Parenthood – Consequences, leaps of faith & broken hearts

It was like the anti-Private Practice, a show where no one has to suffer the consequences for their chronic mistakes. In the wake of the moving images of Jasmine, Jabbar and Crosby together as a happy family and in spite of the romantic “first meeting” tale Crosby spun about how he knew Jasmine was the woman for him, the Parenthood writers decided to have Jasmine inform Crosby that his infidelity had irreparably broken their relationship.

Crosby’s pained, hangdog look just wasn’t enough to repair the damage.

And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve come to thoroughly embrace Parenthood, because, unlike during its uneven freshman season, the writers now seem to be embracing the flaws in their characters, opting not to round off all the sharp, unattractive edges of the personalities to make everyone and everybody’s behavior’s likable. (The sometimes icy Kristina Braverman comes immediately to mind.)

It would’ve been easy, for example, as the sentimental music swelled while Jasmine and Jabbar nostalgically went through family photos, to have Jasmine decide she could overlook Crosby sleeping with his nephew’s young aide, Gaby. When Jasmine appeared on Crosby’s boat at the end of the episode, I wasn’t sure whether she’d forgive him or not. On a lesser quality drama, she likely would’ve accepted his apology and there’d be a happy, tidy ending so viewers would no longer have to be angry with Crosby for stepping out on her.

Meanwhile, three characters struggled with uncertainties about making the “right” decisions. Adam and Kristina — upon learning that the faculty at Max’s school for children with Asperger’s thought he should be mainstreamed — were not in immediate agreement about what to do. Kristina was terrified of moving Max to a public school where she feared he’d be bullied and lost in the crowd in a place where no one understood him. Adam, however, wanted to give Max the opportunity to embrace the academic challenges afforded by a charter school. Their disagreement over what they should do rang true to me, as my husband and I frequently agonize over decisions about our kids’ lives. The dialogue between Adam and Kristina, particularly Kristina verbalizing her fears about protecting her son’s emotional well being, were achingly real.

The Sarah storyline also resonated. As a writer, putting your material out in front of people to read and judge can be a scary and humbling experience. Criticism of your writing can feel really personal, so I could identify with Sarah’s fears of having her father’s mysterious wartime buddy, former theater director/producer Richard Dreyfuss read her unfinished play. For the first time in a long time, I felt myself rooting for Sarah rather than rolling my eyes at her.

But as Sarah, Adam and Kristina optimistically crossed their fingers, Amber and Julia each received devastating news which rendered them feeling as though their futures had been involuntarily taken away from them. It was devastating to watch the creative and talented Amber learn that she didn’t get into any colleges, just as it was emotionally wrenching to witness Julia tell Joel that, due to uterine problems, it’d be nearly impossible for Julia to get pregnant again.

I really liked this episode from beginning to end and have been impressed with the increasingly quality of the Parenthood storylines that aren’t resolving themselves in the span of a one-hour primetime show.

Clacked by Meredith O'Brien
on Mar 30, 2011 @ 12:30 EST5EDT