Season 5
Weeds is an American dark comedy television series created by Jenji Kohan about a single mother who makes ends meet by selling marijuana in the fictional suburb of Agrestic (which later becomes Majestic), before her adventures take her to places as diverse as Ren Mar, Copenhagen and New York.
The series begins by looking at "typical" family life in the suburban neighbourhood of Agrestic, California, where recently-widowed Nancy Botwin plays referee to a circle of dysfunctional suburbanites who assemble at weekend soccer matches, PTA meetings, and many other domestic rituals of everyday life.
Left with more family debt than she expected, Nancy finds it hard making ends meet while raising her two sons, so she's recently become a very successful neighbourhood door-to-door salesman.
But not for Mary Kay cosmetics or Tupperware. No, Nancy is selling pot - and it's a business that is booming.
Included in the array of quirky and confused souls in Agrestic is Nancy's friend, Celia Hodes, the uptight, superficial PTA president and fellow super mom.
At times she seems to be the only sane one in the bunch – until she becomes preoccupied with her chubby nine-year-old daughter's weight or hides a nanny-cam to spy on her promiscuous 15-year-old daughter.
She's both Nancy's friend and nemesis, as well as the self-appointed supervisor of the neighbourhood's moral values.
Befuddled city councilman Doug Wilson is one of Nancy's regular clients. Not only does he enjoy a primo dime bag every now and then, but he's also the father of a cocky teenager who is himself a pot dealer - and gay - all unbeknownst to Doug.
As an escape from her "Stepfordian" cul-de-sac, Nancy regularly visits her pot supplier's house in a shady neighbourhood in Los Angeles. Somehow she feels most at home with this close-knit family, which speaks frankly and lives a completely different life than she would ever have experienced had she not entered this line of work.
Nancy Botwin has a strict code about selling only to adults, and pot is something she would never do herself, but she realises there's a demand out there and somebody's got to fill it.
An uber-parent to her kids, a counselor to anyone who needs it and a confused widow trying to get on with her life, she's ready for anything that could come up in this cookie-cutter neighbourhood.
What goes on behind closed doors is usually better left that way.
Created by Jenji Kohan, the series was produced by Lionsgate.
Broadcast Notes
Season 5 originally aired on M-Net on Tuesdays at 22h30. It changed to an hour earlier from Episode 11, which aired on 27 October, 2009.