Sure, mobsters and morticians have killed on premium cable, but none slay us as quirkily, with but a whimper and a dime bag, as Mary-Louise Parker's marijuana-dealing soccer mom. A depressed widow with two sons, Parker opens a bakery to facilitate a pot ring (a.k.a. a ''fakery''). Like The Sopranos and Six Feet Under, Weeds caustically satirizes suburbia while peeking into a fringe family business. But unlike its predecessors, Showtime's series deals in a realism that's wincingly close to home.
While the barely-there presence of Golden Globe winner Parker on the extras is curious, the show's comic relief, Kevin Nealon (who plays an incessantly stoned CPA), picks up the slack the package is best summed up, actually, by costar Justin Kirk during one of many frivolous cast chats: ''Who wouldn't wanna party with Kevin Nealon?''
On his commentary, Nealon playfully bemoans how ''light-headed'' he gets from smoking the herbal props, which creator (and Gilmore Girls alum) Jenji Kohan says are composed of ''creatively glued oregano and twigs.'' Kohan's tracks, a foil for Nealon's wisecracking, offer sober insight into the show; she claims that some of her snappy banter derives from ''conversations I had had down in Venice Beach with the people I played dominoes with.'' A cannabis doc is pretty predictable, but the recipes for laced Hash Browns, Hot Space Cakes, and I'm Baked Ziti are the set's highlight.
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