Olivia Wilde, Harvey Weinstein at 'Butter' (PMc)

Last night at the Cinema Society's after party for the premiere of the dark satire Butter, The Observer found Animal Practice's Justin Kirk lounging around on one of the black leather couches at Double 7, just one day after his show's second episode.

Animal Practice has been getting a lot of love, so much so that New York magazine dedicated four whole pages in this week's issue to its star. Not to Mr. Kirk--who had just finished up the last season of Weeds, on which he stole the show as Nancy Botwin's free-spirited brother-in-law Andy--but to Crystal, a capuchin monkey who earns $12,000 per episode on the NBC hit.

We just had to ask ... did Mr. Kirk feel a tiny bit jealous of all the monkey business?

"Whatever, I've been in New York magazine before," the actor replied with faux bravado.

"It's been great working with Crystal; she's bringing a lot of good press to the show, and the whole cast has just been so fun to work with." Mr. Kirk had adopted the glazed-eyed monotone of someone who's just been on too many junkets. We waited.

"Honestly, the whole press thing has been such a circus. I'm just glad that the episodes are now airing, and that the whole show can just ..." He held his arm out straight and dipped it up and down.

"You know."

We couldn't resist. "Has it literally been a circus?"

Mr. Kirk smiled and rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. Gotta love the monkey."

Meanwhile, the movie's stars Ty Burrell, Alicia Silverstone, Yara Shahidi, Olivia Wilde and Jennifer Garner all made entrances at the nightclub (only Ashley Greene and Rob Corddry dipped after the screening), along with Dominic Cooper and Kelly Bensimon.

There was a noticeable tension between Ms. Garner, wearing a hip-hugging red dress, and Ms. Wilde, in a flowing green gown: the two never posed together for pictures, sat at opposite tables all night, and didn't so much as look at each other, while their publicists hovered by their clients' arms, shooting wary eye-daggers in each other's general direction.

Butter's director, Jim Field Smith, was holding court near the bar. Before the film, we had snuck in late and stood in the back of the theater as Mr. Smith introduced the movie, using a very complicated roller-coaster metaphor that we won't even try to recreate here. When he got to the part about it being a a subversive, dark satire, producer Harvey Weinstein turned to us and agreed: "That's true, it's very subversive."

The British Mr. Smith is best known for Matt LeBlanc's comeback on his show Episodes, another "dark, subversive satire" about American culture, as seen through the eyes of two British screenwriters who move to Hollywood and clash with all the oafish, West Coast stereotypes. As his new movie is an Election-style commentary on the politics of the Iowa State Fair butter-carving contest, we wanted to know one thing.

"Why do you hate America so much?"

"I don't!" He exclaimed. "Look, when it comes to elections and government politics, the British are even more insane than you guys. I like America. I think the film redeems the culture that at first you think it's making fun of."

(To be fair, despite Mr. Weinstein's statement, Butter is not that dark or subversive, although it does qualify as a satire.)

And what about that five minute roller-coaster metaphor speech?

"Oh God, what was I going on about with that?" He moaned. "I don't even like roller coasters."

We didn't bother asking how he felt about monkeys.

When Chandra Wilson and Jim Parsons announce the Emmy nominations next Thursday, we’re not expecting to hear Justin Kirk’s named called. And, frankly, his exclusion will be warranted: Not even Mr. Kirk was able to withstand the shoddy fourth season of Weeds, which coated every actor on the show, no matter how talented, in total disappointment. But, allow us to start the campaign for Mr. Kirk’s 2010 Best Supporting Actor nomination right now! In a completely unexpected (at least for us) turn of events, Weeds has become highly entertaining once again. And in the middle of the resurgence is the genius that is Justin Kirk.

As Andy, the ne’er-do-well brother-in-law of Mary-Louise Parker’s Nancy Botwin, Mr. Kirk has long been one of our favorite parts of Weeds—his monologue about masturbation still has to rank as one of the ten-best television soliloquies of the last decade. The key to his performance is that he artfully mixes a wild streak of anti-authoritarianism with a touching and almost child-like naïveté. Only Andy could crack wise to Demian Bichir's scary/sexy Mexican drug lord, Esteban (who just so happens to be the father of Nancy's unborn child), and be surprised when it resulted in him being tasered. While in the hands of a lesser actor, those two opposing traits might be combustible, for Mr. Kirk, the results yield perfection.

(Why Mr. Kirk's film career hasn't taken off is a question we can't even begin to answer; whatever the reason, though, we're pretty sure he would be outstanding in something like The Hangover.)

We’d say that Mr. Kirk's work in season five has been a revelation, but, more accurately, it’s just a reminder: After wallowing in disastrously lame plots for the better part of two years—Remember when Andy joined the army? Or became a porn star because of his missing toes?—it’s nice that he has gotten material once again equal to his talents. Perhaps the biggest difference between this season and years past is that Weeds has finally started taking advantage of the surprisingly strong sexual chemistry between Mr. Kirk and Ms. Parker, creating an untenable-yet-believable love triangle between Nancy, Andy and Esteban. (We're already looking forward to next week's episode when a heart-broken-and-bearded Andy fences with Esteban for Nancy's affections.) As creator Jenji Kohan said recently, this is Weeds’s very own warped version of Casablanca. If that means Andy is Humphrey Bogart (though with Peter Lorre-like eyes), then consider us excited for the remainder of the season.

Of course the cast can stick around: Between Ms. Parker, Justin Kirk, Kevin Nealon, Demián Bichir and Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds is the proud owner of a great group of actors, something that makes its sheer awfulness that much more frustrating. These are all talented people! And yet, because of amateurish writing and plotting, the series is floundering. As if you couldn’t tell, our blame for this rests with creator Jenji Kohan, the one show runner who can make Shonda Rhimes seem like a genius of the medium. Ms. Kohan continually goes for the obvious joke in her scripting, and, worse, seems to have no idea how to structure a narrative. For the second time in four seasons, Weeds ended one season on a contrived cliffhanger and then immediately started the next season at the moment of said cliff. How many times do we need to see this on television series’ before we realize it just doesn’t work? And that Weeds has done it twice is borderline criminal! This time around the decision has created problems both slight (Alexander Gould, who plays Shane, looks like he’s aged two years even though, in theory, not a day has passed since last season) and serious; not to be picky, but, uh, shouldn’t the cops still be talking to Nancy about the massive drug running operation that was occurring inside her store?

Since we’re inclined to classify Weeds as "totaled," let us fantasize about how much better it would be if the show started over: Nancy could still deal pot to suburbia, the kids could still be reckless, Andy could still be Andy.  And we wouldn’t have to worry about ridiculous drug cartels and/or kidnappings. When the series started, the whole point of Weeds was to show how far a person would go in times of economic hardships for their family. Now, with people actually facing those issues in real life, the series has become something else entirely. A course correction can’t fix something this broken; it needs a full-blown demolition.