So the runaway Haddie returned back to the nest where she and her parents had the kind of reasonable give-and-take about dating Alex that they should’ve had weeks ago instead of Adam and Kristina issuing a draconian ban on seeing Alex without listening to their daughter’s point of view.
The ease with which Haddie slid back into the Braverman household’s activities, and the effortless way that she and her parents repaired their rift stood in stark contrast to the way in which Drew and Amber’s father was welcomed back to his hometown and the growing alienation Crosby’s feeling in his home with Jasmine.
The John Corbett-as-Sarah’s-ex storyline was surprisingly shallow, at least as far as his character was concerned, but I’m guessing that was the point. Corbett’s Seth didn’t much act like a father, but like a guy living in an alternate reality, completely disconnected from the fact that he has two children living lives away from him, lives about which he knows precious little. And those teens miss and need him desperately, but he doesn’t want to see that, not really, so he treated them like they were band groupies.
Drew’s clearly not mature enough to realize that he shouldn’t get his hopes up that he’ll fashion a close bond with his father this time around because the look on Drew’s face when he looked at Seth resembled the one on his mother’s face when she was watching videos of Seth, and she knows better. The foreshadowing seems pretty ominous that Sarah, despite the sordid history she shares with her ex, is still emotionally vulnerable when it comes to Seth, which might explain why she transformed into a raging, screaming crazy person when she learned that Seth was in town and called Drew, not her. And now that she’s out of work and was recently dumped by the slimy Billy Baldwin bossman, Sarah’s exponentially more than vulnerable.
Crosby and Jasmine also seem pretty vulnerable right now based solely on the scene in the pastor’s office where Jasmine essentially told Crosby what’s going to be happening for the rest of their lives: How many kids they’re going to have, what religion they’re going to have, who’s going to handle the finances, etc. Crosby’s point of view was unnecessary and blithely dismissed as Jasmine and the reverend chatted on.
Now I’ve been pretty hard on man-child Crosby, complaining that he’s apt to act like a whiner when he didn’t want to move out of the houseboat, when he vacillated about whether he should commit to Jasmine, etc. But on this matter, he’s in the right. Giving props to Adam’s words of wisdom about how marrying someone who’s the opposite of you canhelp you with your shortcomings and vice versa, and agreeing with the notion that Crosby could benefit from having a responsible adult at the helm, you can’t build a happy marriage on the idea that she makes all the decisions and doesn’t listen to a thing he says, at least when Crosby’s going around telling his father that their relationship is a partnership based on mutual respect as he did when Jabbar didn’t want to appear in the play.
Do you think the developments on this Parenthood episode mean bad things are ahead for Sarah, Jasmine and Crosby?
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Feb 09, 2011 @ 10:43 EST5EDT
