I hate Mary-Louise Parker.
Allow me to explain:
I watch a show called The West Wing. It’s an NBC drama about the executive branch of the federal government. My favorite character on the show is named Josh Lyman. Josh’s on-again, off-again love interest is named Amy Gardner. Amy is one of those conniving, evil insiders who consistently screws over the Bartlett administration to forward her own agenda (which, to be fair, is women’s rights. Not so bad.) But it’s not what she does, it’s how she does it. She delivers every line without moving her face, and stares at Josh with these eyes, like she’s totally wasted before she moans out another line. She is, and I mean this, a whore.
She is portrayed by actress Mary-Louise Parker.
I’ve been hearing about Weeds for years. I have a couple friends who swear by the show. They think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’d put it off for a long time, but now that I have Netflix streaming and the first two seasons were available, I decided I’d watch it. To my horror, Amy Gardner is the main character.
Now I don’t mean that the protagonist (Nancy Botwin is her name in this show) is portrayed by Mary-Louise Parker. I mean it’s the exact same role. She delivers every line without moving her face, she flirts with every character, and she consistently screws everything up. There is one scene where, I kid you not, she is confronted by a rival drug dealer (she’s a suburban housewidow dealing pot, btw, that’s the premise of the show) and the way that the scene is resolved is that she and the drug dealer have sex on the hood of his car. I swear to god. And I feel very strongly about one thing: I think they didn’t know how, and Mary-Louise decided that’s how the scene would end. Because that’s how Amy Gardner would have handled it.
So now I’ve finished two seasons of the show. I liked it to begin with, but as I watched the season finale of season 2, I realized I couldn’t watch the next season on Netflix for free. I’m sure I can find it somewhere else online or I could buy the dvd or something. But get this: I have absolutely zero desire to do so. If they fired Mary-Louise Parker and replaced her, just pretending it was the same actress, I’d be so onboard. It’s a solid show and some of the secondary characters (Andy and her youngest son, whose name escapes me at the moment, as well as Doug the accountant and their lawyer friend with the crazy wife, and especially my boy Sanjay) are awesome and hilarious. But I can’t because I can’t put up with one of my least favorite characters ever, Amy Gardner. And Amy is Nancy, because that’s all Mary-Louise can do.
And that’s why I hate Mary-Louise Parker.
Jimi FTW
