The moment Addison’s mother Bizzy slapped Addison across the face after Addison informed her that there was nothing that could be done to save the life of Bizzy’s lover Susan, who was suffering from stage 4 ovarian cancer, I figured that by the end of the episode, Bizzy would apologize and make peace with the diagnosis, which had been confirmed by many other doctors.
But no. Bizzy — who believed she needed to hit, publicly humiliate and berate her daughter (“You WILL save her life”) in order to push Addison to yield a successful outcome — was ultimately proven right, as was Sam who accused Addison of giving up on the case because her mother’s mean and withholding. Having Addison, who was seeking her mother’s approval like a young, emotionally needy girl, finally come up with an experimental technique and successfully remove Susan’s cancer was just the wrong way to go, storywise.
When previews showed Addison saying that she was throwing her mother and her on-the-mend gal pal a wedding, I wondered what this storyline is supposed to say to viewers? That it’s okay to behave like Bizzy and that a smart, talented surgeon like Addison has to be bullied — physically and emotionally — in order to accomplish great things? That it’s okay for her mother to not thank Addison for her hard work and for Addison to continue doing whatever her mother wants?
And Sam chiming in on Bizzy’s side because he saw the cold woman crying, well that was just a head scratcher. Who is he to accuse Addison of bird-dogging it, especially when other colleagues concurred with her original diagnosis? Had the story proven Addison’s assessment correct, that there was nothing that could be done, that would’ve been more realistic. The writers would not have to unrealistically repair the mother-daughter relationship, but they wouldn’t have rewarded Bizzy’s bullying behavior or undermined Addison’s professionalism.
Another prominent storyline in this episode featured Cooper who has recently undergone a metamorphosis, and not a good one. “I want to have sex,” he told Sheldon, as though HIS needs and HIS desires are paramount as Charlotte is in the midst of trying to put the pieces of her shattered body and soul back together. In the last episode, Cooper referred to Charlotte as a “corpse,” he angrily flipped out at her when she was trying out coping techniques in an attempt to make everyone else feel better about her searing pain and he was walking around in a general woe-is-me mode. The once goofy, well intentioned character has been replaced by a selfish, insensitive version of Cooper. Where did Cooper 1.0 go?
Charlotte’s story of slow recovery, however, has been well done, as the character struggles with something that she intellectually desires (sex), but cannot emotionally endure right now. She craves intimacy, wants to be able to trust her body in the hands of a man, but she’s not there yet. To see her seeking out Naomi for advice and thanking Violet for sharing her rape story went a long way toward fleshing out the many levels of Charlotte’s character beneath her tough-as-nails veneer which is only an inch deep. No one-dimensional character she.
The storyline with the genius who sustained a severe brain injury and whose wife didn’t want to allow surgeons to remove damaged portions of his brain because he’d lose the one thing about which he cared the most, his intellect, was yet another example of Private Practice appearing to reward bad behavior. Sure, many people might not have made the same decision as the guy’s wife, just like Pete, who was greatly disturbed by the wife’s decision not to proceed with the operation, as was her legal right, Pete was informed. But when a woman showed up claiming to be the guy’s pregnant girlfriend — no offer of proof, no ultrasound nor pregnancy test, no details other than her say so — and she said that the genius WOULD want the surgery, Pete sided with the mistress, took her word for it that that’s what the patient would’ve wanted. The crushed wife slunk away after the surgery was done against her wishes, as though the fact that their marriage had been troubled was all her fault and that being his wife took a back seat to the desires of her husband’s alleged lover and a self-righteous doctor.
You’ve got an irrational, domineering mother who emotionally and physically abused her adult daughter be proven right, while her daughter was cowed by the bullying and admonished by her boyfriend for not trying hard enough. You’ve got a man whose fiance was viciously raped walking around complaining that HE’S horny and that his fiance is acting like a corpse. You’ve got a doctor who disagrees with his patient’s wife’s legal choice and sides with a woman who claims to be a patient’s pregnant girlfriend, driving and shaming the wife from the scene.
When Violet — who once strung two men along and refused to find out which one of them had fathered her unborn baby — stands out as the one strong, rationally behaving character, one who’s bravely putting her life’s story out there in the hopes that it will help others, certainly something’s awry at Oceanside Wellness, more awry than when the staffers refused to take in their dead colleague’s orphaned daughter and allowed her to be put into the foster care system earlier this season.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Jan 07, 2011 @ 14:00 EST5EDT
