I've thought the show jumped the shark around the time Nancy and her family left Agrestic. The show lost a lot of its low-key charm and absurd humor by raising the stakes. However, the twists and turns at the end of each season were thrilling enough as Nancy's predicament (and involvement in less white-collar and more hardcore-gangster crime) deepened that I kept coming back. Having said that I felt that the last two seasons (the road trip season 6 and post-prison season 7) were particularly bad and I was ready for the show to end.
Turns out that, at least the first episode of season 8, delivers on several fronts and we get not only a lot of laugh-out-loud moments, but also a great, introspective monologue from Andy that just might be the highlight of the past several seasons, if not the whole show. And the identity of the shooter is a nice surprise and a throwback to Weeds' glory days all in one. Maybe the show is going out with a bang and will make us miss it ...
▼Spoiler
If you are having a hard time remembering exactly who the shooter is: At the end of season one and throughout season two Nancy dated Peter Scottson, a DEA agent, who knew she was a drug dealer, but felt she was too small for the DEA to get involved. They got married in order to prevent Peter from testifying against Nancy. Peter had a small son with anger management issues who was bitten by Shane during Karate practice.
And if you can't remember what happened to Peter: At the end of season two Peter learned via a listening device that Nancy was having an affair with Conrad (he co-grower and Heylia's nephew) and that she was stringing him along just for the protection. Peter then demanded all of Nancy's cash from a quick-sale of her and Conrad's crop to U-Turn. However, during the sale Armenian mobsters, hired by Heylia who believed Peter would kill Conrad at the end of the deal, killed Peter and demanded the cash from the weed sale as payment for the hit. However, U-Turn wanted to steal the weed and not pay for it, which forced the Armenians to want to take the weed instead. However, Silas in an act of defiance for not being included in Nancy's business, took the weed "hostage" in his car (and was just stopped by Celia and the police for vandalism with his car about to be searched). Which left Nancy in one of the most memorable cliffhangers and Mexican standoffs in TV history ...
"We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go."
-- Colonel Tigh
