Crikey. Seems it's been at least two months since my last post.
In that time, I've seen several films (both old and new), finished a TV series here and there, and Valentine's Day happened. That's about it.
The most significant of those TV series was Weeds, which ended after eight seasons. What started off as a well-written and genuinely entertaining comedy-drama, had turned into a botox-fronted melodrama, with the odd moments of comedy. The show's cast was admittedly fantastic, and most of the characters bounced off each other extremely well, however Mary Louise Parker is perhaps one of the most irritating faces in television, so much so that her doing nudity in the series didn't help her cause. Her malnourished features, her nose and her mouth just irrationally annoyed me, and did so when she was in the West Wing too.
However, that's not the point. Weeds ended tamely. Arguably, it's the most indifferent an ending to any TV series I've seen, and although it felt like a cop out, in that nothing really came to a head, perhaps that was for the best.
The rivalries within the show itself never really came to anything, the big stand-off which had been hinted at for a few seasons never actually happened, and in what felt like more of a cast send-off party, the last half an hour of the show felt like a Memoriam rather than a bid to actually tell a story or provide any real action or conclusion.
It's almost impossible to even spoil the ending, other than to tell you that nothing really happens. The Botwin family simply carry on, living out their separate lives, content with what they have, and with how they view their future. In a sense, it's a more heartening version of The Shield's ending, in that life simply carries on, and although that gives some viewers hope, and a sense of reassurance that life simply can continue without that lingering threat of death or danger, I imagine some longtime viewers of Weeds, like myself, would have wanted a more finite ending to the show. Nancy could have died for all I care, that's how much her character's selfishness annoyed me. Almost everything around her was effectively her puppet, and although that led to the storylines' shelf lives being extended beyond the first five seasons or so, her character is simply one of the most annoying in television because of that.
Before I ramble for hours, I guess it's best to summarise. Though I find it weird that Weeds and Breaking Bad both follow a similar trajectory, both follow families through drug dealership, getting caught on the wrong end of the law throughout. Heck, Breaking Bad even has fewer main characters. However, Breaking Bad is now arguably one of the biggest shows in America, whereas Weed faded away. Its best seasons were its opening few, whereas Breading Bad has continued to excel.
Funny how things turn out.
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