Is Nancy Botwin A Hooker Or A Drug Dealer?

I was making my way through the subway station this morning, when BAM! there was Mary-Louise Parker, splayed out across a spider web wearing a green bustier and bejeweled undies. Great!, I thought, another season of “Weeds” is on its way. But why do they have to make Mary-Louise all sexy to advertise the show?

Last season, when Showtime began promoting “Weeds” with “Secret Diary of A Call Girl,” they used posters with both leading ladies in pinup-style promotional photos. It definitely made sense for Billie Piper, who plays a high-end hooker on “Secret Diary,” to be sitting suggestively in a giant martini glass. Nancy Botwin, Mary-Louise’s character on “Weeds,” doesn’t have sex for a living but is a sexual person, so yeah, okay, I can see why they had her sitting on the edge of a plant pot in a cute retro swimsuit. (When they had her pose naked with a giant snake, on the other hand, I thought, WTF?)

For season five, Showtime isn’t promoting the two shows together, but they’re using the same style photo to promote “Weeds.” Why the need to make it so sexual? The promotional text reads, “The Hemptress Returns,” making it seem as though Nancy takes advantage of men left and right.

It seems a little funny to me that Mary-Louise complained in More recently about regretting last season’s nude scene, then poses suggestively to promote the show. Personally, I don’t think the character on the show meshes with the posters Showtime uses to promote the show. Does sex have to sell everything?