WEEDS Series Finale Delivers Season High Ratings for Showtime

Last night, SHOWTIME said goodbye to the Botwins, and the series' long-time fans responded in kind, as WEEDS delivered its highest-rated episode of the season with 864,000 viewers at 10 p.m. and 1.28 million viewers for the night. The series finale was up 7 percent from the season eight premiere (vs. 805,000), up 55 percent versus the season seven finale (vs. 556,000), and up 74 percent versus the season seven finale night (vs. 734,000).

WEEDS season eight currently averages 3.2 million total viewers across platforms on par with season seven (On Demand, replays and DVR - with 8 weeks of complete data available). Final numbers for the season will be available in the upcoming weeks.

Since its debut on August 7, 2005, viewers have watched and marveled as Nancy Botwin (series star Mary-Louise Parker in her Golden Globe Award-winning role) progressed from a suburban widow who turned to selling dime bags to make ends meet for her family to a full-fledged marijuana queenpin. She was aided by brother-in-law Andy (Justin Kirk) to help raise her sons Silas (Hunter Parrish) and Shane (Alexander Gould) - along with fellow Agrestic neighbor Doug (Kevin Nealon) in constant tow. Her narcissistic, danger-junkie antics paved the way for future sympathetic yet highly flawed anti-heroes who have since become standard television fare. The show and its many signature moments (including Nancy setting Agrestic ablaze, Shane's croquet mallet-bludgeoning, Andy's dog-eaten toes and self-gratification speech, the Armenian mafia Mexican stand-off, etc.) generated critical acclaim, a legion of fans and watercooler buzz for their sheer outrageousness.