TOO FAR

I loved the showtime series Weeds. I became interested in the show one Saturday when KHOP had brought Kyle over for a gamewatch when he was a few months old. He fell asleep as she was thinking about leaving, so she had to stay and we sat around and watched 4 episodes back to back. It was a fresh take on the indebt suburban widow, deeply in debt with two kids to support who starts to sell pot to the city councilman. The writing was good, the show was funny, the acting was great. We kept watching. I set up TIVO to record it and watched the second season in the weeks after my surgery. I read the debates that preceded the third season saying that it was making drug dealing look to safe and easy, but it was just TV comedy. So, I watched the third season. It was darker and more dangerous and not as funny, but there was still good stuff. Nancy, the protagonist was getting linked with bad gangs and her children discovered what she did. She even got her teenage son working for her. The younger son was having serious emotional issues. That bothered me, but it was still TV, suspended animation, right? So, still I TIVo'd the beginning of the 4th season..

In the first episode it came out that one of Nancy's new gang cronies started a fire that devastated her nice Valley suburban town in order to destroy a competitors pot crop since he had attacked her kid. OK, in Southern California, wildfires aren't a joke. Then in episode 2, she moves the family to San Diego and starts drug trafficking for the same violent gang. Not to mention her younger son is clearly suffering and the older one is heading off in a dangerous direction. So, while I get Showtimes desire to make this show darker and reflect the dangers of Nancy's line of work. I feel like they are going too far in continuing to write a comedy about such things. These are all very serious issues and while comedy can be effective political satire. I'm not sure that this show is going in the right direction. I think it is coming off of my TiVo season pass list. Sorry Showtime. You went too far.