In the span of a few days, Adam was told by the slick-haired Gordon that he had to come up with a list of seven people who he was going to lay off. And it was tearing Adam up inside as he scrambled to find any way to avoid having to fire people.
The fact that Gordon wouldn’t even entertain any of Adam’s alternatives, like shorter work weeks or unpaid furloughs, made things even worse for Adam, who felt as though he, personally, was wrecking the lives of the people to whom he’d become attached.
I hope this development, along with Gordon’s statement that Adam really knows how to “handle” things, is some kind of indication that Billy Baldwin‘s character on Parenthood will soon be departing, because I don’t think I’m ever going to warm up to him no matter how many drunken teens Gordon fishes out of pools, or how many giant bouquets of flowers he presents to Sarah, for whom he’s all wrong. (I’m hoping Adam didn’t lay off the guy from the stock room. Sarah’s other fling, her daughter’s teacher, meanwhile, is busy running around in The Event.)
The way in which Gordon handled the whole layoff situation — he’s a knucklehead when it comes to interpersonal relations at work — seemed like it could be a set-up to have Adam take over control of a troubled company. (A gal can hope, can’t she?) Fiercely loyal Adam, meanwhile, was left absorbing and internalizing all the hurt of the employees with whom he’s bonded over the years as he did Gordon’s dirty work. Gordon showing up after Mad Men-ning it by drinking pricey single malt scotch prior to offering to “help” Adam didn’t redeem him.
I was pleased that Adam didn’t unleash his angst on his employees, on Sarah, or on his family. He dealt with it quietly, like a pro. The scene where he was practicing his layoff speeches with Kristina, and she told him he couldn’t cry, was very well done. It’s not easy to make viewers, particularly in these economic times, feel badly for the person who is firing people.
Over at Julia and Joel’s house, Joel’s one week-long gig renovating a bathroom upended their whole house because Joel suddenly wasn’t around to take care of Sydney, to make dinner, or to make a tower out of Popsicle sticks for Sydney’s school project. Because Joel — passive-aggressively if you ask me — did not communicate effectively with Julia, Julia was left, at the very last minute, having to cancel conference calls, abruptly leave meetings with the law firm’s partners, and work late into the night to cover for Joel’s unexpected absences.
It felt a lot like Joel was trying to give Julia a taste of how he feels when her work situations change at the last minute and it’s just assumed that he’ll shelve whatever he may be doing (or want to do) in order to take care of everything at home. This is a storyline that I’m sure resonates, particularly in dual-career households, especially if one spouse’s career routinely takes the back seat and causes resentment.
Resent turned into something else entirely, something much larger, when Julia pulled out her “I bill $600 an hour” card and slapped it on the table, devaluing Joel’s construction/remodeling work, which could lead to more than just a bathroom remodel. When Julia referred to Joel’s job as simply grouting “some guy’s bathroom,” that seemed to be a clear indication that this isn’t a one-episode-and-out storyline. The specter of adding a second child to their family — which Joel doesn’t really seem like he wants but is being pressured into by Julia, who’ll go back to work while Joel is home with two kids — will only exacerbate the tension between them.
The other storylines in “Seven Names” were substantially weaker than these two.
Watching Crosby return to man-boy form in this episode was a disappointment. To see him sulking and bemoaning the fact that Jabbar didn’t jump for joy about Crosby and Jasmine’s engagement was supremely irritating. “He’s six,” Adam told him, trying to explain to his brother that he shouldn’t seek validation from his grade school-aged son. However, Crosby saying that Jabbar was the chief reason why he proposed to Jasmine obviously doesn’t bode well for a new marriage.
Watching Haddie flirt with one of the stars from Friday Night Lights — Michael B. Jordan who’s playing Alex, the volunteer coordinator of a food bank where Haddie is working — didn’t do much for me because Haddie came off as really whiny.
At least Amber’s story had a little more meat to it, with her friend Kelsey lying to her mother about what happened at the Halloween party and Sarah, in turn, refusing to lie to Kelsey’s mother. It wasn’t until Amber said that she felt so alone in school, and that Kelsey had been her only friend that it felt at all poignant. The subject of Amber’s social “ostracization” had been tabled since she and Haddie made up after Haddie’s friends fiercely harassed Amber at school last season. This might be the way in which the writers are going to resurrect that story … or not.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Oct 27, 2010 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
