Four years ago - as if guided by the hand of irony - we became addicted to Nancy Botwin's adventures as a pot-dealing single mother on Showtime's Weeds. We've laughed at the witty sarcasm, blushed at the gratuitous sex, and even palmed ourselves in the forehead for letting the plot set us up just to knock us down. No wonder it's Showtime's most-watched series.

But take a closer look - dissect the script a little - and the show has more common sense than book smarts. Hell, it's only a step or two above a daytime soap as far as dramas go. Here are some reasons why the Emmy-nominated series could've been written by a high school burnout (spoiler alert!):

Potheads Anonymous
Sorry, Showtime, but in the real world, everybody doesn't smoke weed. This includes state politicians, the Bingo-playing residents of a retirement home, a 40-year-old-cheese-shop-owning mother and the entire Christian community. Now I know a devout Christian here and there indulges from time to time, but enough to revive Nancy's business from zero to better-than-ever? No, not really.

Celia, with a capital 'C'
Celia's a substance abuser. We get it. She doesn't need a bottle of liquor, glass of wine, some type of prescription drug, or flask in what seems like every scene. We can just assume she's drunk by her monotone, sarcastic, male-condescending dialogue. Either take her out of the script altogether or make her character a little deeper than half-empty.

Sublimibucks
That sound - when you're done with, say, an iced coffee (Nancy's favorite), but keep sucking on the straw for those last few drops. And the sound doesn't stop because you repeat this action every couple of seconds due to a process known as melting. It's in every episode- in 5.1 surround if you own the DVDs.

White power
In the first scene of the series premiere, Nancy is learning the basics of dealer-to-smoker transactions. By season four, she's having sex with the kingpin of all illegal trafficking across the Mexican-American border. I realize she's smart and sexy, and this is over the course of four years. But why does every Tyrone, DeShaw and Jesus in the drug business trust this upper middle-class white woman after looking her up and down a few times?

Previously, on Weeds…
The Botwins are always getting into trouble. But because the plot flows like Nancy's never-ending customer base, you want to know what happens next without asking yourself how they got there in the first place: Nancy stalks her D.E.A. husband's ex-wife, sketches her, and wants to hang out with her constantly because she needs a friend. She finally gets a real job that pays a substantial amount of money, but gets back into dealing because she wants a new bathroom. After relocating to a quiet, new town, Doug and Andy decide it's a good idea to lay low and make money by trafficking Mexicans across the border. It makes you ask the age-old question, "Are these people really stupid, or incredibly smart?" Or maybe that's what the writers ask themselves, wondering whether or not we'll catch on.


Still think "Weeds" is the most clever show on the planet? Let us know why in the comments!

Story by Paul Lupario
Starpulse contributing writer