Nancy Botwin
| Nancy Botwin | |
|---|---|
| Weeds character | |
| File:Nancy Botwin-Weeds 3x15.png | |
| First appearance | You Can't Miss the Bear |
| Created by | Jenji Kohan |
| Portrayed by | Mary-Louise Parker |
| In-universe information | |
| Occupation | Drug dealer (Cannabis) |
| Family | Andy Botwin (brother-in-law) Len Botwin (father-in-law) Jill Price-Grey (sister) |
| Spouse | Judah Botwin (deceased) Peter Scottson (deceased) |
| Children | Silas Botwin Shane Botwin |
Nancy Botwin is the central protagonist in Showtime's comedy/drama series Weeds. A recently widowed mother of two living in an affluent suburb near Los Angeles, California, 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 supplier Heylia James through her brother-in-law Andy, who is close friends with Conrad Shepard.[1]
Nancy Botwin is played by Mary-Louise Parker, who won a Golden Globe and a Satellite Award for her portrayal, as well as being nominated for an Emmy.[2]
Character History
Nancy Botwin met her husband Judah while attending Berkeley, where she was studying dance. In season one, Andy reveals to that the two of them dated for several years before getting married shortly after Judah's graduation with an engineering degree. Nancy herself never graduated. The two are married for almost 17 years before he dies of a heart attack while jogging with their younger son Shane.
Nancy is left almost penniless by her husband's death; in the opening narratives of the first episode, a group of her friends say that her insurance cheated her and that Judah died shortly after renovations to the kitchen that severely depleted their savings. Nancy quickly becomes the top dealer for Agrestic, to the dismay of other dealers in the area; as seen in Season 1 Episode 8, she will even sleep with rivals in order to maintain her markets. In the pilot, Doug Wilson's son Josh tells her that the other dealers all resent her for the speed with which she established herself as a dealer. When the show opens, she's a fledging but promising name in marijuana distribution.[1]
Relationships
Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins) - Nancy and Celia have an antagonistic friendship. Both are quick to side against the other when caught up in a dispute with an outside party. Celia is an alcoholic, yet crusades against drugs while on the city council, causing problems for Nancy. Celia often seems to have Nancy's best interests in mind, but strange ways of securing it; for example, throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars of Nancy's product into a swimming pool to 'save' her. Throughout season 3, Celia knows that Nancy is a drug dealer, but doesn't turn her in, eventually realizing that she envies that type of life and joining Nancy's team. True to form however, when busted for her involvement in the business, she informs on Nancy instantly.
Dean Hodes (Andy Milder) - 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 pacifism. She's very supportive towards him as a whole, and very easily brings him praise and affirmation.
Isabelle Hodes (Allie Grant) - Nancy is on good terms with Isabelle 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 Isabelle actually does see her as a mother figure, and Isabelle will often tell her things before she tells her own mother. Nancy defends Isabelle against Celia's abuse for being overweight, helps her with her campaign as a Huskeroos girl while Isabelle's own mother protests it, and is one of the people who mosts easily accepted her declaration that she is a lesbian. Isabelle believes that her mother is in love with Nancy.[3]
Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon) - Nancy doesn't turn to others for help often, but she seems to turn to Doug the most when she does. She trusts him implicitly with her money, and despite his perpetually stoned state, she seems to never show actual anger with him when he does something wrong, 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 informs him that his medicinal marijuana card puts him on record, something that would kill his political career. She refuses to side between him and Celia when they run against each other, but implies that she would have voted from him, and attempts to console him and calm him down when his name is absent from the ballot in the chairman election.
Heylia James (Tonye Patano) - 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 (Maulik Pancholy) - Nancy has a strange amount of affection towards her gay drug runner, often showing a fierce defence of him when others attack him for his sexuality and his personal quirks. She also supports him though many of his most difficult times, such as his realization that he's gay and his moments of cowardice. Before realizing he is gay, Sanjay thinks he is in love with Nancy; she does not return his feelings, but respects him as a valuable member of her team.
U-Turn (Page Kennedy) - An extremely aggressive rival drug dealer, U-Turn attempts to rob Nancy and Conrad during a major deal.[4] When Celia throws the product in the pool U-Turn claims that Nancy owes him for the loss, sending her on a series of dangerous errands to pay the debt. U-Turn sees something in Nancy and starts to groom her to be his successor, teaching her that "being a thug means never having to say you're sorry". Nancy takes these lessons to heart, and appears to miss him after his death, going so far as to get a tattoo memorializing him.[5]
Family
Silas Botwin (Hunter Parrish) - Silas and Nancy have a strained but loving relationship. Silas' tendency towards rebellion, as well as his burgeoning adolescence with attendant sex life, frequently cause headaches for Nancy. However, she has shown a fierce love for him. For example, she breaks up with Peter after he tries to discipline Silas at the dinner table.[6] In later episodes, Silas joins her team as a dealer, despite her reservations.[7]
Shane Botwin (Alexander Gould) - Nancy has expressed to other characters on a regular basis that she admires Shane's intelligence, but his lack of friends and his eccentricities 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 doesn't know that he has pet turtles (or that he had won them as a prize), she's often the last to know about some of his stranger activities, and she often feels like a stranger when she talks to him. In season 3, Shane's eccentricities worsen to include talking to his dead father and his fascination with Pittsburgh turning into a flat obsession, which includes it being the sole topic he talks about for days on end. Nancy reluctantly admits that she doesn't know her own son well enough to know whether or not this is cause for concern.
Andy Botwin (Justin Kirk) - 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 characters.
Len Botwin (Albert Brooks) - Nancy's estranged father-in-law.[8]. He first appears in season 4. He is the caretaker for his comatose mother, and has never accepted Nancy as a daughter-in-law because she is not Jewish; he refers to her as 'Not Francy", referring to the woman he thinks his son should have married
Jill Price-Grey Nancy's sister. Mentioned twice in season 2, but has not made an appearance.
Romances
Judah Botwin (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) - Nancy's husband who, at the beginning of the series, had recently died of a heart attack while jogging. Since the series begins after Judah's death, he is only seen in videos and flashbacks, but that material shows a very happy marriage.[1]
Peter Scottson (Martin Donovan) - A crooked DEA agent who Nancy meets at her son's karate tournament. Peter soon becomes involved in protecting Nancy's business. The two secretly elope, though their marriage is one of convenience, ostensibly so he could not be forced to testify against her.[9] They broke up after Peter is too aggressive with Silas; shortly afterward, he blackmails her and is killed[4] by Nancy's Armenian rivals, as requested by Heylia.
Sullivan Groff (Matthew Modine) - Nancy has a brief affair with Groff, but has little to no romantic attachment to him. They have only two on-air trysts, the first which she later dismisses as desperation, the second after quitting the job. Celia witnesses the second encounter, first threatening Nancy over it, and later trashing his office in retaliation.
Conrad Shepard (Romany Malco) - Conrad is shown to have feelings for Nancy from the first episode; An extended period of romantic subtext is punctuated by a kiss in season two,[10] and at the end of season three they enter something like a normal relationship.
Esteban Reyes (Demián Bichir) - Reyes is the mayor of Tijuana within the show's environment, and simultaneously the kingpin of the Tres Sies drug cartel. In "I am the Table," Nancy has sex with Esteban after the two observe the feeding of a live goat to a lion, which serves as a clever nod to a quote from Nancy's erstwhile lover Scottson, who stated in the season two finale that she "fucks like a wild animal"[4]. Esteban also delivered a slightly sexually charged spanking to Nancy in the episode "Yes I Can." In the fourth season finale after Esteban discovers Nancy is the "rat", he is informed by Nancy that she is pregnant with his child.
References
- ^ a b c "You Can't Miss the Bear". Weeds. 8 August 2005. Showtime.
- ^ "Mary-Louise Parker - Awards". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2007-12-03.
- ^ "The Two Mrs. Scottsons". Weeds. 1 October 2007. Showtime.
- ^ a b c "Pittsburgh". Weeds. 30 October 2006. Showtime.
- ^ "Risk". Weeds. 5 November 2007. Showtime.
- ^ "Mile Deep and a Foot Wide". Weeds. 16 October 2006. Showtime.
- ^ "Shit Highway". Weeds. 3 September 2007. Showtime.
- ^ Weeds Scoop: Albert Brooks Is Nancy's "Dad"
- ^ "Last Tango in Agrestic". Weeds. 28 August 2006. Showtime.
- ^ "Yeah, Like Tomatoes". Weeds. 23 October 2006. Showtime.