Originally posted on Amaldo.com.

Season 4 of Weeds premiered last night and I, for one, couldn’t have been more giddy. As a huge fan of the show, its premise, and in spite of my repressed jealousy for the fair Mary Louise Parker, the show’s start did nothing to sway my belief that this show represents one of the finest half-hour slots in entertainment on TV right now.

Last season ended with Nancy (Mary Louise Parker) torching her house and the entire Agrestic going up in flames. The police go into the basement of Celia’s (Elizabeth Perkin) house and discover Nancy’s booming pot operation and of course come to Celia looking for answers. Without disclosing too much here and potentially spoiling the experience for viewers, Albert Brooks joins the cast as Nancy’s father-in-law and the stereotypical Jewish father who regrets that his son married a goyishe woman. Brooks also doesn’t think much of Nancy’s eldest son, the one with the “goyishe punim” nor the fact that Nancy is eating the German dish, spatzle, and that she smells like gas. References to the Holocaust abound and you start to understand that the Jewish humor jokes are only going to increase exponentially with Brooks’ presence on the show.

The big open-ended question series’ creator Jenji Kohan had us all wondering last night is what’s going to happen with the storyline involving the show’s incredibly talented and witty supporting ensemble (Kevin Nealon, Elizabeth Perkins, etc) who get left behind in Agrestic now that Nancy, her kids, and her brother-in-law have shacked up with Albert Brooks just north of the border. Kohan leaked to E! that a spin-off show might be in the works that would center around the the rest of the cast. Unfortunately for Nancy-Conrad fans, Kohan sees the split has something irrevocable:

“I love those characters; I just think those relationships wore themselves out, and I wanted to be true to where the characters were. Truthfully, Heylia and Nancy had nothing more to say to each other. Conrad and Nancy weren’t going to be the loves of each other’s lives, so it was time to move on.”

On the flipside, a spin-off might be a welcome relief as it will translate to a whole hour of Weeds entertainment back-to-back and that the Call Girl show will have move to another night. Nothing against the show or anything (’twas better than expected and I’ll admit it has more potential than Sex in the City as it lives up to its sexed-up hype and shows actual sex taking place in the city), but as David Hinckley of the NY Daily News said, “Secret Diary of a Call Girl is sexy enough, but ’tis a pity she’s a bore.”

For a sneak peak of Episode 2 of Weeds click here.

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11 Comments

  • SOOO LOVE Justin Kirk!!! Any chance he’s a M.O.T. in real life? Any chance he’s straight? Any chance he’s single?

    Haven’t had a chance to see Season 3 yet…thanks for the spoiler on the last episode….best show on a cable channel I don’t pay for!!!

  • Jenji Kohan is like, such the hotness. She’s a rebooter and I met her briefly at a secret reboot function in LA. I’d tell you more about it but then Roger Bennet would in all likelihood hunt me down and kill me. All i can say is that it involved Heschel. In any case, she’s darling and Weeds makes me pee my pants.

  • There you go ;-). Mary Louise Parker is so much more worth feeling jealous of. Plus the show is so fun and creative (at least the beginning of the first couple seasons was, which is all they’ve got at the video store).

    I think because of the premise they can throw in characters and plots so outlandish that they would cause other shows devolve into a banal exercise of self-mockery. The series remains fun whereas others are in a clear state of decline when they start overdoing the explosions and weird cameos – (although this could also apply to the Olson twin’s character here).

  • Btw, people say i look a lot like MLP so I have to say this might be the reason the jealousy is a little subdued in this particular case.

  • I loved the premiere! It’s a good change for the show. the characters are awesome, the dialogue is great.

    But Brooks is WAY past his prime. I like his character but it looks lke he’s trying too hard and not having fun with it. Is he really trying to make some sort of dramatic comeback and a show about herb?

  • Brooks may be past his prime, but he did a pretty good job as the evil EPA director in the Simpsons movie.

  • I too am in love with MLP, from her days back in Angels in America…. she was very good in there….

    She is 44, doesn’t look a day over 34……

  • Brooks past his prime? No way! Albert (Einstein) Brooks was perfect and believable in Weeds, angry, Jewish, down-and-out, caring for grandma, changing adult diapers… Not having fun?.. that is his character, the curmudgeon older Jewish man, who won;t even give in to call his son by his real name.

  • He just took it way too seriously. All those actors are so chill on that show..For reasons that need not be stated..

    Yet when he opened his mouth he stopped having fun. Like he was up for an Emmy or something.

    All in all, Albert Brooks can go to hell. But I’ll still watch. Stoned.

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