While Dexter tends to use its stunt casting to fill the subtle if predictable variations to its established formula, these days its Showtime sister Weeds clings to its various guest stars like lifelines, each new face another wacky character that can help provide a wild new subplot to distract from the show’s ever-increasing distance from its original concept. The upcoming seventh season of the Mary-Louise Parker-starring show gets even further away from its “suburban pot-dealing mom” origins—three years away, in fact, as it jumps forward in time from last season’s (admittedly, surprisingly solid) story about the Botwin family on the lam, with Nancy finishing up a three-year prison sentence. She’s now living in a New York City halfway house under the watchful eye of The Boondocks’ Gary Anthony Wiliams, and attempting to restart her business with the help of Pablo Schreiber (The Wire, Lights Out), who is the brother of her former cellmate. We’ll pause here so you can construct a flowchart.
Somewhere in there she’ll also meet up with the rest of the Botwin family as they return from Copenhagen, run into a conceptual artist played by Lindsay Sloane (Bring It On) who takes a liking to Justin Kirk’s Andy—presumably pissing off her husband, played by thirtysomething’s David Clennon—and she’ll also reconnect with her sister, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. And then she’ll also have encounters with Martin Short as an “eccentric attorney,” as well as Aidan Quinn as “a charismatic investment firm CEO.” No word on which one of these characters Nancy will have demeaning sex with first, though our money is on Quinn. Anyway, sounds like typical crazy, latter-day Weeds stuff—though the saving grace is that whole Mexican mafia plotline seems to be really and truly over, which is certainly a relief. Nancy can meet the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation for all I care, so long as I never have to hear the word “Esteban” again.