overnights

‘Weeds’ Season Finale As Ridiculous As You Might Expect

Weeds

If You Work for a Living, Why Do You Kill Yourself Working?
Season 4 Episode 13

It’s judgment day for Nancy. As much as Mayor Esteban wants not to believe that the woman he loves is a snitch, Cesar is hell-bent on finding proof. And he does: a photograph of Nancy meeting with Captain Roy Till amid the bougainvillea. How he got the photo, we’re not sure (but we have a theory, due to a couple of clues over the past two episodes, that Till’s partner was actually playing both sides of the border fence. Perhaps this will come up in the next season?). For now, Detective Till’s partner is dead. And Nancy is in deep shit.

Yet to Nancy, the grisly death of an FBI agent at the hands of the Mexican cartel does not suggest that she should run, run, run. Or even get her dear boys out of harm’s way. Instead, she goes home after an interrogation by Captain Till — who’s aware she’s lying about not knowing who’s on the other end of the tunnel — and draws a bath. In the bathroom, to a schlocky soundtrack, Nancy explains the whole snitching thing to Andy. We get close-ups of running water, Nancy looking shaky, Andy projecting thoughtfulness. Odd.

But what is Andy really thinking about? Earlier, he tells Doug, “You still love Dana,” and Doug replies, “Well, you’re in love with Nancy.” Andy protests too much and later, after having complimented Nancy on her breasts as she bathed — “They’re nice, bigger than I thought” — he curls up in fetal position on the couch in front of the boys, insisting that they must not abandon Nancy, because they love her. “Love. Her. In a mom-loving way. Not in any other way.”

Meanwhile, about Doug loving Dana: He pens a letter to his ex-wife, declaring that he has lost all joy since losing her. And then … whaaa? He performs a psycho-sexual cry for help, hanging himself from the ceiling for a bit of auto-erotic asphyxiation, with suicidal overtones. The scene is a mind fuck — a Doug-style joke, apparently, about killing himself.

On the other side of the border, Celia is dressed like Kathleen Turner in Body Heat — with glamorous floppy pink hat and over-the-top jewelry — making her way by donkey to visit her long-lost daughter, Quinn, who is living in Oaxaca with a man named Rodolfo. Quinn — who looks nothing like Celia, Doug, or Isabelle, but a tad like Audrey Tautou — has a psycho streak. She drugs and kidnaps Celia, planning to ransom her for a $200,000 head start to Belize.

And then we return to reality — whatever that is in Weeds. Nancy realizes that her wayward sons, especially Silas, just turning 18, have raised themselves. “Dear Silas,” she dictates as she drives herself across the border to face Mayor Esteban. “If you never see me again, I’ve probably been murdered. Enjoy the dried apricots and butter cookies.” Before long, she saves herself from gruesome death — not through love, per se, but … a baby. “It’s too early to tell, but it feels like a boy,” Nancy says, her cheeks pink. Just what the Botwins need: another son to raise. And just what we need: another hiatus to contemplate how much further astray we will wander from suburban satire, as Nancy, bloated with the mayor of Tijuana’s child, runs from the FBI. Oh, what fun.

‘Weeds’ Season Finale As Ridiculous As You Might Expect