"Weeds:" The Book of Revelations

The best that can be said about this season of "Weeds" is that it has been one of ... uh, transition. The show went from being a transgressive comedy about dealing pot in the dreary suburbs to, well, something else.

(This sort of publicity still has long since failed to reflect "Weeds"' sensibility, but Showtime's brain trust apparently decided that if Mary-Louise Parker is still willing to pose for them, who are they to turn her down?)

Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) and her brother-in-law Andy (Justin Kirk) and kids vamoosed after last season's wildfires to the San Diego-Mexico border, where they cozied up with a meaner, rawer branch of the drug trade, as well as smugglers trucking in illegal immigrants and guns. Doug (Kevin Nealon - can any character really be memorable if played by someone who hosts a basic-cable tribute to TV commercials?) and Celia (Elizabeth Perkins) made their way down south, as well, in one of those convenient plot contrivances that doesn't so much bespeak narrative credibility as it does the desire to keep cast members the producers like drawing paychecks.

(Least Valuable Player.)

(Most Wasted Most Valuable Player.)

There was one particularly inspired episode this season, in which Nancy discovered her sons' sundry sexual peccadilloes - Silas (Hunter Parrish) was involved with a woman roughly Nancy's age, while Shane (Alexander Gould) was in possession of a cache of saucy photos from Nancy's younger days that he was fantasized over while knocking one out (even pervy-and-proud-of-it Andy acknowledged, "This is way outside my kink zone") - and realized she didn't have much moral standing to do much about either situation.

Otherwise, Nancy (and the show in general) has been found itself in what a dumb@ss action flick called "Tokyo Drift" - sliding this way and that for splash but to no real ends. Nancy's dealing with folks far more cutthroat than those pikers she hung with in Agrestic, while her sons are abandoning faith in their mom.

Nancy, for reasons only truly understood by the show's writers, has fallen in love with Esteban (Demian Bichir), a nominally ruthless but even more nominally charming Mexican drug kingpin who discovers that Nancy may have been the informant that got his smuggling tunnel shut down.

So tonight, in the season-four finale, two semi-surprising and only semi-logical revelations are uncorked, just in time for a cliffhanger. Meanwhile, Andy and the boys prepare for life without Nancy, while Nancy herself prepares for life without Nancy and her buds.

(After a grueling year, Parker is going to relax and reflect upon how to cook up even more saucy publicity stills for a season five that doesn't promise to be all that sexy.)

One character quotes Bob Dylan - "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose" - but seems to be commenting on the plot convolutions more than anything else. Ah, well, for those enticed by such things, Parker grants fans a luxuriant topless scene.

But it may - or may not - be interesting to see if creator Jenji Kohan and her writers can satisfyingly escape from the corner they've painted themselves into this year when next season rolls a blunt around.

- "Weeds:" 10 and 11 tonight; 10 and 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, 10 p.m. Wednesday, 9 p.m. Thursday and so on and so forth, Showtime.