Nancy Botwin

Nancy Botwin is the central protagonist in Showtime's dark comedy series Weeds. A recently widowed woman living in Agrestic (A fictional gated community near Los Angeles), she makes ends meet by selling Marijuana, often with disastrous consequences to herself and others. How she became a drug dealer is never made clear, though in the pilot episode it's revealed that she met her dealer Heylia James through her brother-in-law Andy, who's close friends with Conrad Shepard.

Nancy Botwin is played by Mary-Louise Parker, who has won several awards for her portrayal of the character.

Pre-Show Character History

At the beginning of the series, Nancy is recently widowed and still in a state of mourning over her husband Judah, who died of a heart attack while jogging with their son Shane. At this point, she's already considered the top dealer for the affluent gated community of Agrestic, but how and when she became a drug dealer is not known (it's only revlealed that she met her supplier through her brother-in-law).

Thoughout the series, nothing really definitive about Nancy was reveald, though small tidbits are dispersed from time to time, such as that she went to Berkley (where she studied art), but dropped out. Why she dropped out is unknown. Other small factors are revealed, such as that she had a sheltered childhood and that in college she had a "passion for dancing", though the meaning behind this is not made fully known.

Appearance

Nancy Botwin is a caucasian woman in her late 30's/early 40's with an extremely thin figure; she is a little below average height and is often noticably shorter than the other women in the scene when barefoot (she compensates by wearing platform shoes). She's also very pale, which some people point out by calling her "Snowflake". She has very bright brown eyes that other characters comment on for their liveliness (especially Heylia, who told Nancy Conrad would do anything for her after looking in her eyes). Many men consider her legs to be her best asset, and she often finds herself uncomfortable when men she doesn't approve of are staring at them.

Trademarks

Nancy is usually seen with a chilled latte from "It's a Grind", the show's parody of Starbucks. When she's not holding a coffee, she's holding a diet coke, which she drinks out of a straw on most occassions.

Nancy wears low-cut shirts, stretch jeans that are a size too big, platform shoes to look taller.

In more recent episodes, Nancy almost always has sunglasses on, unless she's at her day job with Sullivan Groff.

Nancy is trendy; she wears name brands, has designer purses and drives a hybrid.

Personality

Positive traits

Nancy has been described as being contradictory by other characters, in particular for being relentless and extremely compassionate in the same breath. One of her most common themes is her ability to listen to someone's problems and address it Both in a sterile manner through the eyes of the boss/judge/etc. the person is in trouble with, then turn around and address it in terms of the empathy the person is looking for, leaving the person in a better state to face what is happening to them. This is most notable within her family, but she has also shown notable examples outside of the family, such as offering to help others financially, defending life choices they made or simply being there for spiritual support when they felt they were alone in what they faced.

Another noted trait is her level of charisma; when Nancy has an idea, or needs something done, she's able to not only convince others to help her, but to display the same excitment for the plan as she does. Many of the characters seem to feel as if they can trust her with their secrets and their problems, and, with few exceptions, they'll follow her lead with little to no question; if a plan is a bad idea, or is going sour, it takes Nancy little effort to re-affirm faith in her team, and even the ones who still doubt her have faith in her escape plan.

Nancy also has a stunning amount of intellectual felxibility, and is able to efficiently improvise when she's in a tight situation, provided she's not in one of her "trances" (see negative traits). In many situations throughout the series, she's able to take a situation where she faces certain ruin and turn the situation to her advantage. She's a quick study, often turning into someone compitent in the material in remarkably short amounts of time.

Negative Traits

In spite of her ability to help others, Nancy is emotionally fragile, often falling apart when she faces loss or an especially difficult situation and having to be brought out of a sort of trance she goes into by another character (usually Conrad or a family member). Until she is snapped out of this state, Nancy loses her ability to reason and instead seeks a quick-fix solution that leaves the incident unresolved. When the situation is deflated enough for her to think clearly again, she realizes what she did wrong, but chooses to face the consequences of her actions alone in most cases. In some cases she has asked for help, but the other person's involvement usually causes more damage to the situation, and has given her reason to not involve others unless absolutely neccessary.

Nancy's biggest flaw is her sense of pride- just like she suffers a diminshed capicty for critical thought when she's facing emotional distress, she can also become obscenely overconfident when she's experiencing good fortune, which is often the catalyst of her personal disasters, as well as disasters to the community. In season 2 especially, she has faced bouts of overconfidence where other characters have told her what would happen if she stayed on her present course, which Nancy replied that she knew what she was doing- until exactly what they warned her about would happen.

Character Development

Throughout the series, Nancy seems to develop the most, both her her overcoming the past and her ability to face the present. Whereas in early episodes she seemed to be more dependnt on output from others and would frequently hit her trances, this seems to be a less common theme in later episodes, as she stands more confident and is able to face down people who terrified her at the beginning of the series.

Nancy also seems to be more independent and shows better judgement in tight situations- for instance, at the end of season three, Nancy was able to talk confidently to the biker dealers- something she was never able to do in season 1, where she was stuttering to Heylia and keeping her distance. She was also able to turn down ultimatums, such as becoming a runner for the latins when the agrestic fires exposed her. Though she was frightened of saying no, she didn't submit, instead laying her terms in a way that Guitanimo respected.

In recent episodes, Nancy has been in danger of "losing herself", as she has started getting colder and more distanced to people she was once very compassionate towards. She uncharacteristically made fun of Sanjay in one season three episode, threatened to kill Celia and often showed disrepect to Conrad. It's rumored that this change in her personality will be a major theme in season four.

Family Relationships

Silas- Silas and Nancy seem to have a very strained, but somewhat loving relationship. Most of the strain seems to be caused by Silas' end, as Nancy constantly finds herself at odds with how to deal with his acts of rebellion, as well as his especially active sex life. However, she has shown a very fierce love for him, such as in the instance where Petter Scottson hurt him over misbehavoir at the dinner table.

In later episodes, Silas joins her team as a dealer, despiter her objections that she justifies by telling him that she thought he was better than that, and didn't want to see him getting hurt. When Terra (Silas' third season girlfriend and another of Nancy's dealers) tells him she's dating other guys, Nancy replies to his protests by telling him that she can't dop her best dealer, but that she hates Terra for what she's done to her son. Near the end of Season Three, one of the factors of Nancy's decision to form the alliance was because rival dealers had hurt Silas.

Shane- Nancy has expressed to other characters on a regular basis that she admires Shane's high levels of intelligence, but his lack of friends and his eccentricites have her extremely concerned about him. Despite this, she allows him more freedom than she does Silas, sometimes to her regret. Because of her concern for his well-being, she finds herself paying more attention to and showing more compassion towards Shane, which is one of the rifts she has with her other son.

Despite the attention she tries to give him, Nancy is somewhat clueless about her younger son- she didn't know that he had Pet Turtles (or that he had won them as a prize), she's often the last to know about his stranger activities, and she often feels like a stranger when she talks to him. In season 3, Shane's eccentricities worsened to include talking to his dead father and his fascination with Pittburgh turning into a flat obsession, which included it being the sole topic he talked about for days on end, and Nancy reluctantly admitted that she didn't know her own son well enough to know whether or not this was cause for concern.

Andy- Nancy's relationship with Andy is a platonic love-hate affair; she cares about him as a person and sees him as family, but his frequent failed ventures irritate her to no end, and she's often telling him flat to "knock his shit off". When Andy needs support (emotional or otherwise) however, Nancy seems more willing to help him than she is many of the other adult characters.

Non-Family Relationships (non-Romance)

Celia Hodes- Nancy and Celia claim frindship, but are both very quick to side against the other when one is caught up in a dispute with an outside party. Nancy is instantly very defensive around her, but she also refrains from making a mistake around her that can prevent them from being friends "in fair weather", as she has told others she finds Celia "not so bad on her better days". Celia often seems to have Nancy's best interest in mind, but strange ways of securing it, such as destroying her weed so that she can't sell it. Throughout season 3, Celia knows that Nancy is a drug dealer, but doesn't turn her in, eventually rationing that she envied that type of life and asked Nancy if she could join her team. This falls apart in the Season 3 finale when the stored weed is found in her home and she panics, naming Nancy.

Dean Hodes- Nancy is quite fond of Dean, and is always looking for ways to help him with his problems, as well as defending him from others when they mock him regarding his pacifist nature. She's very supportive towards him as a whole, and very easily brings him praise and affirmation.

Isabella Hodes- Nancy is on good terms with Isabella throughout the series, often treating her more like a daughter than the daughter of her friend. The two are often seen talking on a fairly intimate level, as if Isabella actually does see her as a mother figure, and Isabella will often tell her things before she tells her own mother. Nancy has defended Isabella against Celia's abuse of her for being overweight, helped her with her campaign as a Huskeroos girl while Isabella's own mother protested it, and was one of the people who mosts easily accepted her declaration that she was a lesbian.

Doug Wilson- Nancy doesn't turn to others for help often, but she seems to turn to Doug the most when she does. She trusts him implicity with her money, and despite his perpetually stoned state, she seems to never show actual anger with him when he does something wrong (merely frustration), and talks to him first the most often about professional matters. Nancy also seems to have Doug's better interests in mind quite often, such as an instance in Season one where she informed him that his medicinal Marijuana card put him on record, something that would kill his political career. She refused to side between him and Celia when they ran against each other, but implied that she would have voted from him, and attempted to console him and calm him down when his name was absent from the ballot in the chairman election.

Heylia James- Nancy and Heylia are hostile to each other, both over events in the show and pre-show issues that are not yet revealed. Heylia doesn't approve of Nancy's presence, and a lot of the time Nancy acts as if she can't get away from her fast enough. Heylia is often quick to double-cross or cheat Nancy for reasons that seem known only to her, and in turn, Nancy has often looked for reasons to escape Heylia as a supplier. Yet, in spite of this, the two have shown potential to be great friends when both are in a good mood.

Sanjay- Nancy carries a strange amount of affection towards her homosexual drug runner, often showing a fierce defence of him when others attack him for his homosexuality and his personality quirks. She also supported him though many of his most difficult times, such as his realization that he's gay and his moments of cowardice. Before realizing he was gay, Sanji thought he loved Nancy, which other characters attacked but Nancy defended him, saying that it was just puppy love and that she respected his loyatly and that she trusted him as a complitent (albiet cowardly) dealer.

Romances

Nancy has had three romantic involvements through the course of the series:

Peter Scottson- Nancy met Peter at a Karate tournament and romantic feelings for him initially, but quickly found him to be domineering and somewhat abusive. The two were briefly married, but it fell apart when Nancy saw him manhandle Silas, telling Conrad that she didn't love him, but felt trapped. Believing Nancy and Conrad were having an affair, Scottson threatened Conrad for the money she earned selling. In retalliation, Heylia James solicited the Armanieans to kill him and he died in the season two finale.

Sullivan Groff- Nancy had a brief sex affair with Groff, but had little to no romantic attachment to him instead believing that not going along with him would cost her her employment with his company. Nancy left her job to get away from him, turning in her notice when Celia found out about the affair, though this did little to patch the rift it caused between them.

Conrad Shepard- Conrad has had a crush on Nancy since the beginning of the show; in season two, they had their first kiss, and at the end of season three they became more romantically attached to each other. Prior to this, Conrad was the only person besides Doug that Nancy felt she could talk to compitently first about her own problems.

Talents

Nancy is a talented artist, and in season three we find out that she was trying to create a career in art before her husband Judah died. Since this was revealed, Nancy has been a fairly active artist, often sketching as a way to pass time or help her think.

Mary-Louise Parker's Interview

In an interview Mary-Louise Parker gave about the show (hosted on Shotime's website), She gave several views on the character, most notably that she saw playing Botwin as an "enjoyable challenge", largely because she saw the character so much as an opposite to herself. Most notably, Parker described herself as a person who thinks of things in terms of hindsight, whereas Nancy Botwin sees things more as "on the fly", something that she didn't believe was true about her.

Parker also said in the interview that she saw Silas as Nancy's greatest dynamic because the two mirrored each other, as opposed to that other characters were notably different from her. she described that the two were "very immediate, very impulsive", but conceeded that Silas was more readily able to admit his flaws than Nancy was.

Most notable in the interview was that Parker was able to say that she saw Botwin as a "Danger Junkie", and that while the character didn't do drugs herself, she was addicted to the adrenaline of what she did because "It was a distraction from how claustorphobic her life was" and that it kept her mind of the various stages of emotional pain she seemed to go through at times. Parker also commented on that Nancy's tances seemed to be a side effect of this- because she faced so much tension in the present, it seemed to magnify her unresolved past issues.

sources

http://www.sho.com/site/weeds/home.do

Weeds Wiki