Weeds is one of Showtime's longest-running series, ready to roll it up in September after eight seasons.
The cast and crew learned of their planned exit just before they began working on this season: "I was very sad about that, but it's been great," says creator Jenji Kohan. "Many years we have never known whether we were coming back. Any of our season finales, though not necessarily satisfying, could have ended the show." Now, "we're not cliffhanging; we're wrapping things up" in the finale being filmed this week.
The Botwin clan has moved from California suburbia to Mexico, Canada, New York and places in between. "She continues to make the wrong choices," says star Mary-Louise Parker, who plays pot-dealing mom Nancy, but "she can't be defeated. I don't think (motherhood) comes naturally to her." As for the ending, Parker says Kohan "didn't make it a happily-ever after type of thing, but there's hope."
Parker says she'd like to do another TV series, and Kohan will segue to Orange Is the New Black, a Netflix comedy set in a women's prison. And Justin Kirk, who plays Parker's slacker brother-in-law has a new job as star of NBC's fall comedy Animal Practice.
"I used to say that pot took away from my rent, and now it pays it," he says.
