I also have a habit of picking a show I'd never watched before and dedicating an obscene amount of time to catching up or just watching it to see what all the fuss is about.
The two met for me this week when, since I've been laying in bed a lot, I decided to pick Weeds as this year's Buffy and go through - at the very least - seasons 1-3, as I'd read online that generally those were the seasons worth watching. My love affair with the show began on Monday. I found it delightful: funny, sardonic, charming, and still heartfelt. My love affair with the show ended on Thursday, two episodes into season 3.
Even though there are five seasons currently, and allegedly three worth watching, I just don't think I'm going to finish out the third season. The reason why? I can't stand the main character's snotty, arrogant, disrespectful, and wholly un-redeeming oldest son, Silas.
SPOILERS!
He's pretty much responsible for, at the end of season 2, his mother being held at gunpoint and then having to become the bitch of some gangsta kingpin at the beginning of season 3. In a dramatic gesture to his mother to show her that he wants in on her business (because he sucks at actual school and life in general so he feels that, pretty much, drug dealing is his best option) he steals all of her weed which, coincidentally, she was trying to sell off to aforementioned gangsta kingpin to avoid getting busted by the DEA. So when the weed is gone, she's up shit creek.
But that was actually just the last straw for me and Silas. I started hating him much earlier on when he finds out that his girlfriend (who is actually smart and has, y'know, ambition) got into an Ivy League school and thus is not going to be near him in California for his final year in high school. So what's his solution? He proposes that they have a lot of sex and then pokes holes in all of their condoms to try and get her pregnant. I mean, I think anyone can see that's a dick movie, but especially watching that through a feminist lens, I was just infuriated. Then, even worse, when she gets an abortion, he gets all ragey and tries to break into her house. Luckily her dad was able to intercept him and punch him in the face for me, because with Silas obviously having so little respect for her and her bodily autonomy I would have feared for what he might have done to her.
NO MORE SPOILERS!
The thing is, one character, I can manage hating. Usually. But actually with this show, I soured on more characters more quickly than I expected. In addition to my unadulterated loathing of Silas, I also started getting tired of the main character, Nancy, and her inability to make a wise decision. Worse, she drags other people into her bad decisions, so when stuff goes south she ends up screwing a lot more people than just herself. Most of the men on the show have no redeeming qualities; the only one who is usually pretty entertaining is Nancy's brother-in-law Andy. The supporting women are equally useless, most of them being vapid cackling hens, and the only one besides Nancy with a shred of personality is Celia, who is pretty much a raging bitch. So though she's entertaining and most of the time funny, she's also difficult to watch at times because she's just such an awful human being.
So? Fortunately my week of rest is coming to a close, because though I have more of this show available to me to watch, I just don't think I'm going to be doing it. I've read that Terrible Silas matures over time and actually does some useful things during season 3, but frankly, the most useful thing he could do for me at the moment is die in a fire. And since I haven't read of anything like that happening, I think it is time for Weeds and I to part ways. It was fun while it lasted, homie.
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