'Weeds' adds a Christian doper with Mary-Kate

August 13, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television critic

If you're wondering whether Mary-Kate Olsen can really act, you can check out her meaty role in "Weeds." It's her first part without her sister, and a break from her kids' roles. She plays a dope-smoking Christian who hooks up with the show's teen boy, Silas.

I haven't seen her in the show yet -- she doesn't appear in the first four episodes Showtime gave me -- but the creator of "Weeds," Jenji Kohan, says Olsen gave the best audition.

"If anything, we might have been nervous about her reputation," he says, so he auditioned her twice. "And her performance was wonderful and natural."

She wants to teach Silas (Hunter Parrish) "all about the Bible," Olsen says of her character. "Maybe she's stoned while doing so, but she wants to tell them about it."

Another, sketchier Christian joins Olsen later this season, a housing developer played by Matthew Modine.

"He's a religious pretender, like so many people in our government, who is profiting from the ideals that were written so many thousands of years ago," Modine says.

Kohan says "Weeds" is not attacking spirituality.

"I don't think Christianity and pot-smoking are necessarily mutually [exclusive]," he says. (This comment reminds me of dope-smoking, self-described "Jesus freaks" my sister knew when I was a kid.)

"We are not necessarily poking fun at religion. We are poking fun at the commerce of religion," Kohan says.

The third season of "Weeds" begins tonight with Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) standing in a kitchen where she grows pot. A handful of scary, angry drug dealers point guns at her pretty little face. They want her dope. But her kid already stole it. Her ass is grass, and they are the lawn mowers.

Nancy will get out of this jam, but with consequences. The new episodes find the upper-middle-class mother of two evolving into a gangster. This is a good move for the show. In the first season, Nancy's husband died and she turned lightheartedly to dope to pay the bills. The second season, she upped her game and got involved with shady enemies. Now, she chooses to dig deeper into the dangerous lifestyle.

It's interesting how everyone seems to sell pot in "Weeds," but few people smoke it. Nancy doesn't like it ("control issues"). Marijuana is a commodity that drives her financials and her mommy motivations.

In the first new half-hour, the only ingested items are booze, prescription pills and Tylenol with codeine. In an upcoming episode, Nancy's frien-emy Celia (Elizabeth Perkins) goes on her politician's rant -- "Drugs are wrong! ... I'm a crusader!" -- while stumbling drunk in the streets.

You could say the writers are making a statement about how illegal pot is no worse than the legal self-medication regular Americans engage in. But "Weeds" isn't an issues show that pounds you with ideas. It's better than that. It's a character study wrapped in fast-moving plots. Politics and religion are subtextual.

In a few weeks, an anti-war character gets sent into National Guard training against his will, and he sees another soldier die accidentally. This scene could seem out of context, like a political declaration. But it's played as comedy, mainly to show soldiers lighting farts.

That's why "Weeds" is good. It sticks to the rhythm of its very dissimilar people: the self-destructive Nancy, the raging-id hedonist of her brother-in-law Andy (Justin Kirk, the most fun thing about "Weeds") and Nancy's smart horticulturalist Conrad (the subtly smoldering Romany Malco).

Where are the pushers of "Weeds" heading, ultimately? Not to a happy place, Kohan says.

"I don't think there will ever be the happy ending or the tragic ending with 'Weeds,' " he says. "There's always something in the middle."

delfman@suntimes.com