FEW things go together better than the Three Stooges and marijuana (or so I’ve been told) and you get both in this Monday’s episode of “Weeds.”
The Stooges are heard (but not shown) in a scene featuring chubby little Isabelle Hodes (Allie Grant) and her father, Dean (Andy Milder), tucking into a couple of hot-fudge sundaes while enjoying the antics of Moe, Larry and Curly on TV.
Those antics consist basically of the high-pitched voice of Curly declaring himself, as usual, to be a “victim of coicumstance,” directly after which Moe slaps him across the face and then bops the innocent bystander Larry on the noggin for good measure.
The sundaes and Stooges on which father and daughter guiltlessly gorge are meant to symbolize their liberation from the tyranny of Celia (Elizabeth Perkins), mother and soon-to-be ex-wife, who frowns on fun of any kind.
The inclusion of the Stooges (whose cartoonish grunts, groans and other noises are just as hilarious heard as they are seen) is meant to symbolize that “Weeds,” clearly, is a show that does not take itself too seriously.
Now in its third season (the premiere of which was just last Monday), “Weeds” has emerged as Showtime’s signature show, attracting 824,000 viewers last week, according to Variety – a great number for Showtime (but not necessarily for any other pay-cable channel).
For those who don’t subscribe to Showtime – and there are plenty of people who don’t – “Weeds” (10 p.m. Mondays) is a half-hour show about a 40-ish widow (Mary Louise Parker) with two sons who decides to go into the pot business to support their lifestyle in a cookie-cutter California suburb.
In so doing, she runs afoul of various inner-city thugs, including the fearsome U-Turn (Page Kennedy), his portly henchman Marvin (Fatso Fasano) and ghetto queen bee Heylia James (Tonye Patano).
They’re just three of the many characters that have been assembled for “Weeds” by creator Jenji Kohan and her crew for a TV series that defies categorization.
Its eccentric characters mark “Weeds” as kind of a comedy, but its subject matter (drug dealing, threats of violence and, occasionally, murder) mark the show as sort of a drama.
It is also one of the best-made shows on TV with a cast that many higher-rated shows should envy, including Kevin Nealon as an irresponsible accountant, Justin Kirk as a charming, shiftless uncle, Zooey Deschanel as a carefree, conniving flake and 6’10” Robert “Bonecrusher” Mukes as an Alaskan bounty hunter.
Although the central theme in “Weeds” seems to be that we adults are all immature children under the skin, “Weeds” is definitely not for kids, except for grown-up ones.