Weeds (Season One) (DVD)

"Weeds" looks at "typical" family life in the suburban neighborhood of Agrestic, California, where recently widowed Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) plays referee to a circle of dysfunctional suburbanites who assemble at weekend soccer matches, PTA meetings and many other domestic rituals of everyday life. Left with more family debt than she expected, Nancy finds it hard making ends meet while raising her two sons, so she becomes a very successful neighborhood door-to-door salesman. But not for Mary Kay® cosmetics or Tupperware®. No, Nancy is selling pot — and it's a business that is booming.

Included in the array of quirky and confused souls in Agrestic is Nancy’s friend Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins), the uptight, superficial PTA president and fellow super mom. At times she seems to be the only sane one in the bunch – until she becomes preoccupied with her chubby nine-year-old daughter's weight or hides a nanny-cam to spy on her promiscuous 15-year-old daughter. She's both Nancy's friend and nemesis, as well as the self-appointed supervisor of the neighborhood's moral values.

Befuddled city councilman Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon) is one of Nancy's regular clients. Not only does he enjoy a primo dime bag every now and then, but he's also the father of a cocky teenager who is himself a pot dealer — and gay — all unbeknownst to Doug.

As an escape from her "Stepfordian" cul-de-sac, Nancy regularly visits her pot supplier’s house in a shady neighborhood in Los Angeles. Somehow she feels most at home with this close-knit family that speaks frankly and lives a completely different life than she would ever have experienced had she not entered this line of work.

Nancy Botwin has a strict code about selling only to adults, and pot is something she would never do herself, but she realizes there’s a demand out there and somebody’s got to fill it. An uber-parent to her kids, a counselor to anyone who needs it, and a confused widow trying to get on with her life, she's ready for anything that could come up in this cookie-cutter neighborhood. And what goes on behind closed doors is usually better left that way.