About 5 minutes right into a passionate 30-minute pilot pitch for “Breaking Dangerous,” Gilligan was interrupted by a community president telling him, “This sounds quite a bit like ‘Weeds.'” Gilligan recalled the second in an article written for Newsweek. He wrote:

“Listening to this, I might really feel the blood drain from my face. I turned to [Sony executives] Zack [Van Amburg] and Jamie [Erlicht]. ‘Do you know about ‘Weeds?’ ‘Oh, yeah,’ they stated. ‘Nice present. However your factor is totally completely different. She offers pot and your man offers crystal meth. Apples and oranges.'”

Gilligan, who had no information of Showtime’s “Weeds” till that assembly, described the variations between the 2 present’s material as “psychopharmaceutical equivalents of Greek comedy and tragedy masks.” And although each reveals do contain on a regular basis protagonists promoting medication as a way to an finish, they’re very, very completely different from one another.

In “Weeds,” Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker) is widowed, left to lift two sons on her personal. To maintain her dwelling and proceed their upper-middle-class suburban way of life, she offers marijuana. The stakes are low, with Botwin taking an unlawful shortcut for monetary positive factors slightly than turning to a authorized type of earnings.

“Breaking Dangerous’s” Walter White (Bryan Cranston) faces a extra dire state of affairs, as he has terminal lung most cancers and a son with cerebral palsy. He turns to meth manufacturing as a manner to offer for his household after his impending demise. Although its legality wasn’t as prevalent when “Weeds” was produced, leisure marijuana is now authorized in practically half the nation. Fifteen extra states permit the medicinal use of the drug. Meth as a avenue drug stays an unlawful and harmful drug and continues to be an epidemic in rural communities within the U.S.