By Curt Schleier
Darth Vader won at least a temporary victory on WEEDS – and he wasn’t even on the show.
Pretty much up until now, Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) has been a middle class entrepreneur who just happens to sell marijuana to pay the bills. In The Dark Time, however, she goes over to the Dark Side.
Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins) re-discovers what Nancy’s been up to. She’s ticked off because Nancy did the nasty with the guy she believed was her boyfriend. As bad, she’s in bad financial straits. So, Celia threatens Nancy with exposure unless she, Celia, gets a piece of the pie. But Nancy is in no mood to be shaken down. She grabs Celia, pulls her down and holds a knife to her throat. And concedes that in the past is she’s been susceptible to blackmail. But Celia is too late. “Call it bad timing, call it karma. But I’ve reached a tipping point.”
Ironically, as she threatens to kill her, Nancy caresses Celia’s hair, speaks softly to her, their faces just inches apart. Except for the knife, the moment is almost hot. (Although that could just be me.) But the moment is interrupted when Nancy’s young son Shane (Alexander Gould). “Say hello to Mrs. Hodes,” Nancy tells her bewildered son. “Were you really going to kill her,” he wonders.
It turns out that Nancy and Celia can become if not friends, at least allies. A fire marshal is going to inspect the Aguatecture warehouse where marijuana is grown. As a result, the entire product line must be moved to a new location quickly. Nancy rents Celia’s house (at $15,000 a month), so pretty much everyone walks away happy.
Actually, not everyone. Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon) isn’t happy at all. He’s still annoyed that he lost his position on the City Council when the town of Agrestic was merged into Majestic. And he’s doubly pissed that the golf club membership he was promised for helping to arrange the merger was taken away from him. So he steals a valuable cross from the façade of the Absolute Truth Ministries church. The ATM cross (and no, I can’t believe the acronym for the church is an accident) is no where to be found; Sullivan Groff (Matthew Modine) knows who did it and swears revenge.
Meanwhile, Andy Botwin (Justin Kirk) has his eye on a biker chick. He thinks she reciprocates. But what he thinks is a date turns out to be an introduction to other, larger and far uglier members of her motorcycle club. They want to become Nancy’s chief supplier, and use Andy as a conduit to her.
But Nancy’s ties to Aguatecture seem very close. Extremely close as she and the company’s chief botanist perform the nasty. Episodes ending with Nancy in orgasmic delight appear to be an emerging trend. But who’s left for her to screw?