Last week I spent two days at a blogging-centric event, Izeafest. For the most part, I enjoyed it and feel like it was worth the money I spent to do it. However, the best part of the two days was finally finding few people who agree with me about this season of Weeds.

As is obvious by now, I’m not one to walk away from a show because a season or two isn’t as great as the seasons that preceded them and I’m pretty committed once I’ve come to love the cast of characters. So I’m not saying I’m ready to give up on Weeds but I do think the quality of writing on the show is at all time low this season and I think we’ve seen a lot of characterization sacrifice for the sake of crazy storylines. All of which has led to what has been, in my opinion, the worst season yet. Now that the season is over, I’d like to take a look back at it and to talk about the finale last night.

Let’s start at the very end with the “shocking” cliffhanger. Mostly so can thank the Showtime marketing department for completely ruining it for me! Not that I couldn’t see it coming but that’s exactly why, as soon as the previews teased Nancy’s “shocking” news for Esteban, I knew she was pregnant. There was nothing else that made sense. I will give the writers credit for not giving Nancy the most typical symptoms used by writers everywhere to foreshadow an unexpected pregnancy but, since there’s no way I’m ever going to like where this storyline is going, that’s about all the credit I’m giving them.

Now that I’ve gotten that little rant out of my system, let’s go back to the first episode of the season and why this setup never worked for me. It’s pretty simple really; I don’t believe Nancy would have sought out Guillermo. Agrestic burns to the ground and instead of taking the chance to start her family’s life anew, Nancy runs to another drug dealer? I just don’t buy it. I bought that Nancy kept getting further and further sucked into that life the first three seasons because she didn’t want to uproot her family and, once she started down that path, it became like quicksand under her feet. That fire pulled her out of that quicksand, gave her the perfect excuse to run the other way. I don’t buy that she wouldn’t..

As a result I haven’t understood Nancy’s motivation this entire season and it’s made it hard to buy into what’s been happening. Even when I didn’t approve of what Nancy was doing the first three seasons, I understood why she made those decisions. Without that I sit through most of the episodes thinking that her intelligence has taken a dive just to service the outlandish tales they wanted to tell. It just doesn’t work for me. I’d have much rather seen Nancy realize she was given a second chance and watch her try to get her family back to normal. Think of the family drama that would have given us… instead of having her completely withdraw from those around her instead of seeking comfort in the arms of yet another dick.

And, I know, they can’t completely ditch the drug thing but I don’t think that would have been necessary. They could have made Silas’ descent into growing and drug dealing the real story of the season. Nancy struggling to remove them from that life and Silas going right back to it. With Shane right in the middle trying to come to terms with his awakening sexuality and realizing his access to drugs could increase his popularity? All of that would have been so much more satisfying and character driven than this stupid ass Mexican border shit. The less we bring up about Doug and Dean the better.

The most Doug had going for him this season was his continued friendship with Andy. Somehow, no matter how inane Andy’s stories are, I still like the guy. I think it’s partly because he’s always been a fuck-up so his storylines can’t really make him look any worse than he has before. For me specifically, it helps he’s been the one person this season who has been concerned about the people around him this season. It endears him to me and is why I was pleasantly surprised when I found the very brief make-out session between he and Nancy so hot. In an instant I went from being happy that the show had never tried to go there to wanting that hookup. Wha-wha-what?! Yep and that’s why I happily clapped my hands when, six minutes before the end of the season, he suddenly realized that he’s in love with Nancy. Too bad she’s got herself knocked up. Is it wrong that I’m hoping it’s just something she and Andy cooked up to try and stop Esteban from killing her?

I actually liked Celia this season. I should have led with that because, if that doesn’t tell you just how little I enjoyed this season, I don’t know what does. Her descent into addiction was poorly done but, once she was at rock bottom, her story was the one thing I looked forward to each week. Kudos to Elizabeth Perkins for that, she did such a good job at making me hate Celia that I wasn’t sure I’d ever find a reason to like her again. And I do. So much so that I got annoyed all over again at the ridiculousness of having Quinn drug and planning to hold her for ransom. Why must the show always go one too many steps over the line these days? It’s like they’ve lost sense of what made their initial ridiculousness so palatable.

Ok, I could go on and on but I think you get the point. The majority of fans out there seemed to love where the show went this season and that scares me because I’m afraid it means the show is going to continue down a path I’m not willing to travel. I love these characters on a whole and I want to be interested in tuning in to see what they’re up to each week. As it stands right now, I’m not. I hope season five can change that.