‘Weeds’ pot-peddling widow will sell her own

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, August 13, 2006

When last we saw Mary-Louise Parker in her TV series, she had just realized she was literally in bed with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

That’s not a good place to be when you’re the hottest selling marijuana dealer in your particular suburb.

Parker returns at 10 tonight as Nancy Botwin in the second season of Showtime’s hit dramatic comedy “Weeds.”

Showtime’s newest sensation, which the network says is one of its most-watched series in its 30-year history, earned Parker a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a musical or comedy TV series.

For those unfamiliar, the show centers on the recently widowed Botwin, who discovered that selling marijuana on the sly is the best way to continue supporting her family.

The first season focused on Botwin’s burgeoning business and the challenges it presented. She also had her ne’er-do-well brother-in-law move in and her best friend in town, Celia, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She also watched as she lost her grip on her children, and seems determined to get it back in the first episode.

Bumbling and chronically stoned City Councilman Doug, played by Kevin Nealon of “Saturday Night Live,” is one of Botwin’s best customers and will be facing an opponent for the first time as Celia wants to make the town safer.

It’s the first time Doug has had an opponent in as long as we’ve known.

“I run unopposed,” he tells Celia in tonight’s episode. “This is my thing. Go get your own thing.”

But this show isn’t going to simply sit back with the big fat first season it rolled up.

“It’s a season of growth, literally and figuratively,” creator Jenji Kohan said in press materials. “We wanted to create a show that wasn’t the same formula season after season.”

This season, Botwin will set out on her own business venture, growing her own product rather than selling for other people.

But it’ll take a little suspending of your disbelief. Botwin’s seed money for her new venture is the $80,000 she gets from the insurance company after her bakery burns down.

With that kind of cash, wouldn’t she get out of the business?

“I asked that same question on set,” Parker said in a recent teleconference before being asked, rhetorically, about the show’s ability to carry on if she just took the cash and ran.

“That’s pretty much what they said. Actually, it was meant to be a higher number and I said that it should be made a somewhat lower number.”

So why does she keep doing it?

“I think she enjoys the adrenaline of it and I think she’s grown to enjoy it,” Parker said. “I don’t think she necessarily knew that about herself but … I don’t think she’s the most rational person, you know?”

Besides, if she did cut and run, there’d be no more “Weeds.” And that wouldn’t be a good thing.

Victor Balta’s column runs Mondays and Thursdays on the A&E page. Reach him at 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.

For more TV and pop culture scoop, check out Victor’s blog at heraldnet.com/blogpopculture.