The "Home Birth" Room in Season Five of Weeds
Friday, August 6, 2010 at 6:17AM
By Jill—Unnecesarean
The fifth season of Showtime’s hit series, Weeds, is on Netflix. Nancy Botwin, the show’s protagonist, spent the season pregnant. The child’s father, the mayor of Tijuana and boss of an international drug cartel, has been advised that her birth needs to be off the grid so as not to interfere with his gubernatorial campaign. Oh, and also because Esteban, the father, might want to kill her after the baby is born for ratting him out to the DEA. You know how it is.
Like other paid cable shows I’ve been hooked on in the past, I’m attached to characters that regularly steal, shank, torture, blackmail and murder while the writers indulge in perpetuating awful stereotypes for the sake of entertainment.
Episode 5.7: Where the Sidewalk Ends featured a so-called “birthing room” set up by Esteban’s thugs for Nancy where she was told that she’d have everything there that she would need. Instead, she fled and begged her OB-GYN, played by Alanis Morrissette, to induce her and ultimately gave birth at the hospital.
Below are screencaps of the birthing room and Nancy’s expression when she saw it for the first time. Click on images to enlarge.
Reader Comments (18)
Wait, what? It looks just like a hospital room! Where is the birthing pool and the candles and the plastic sheeting? ;-)
How's Alanis's acting?
She was probably just holding out for the twinkle lights. ;-)
Seriously though, I've given birth in four different hospitals and none of the birthing rooms looked as scary as that. 8-O
Oh Nancy Botwin, you classy lady!
???? so it is OK to have sex with a drug kingpin but birthing a baby still needs to be done mainstream, with Alanin Morrisette? Very odd. I watch Big Love so I guess odd stuff happen in that also
Seriously? The writers think that someone would actually do this for a home birth?? It seems it's either crazy hippies playing drums while mom sreams like the exorcist (The Backup Plan) or the uber-hospital in your house.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Okay, this was not what I was expecting. HAHAHAHA. Ahem. Hee. Whew. Sorry.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!
Aaahhhh!!!
Okay, I have to know now, where is the medpro in all of this? Were they going to have a doctor surreptitiously come do the delivery? A midwife? Nobody? Just rely on the machines that go ping?
I also notice a distinct lack of TWINKLE LIGHTS. What were these writers thinking?? You can't have a homebirth without TWINKLE LIGHTS!
hahahahahha.
aaaaah.
anyway....too funny. So they set up a hospital room, so she ran away and begged to be in a hospital? Weird.
why would you go to the hospital if somebody already brought the hospital to your home? That is just retarded...lol
Very home-y, indeed!
She went to the hospital so that she could escape being murdered, and have the baby's birth be on record with the authorities in case Esteban found her and had her killed afterwards. And that "home birth" wasn't going to be very mother-friendly, anyway; the whole situation is pretty screwed up. (Later, Esteban has to be convinced that it's ok for Nancy to nurse the baby; he thinks it's unsanitary and only something "peasants" do.) She was way better off through this pregnancy after finding Alanis the doctor.
I remember watching this a few months back, and thinking that these were the only circumstances under which I would elect to be induced or give birth in a hospital.
Oops! Meant "something only" above.
I don't know, I'm kind of inspired. Just think, you can have your baby rolled away on a special cart without even leaving the comfort of your home. And really, doesn't that tall bed in the middle just make you want to rip off your clothes, climb up there and open wide? Besides, there's a TV.
Yeah it wasn't so much a homebirth, as it was "a medical birth at home so he could kill her after the baby was born and nobody would be the wiser." There were actually obs who were hired in Mexico who were supposed to be attending the birth.
As someone mentioned up above Esteban hated the whole breastfeeding thing, he would in no way have suggested that it was a homebirth but a hospital room inside a home. You can bet if he didn't want her dead he would have forced her to go to a hospital.
It really wasn't supposed to be a representation of what homebirth is. The writers definitely intended the scene to be jarring and unwelcoming to the viewers.
I'm just hoping this episode will help get me through those last, often uncomfortable, days of pregnancy. If I'm not facing something as compelling as being threatened with death by my very powerful, criminal boyfriend then I don't need an elective induction. :-)
Twinkle lights would make me think I was giving birth in a bistro or Mexican restaurant, hee.
That series is pretty good, watched a few episodes, but I'm still working my way through Doctor Who and trying to keep up with True Blood. And I'm behind on Mad Men. Can't do any more drama or I'd never leave the house...
Sabi has it right. I'm a huge fan of the show, too. It wasn't so much about a "homebirth" as it was about "keeping the birth off the books," but of course to do it "right" there has to be a bunch of medical stuff present, right? Still creepy any way you look at it.
But I still love that show. :) Did you guys see the episode where Andy swallowed her breast milk because he didn't want to be a hypocrite? Awesome.
I actually thought it was great - the intended effect was to freak Nancy/the audience out about giving birth at Esteban's home, and it totally worked. How was it freaky? Because it looked exactly like a hospital birthing room!