cheese on her old pal she’ll face a mountain of charges. Till’s a funny guy, probably the most believable of the whole bunch. If he saw Celia fumble with that disposable camera while she misses Guillermo making his payoff to Nancy, he’d probably call the deal off.
Celia was a little slicker sneaking into Dean’s hotel, finding his cell phone and discovering a text from Shane referencing Ren Mar. That, and Doug’s quick getaway, both hint toward a reunion of sorts that’s coming.
Oh and by the way, I’m catching up. Last week I mentioned I’d only seen the first season and a half. Well, I’m an episode shy of starting season three. In about two weeks at this pace, I might actually know what’s going on, like where the heck are Heylia and Conrad? And why’d Nancy burn her house down?
I know, bear with me.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 10:48 am by Brian Howard.
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