Mary-Louis Parker as Nancy Botwin and Justin Chatwin as Josh Wilson (Season 8: episode 12) Photo: MICHAEL DESMOND/Showtime

There was a time when Weeds was the buzziest show around, when you couldn’t open an Esquire without finding Mary Louise Parker smirking on its pages, when the show seemed scandalous and notable. That was about eight years ago. As of last night, Weeds is no more. The show finished its eighth season with an hour-long series finale that jumped a few years into the future, giving us a glimpse of where the Botwins et al ended up. (Rich, mostly.) But Weeds took what can generously be called a meandering path to that finale — a path that had more detours and dead ends than any reasonable show should be able to pull off. Here’s a quick list of some of the many things Nancy has done over the course of this show.

Decided to sell pot

Tripped a child

Sold drugs at her son’s soccer game

Blackmailed a high-school drug dealer

Resisted her frenemy/neighbor Celia’s sexual advances

Pawned her engagement ring

Was fired on in a drive-by shooting (escaped unscathed)

Did basically nothing after her 9-year-old made faux-terrorist videos

Entangled herself in her brother-in-law Andy’s sex life

Had unprotected sex with a rival drug dealer on the hood of his car

Rebuffed that drug dealer’s more romantic overtures

Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble

Opened a bakery as a front

Passive-aggressively put a hit out on the guard who stole from her front-bakery

Met and fell for Peter, who turned out to be a DEA agent

Orchestrated an insurance-fraud scheme to burn down her front-bakery, which funded a new marijuana-growing collective

Sort of helped Andy apply for rabbinical school

Secretly eloped with Peter the DEA agent (after like, three dates) to prevent him from ever testifying against her

Bought a grow house

Used fake Canadian identification for a woman named “Lacy LaPlante”

Leveraged her secret marriage with Peter to have him take down another rival drug lord

Bought Silas a car to comfort him after his girlfriend’s abortion

Had seemingly no reaction to a dog biting off most of Andy’s toes

Started selling MILF weed, so named by Snoop Dogg himself

Used information gleaned from Peter to help some of her drug-trafficking pals

Schemed with Conrad to ditch Peter

Discovered Peter had wire-tapped her

Smooched Conrad

Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble

Refused to let Silas in on the drug-dealing action

Used an axe to chop down Silas’s door

Found herself being held at gunpoint by a variety of drug traffickers after Silas stole her stash

Fired Lupita after years of diligent service

Let Silas in on the drug-dealing action

Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble

Became a drug mule for U-Turn

Did a “brick dance” for Guillermo, which was basically just using her feminine wiles to get out of trouble

Tried to evade DEA questioning about Peter’s death

Used her feminine wiles to get a job working for the town planner

Was fired on in another drive-by shooting (unscathed, again, though this time her comrade Marvin was hit)

Incited Marvin to jealousy, so much so that Marvin killed U-Turn

Slept with the town planner

Befriended Peter’s ex-wife

Gave Peter’s ex-wife his insurance settlement in a faux-penance for, you know, getting him killed

Got blackmailed by a private investigator working for Peter’s ex-wife

Threatened to murder Celia, and actually held a knife to her throat

Got a U-Turn tattoo

Moved her grow-house to Celia’s house

Smooched Conrad

Convinced Guillermo to start a wildfire

Burned her own house down

Moved to Ren Mar, which borders Tijuana

Smuggled prescription drugs back and forth across the border

Was attacked by birds

Continued working for Guillermo as a mule

Smothered her grandmother-in-law with a pillow, by request

Made out with Andy in the Mexican desert (as part of a cover story, but … come on )

) Ditched Andy in the Mexican desert

Convinced Guillermo not to kill Celia

Opened a maternity store at Guillermo’s behest

Employed Celia at said maternity store

Discovered a tunnel that connected her store to Mexico, which Guillermo et al used for drug and human trafficking

Met Esteban, politician and drug kingpin

Got spanked by Esteban

Met the lion Esteban kept in his home

Started dating Esteban in earnest

Took ayahuasca with Esteban

Narced on Guillermo and Esteban

Admitted to Esteban that she was pregnant with his child

Shipped Shane off to live with her lunatic sister Jill

Burned through several bodyguards Esteban assigned to her

Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble

Refused to pay any kind of ransom to get Celia back

Moved to Mexico to live with Esteban

Tricked Andy into helping her deliver her child in the United States

Listed Andy on baby Stevie’s birth certificate

Survived being shot at by one of Pilar’s assassins

Shot Cesar

Married Esteban

Put a hit out on Pilar

Got Guillermo moved to a Mexican jail

Got Esteban sent to prison

Benefited from Shane murdering Pilar

Fled Mexico, on account of Shane murdering Pilar

Rescued her OB-GYN from a hostage scenario

Did not acknowledge absence of Celia

Moved to Seattle

Changed her identity and the identities of the rest of the Botwin clan

Crossed a picket line to work in a hotel

Started selling pot from the hotel

Tried to dissolve the romantic tension between her and Andy

Got entangled with more rival drug dealers

Moved to Montana

Bought an RV

Decided to live off the grid under the assumed identities

Moved to Michigan

Manipulated a former teacher she once had an affair with

Did not notice that Silas discovered Judah was not his biological father

Helped Andy “reinvent” quaaludes

Submitted to a long interview with a journalist, detailing her ridiculous life

Got kidnapped by Guillermo and Esteban

Again out-smarted Guillermo and Esteban, ensuring they both went back to prison

Confessed to murdering Pilar

Went to prison for three years

Became involved in a prison romance

Received a Russian prison tattoo

Moved to halfway house in New York

Used her feminine wiles to get out of trouble

Convinced the far-flung Botwins to move to New York with her

Started dealing drugs again, thanks to a hook-up from her prison-girlfriend’s brother

Became briefly infamous thanks to her signature U-Turn tattoo

Let Silas in on the drug-dealing action, again

Traded weapons for drugs

Took her lunatic sister Jill to court to regain custody of Stevie

Returned to Agrestic to beg Heylia for a drug supply

Gave Silas to Heylia as an indentured servant in exchange for more MILF weed

Became an informant for the SEC

Renegged on informing for the SEC

Re-upped with the SEC

Bargained to get Shane out of jail

Went head-to-head with Silas when he started a rival drug operation

Continued legal action against Jill

Joined forces with Jill

Moved to Connecticut

Let Jill and Jill’s twin daughters move in

Made up with Silas

Was shot in the head

Survived being shot in the head

Helped her shooter, who turned out to be Peter’s son, avoid prosecution

Started dealing pot again

Started working for a medical marijuana facility

Let Silas in on the legal drug-dealing action

Started working for a marketing company

Met and started dating a rabbi

Developed a con-game with Jill, to scam the marketing company

Went back to dealing pot with Silas

Moved back to California

Got back into business with Conrad

Got back into business with Guillermo

Had sex with Andy on the spot where Judah died

TIMEJUMP

Opened a chain of legal dispensaries, married the rabbi, lived in Connecticut, was widowed for a fourth time after the rabbi crashed his car

Threw Stevie a bar mitzvah party

Begged Andy to let her move in with him

Smoked a joint

Was still sad

We obviously left “drank iced coffee” off the list.

Farewell, Weeds! Those first, oh, three seasons were a real fun ride.