Four things I’ve learned From “Weeds”
October 15, 2008 at 8:00 pm by aalamo
Each Fall an army of eighteen-year-old “adults” floods USF, expecting to finally set foot in the long prophesized “real world.” They soon discover that college, and the real world, are whatever these freshmen make of them. In constructing their identities, most are required to take a basic writing course. Creative Loafing has chosen four of those students to blog for the Daily Loaf.
For those of you who have never seen Weeds, it is, although you might never guess it, a show about, well, weed. Throw in some inappropriate, underage sexual relationships, Mexican drug lords, crooked cops, Jewish humor, a drug-addicted suburbia, a deaf girl and you’ve got Weeds in a nutshell. If that doesn’t scream “WATCH ME,” I don’t know what does. The following is a short list of observations I’ve made over the past three seasons:
1) With the right attire, you, too, can be a successful pot dealer. And by right attire I mean the skankiest possible outfit you could put together. Nancy Botwin, the posh, pot-dealing mom and main character, made a name for herself in the drug world not with her business savvy, but with her clothes, or lack thereof. She, with her dangerously short shorts and leather boots, has made enough money to pay for a house in a suburb of California, to send her kids to private school, and to by a new hybrid car. Her risqué attire also makes her pretty resourceful. If things turn sour at a drug deal, there’s no need to worry: she can provocatively dance her way out of it. So, ladies, with the right skirt and halter, you can make it out there too…
2) You can be a ballsy drug lord and a responsible mayor of a Mexican city at the same time. Esteban Reyes, Nancy’s current boyfriend, is a great example. He and his cronies, unbeknownst to the city he governs, built a tunnel from Mexico to California to smuggle drugs and sex slaves. You might think, “How in God’s name does he get away with this?” It’s a fair question, but this situation works out perfectly. Get this: when something goes wrong with his drug business, he simply exposes it to the public, but blames it on someone else. This past season, someone blew the whistle on his underground drug operation and the police ambushed it, confiscating hundreds of guns and several kinds of drugs. (That someone was Nancy, by the way) So, what does Esteban do? He stages a public conference with the cops that busted his tunnel and says, “We will catch these criminals and keep the streets safe.” Weeds taught me that it’s all about strategy. If you employ it correctly, the crappiest of crapfests can work for your benefit.
3) If you get your toe chewed off by a rabid dog, you can evade military service. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Andy, Nancy’s eternally high brother-in-law, got his toe bitten off by a bulldog and bang: military discharge.
4) Finally, Weeds taught me that, if any of these things were attempted at home, you would fail miserably. If I even considered attempting anything of this sort, the cops would show up at my door and arrest me for thinking about it. This series could do with a short disclaimer at the start of every episode. Just how the characters on Grey’s Anatomy get away with whining about the smallest of problems and the characters on The Office get away with being socially handicapped, the characters on Weeds get away with smoking and dealing marijuana, smuggling young women through a tunnels, and being corrupt government officials. Again, if that doesn’t grab you by the throat and make you watch, I don’t know what will.
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