Parenthood Embraces the Cheese, to Mixed Results

Season 4 Episode 11 - "What to My Wondering Eyes"

Well, this is awkward.

After my generally bitter takedown of Homeland last week, I chose to balance the scales by reviewing my single favorite currently non-hiatus show on television, NBC's Parenthood. I went into "What to My Wondering Eyes" absent a shred of critical objectivity, planning in advance to report to my blog afterward to give it a thorough fanboy ball-washing, only to discover that it is without a doubt my least favorite Parenthood of 2012 and quite possibly the weakest entry since the series was first finding its footing back in season 1. Oops.

Part of the problem lay in Sarah's storyline, and part of it came down to sheer cheesiness. Don't get me wrong – Parenthood is, always has been, and always should be perhaps the most earnest, nakedly emotional show on television. That's why it's great. But this episode stumbled past earnest to become aggressively cheesy at points, a line that incredibly talented Parenthood boss and former Friday Night Lights boss Jason Katims has rarely fallen on the wrong side of in the past. It is my hope and expectation that with episode 12 he rights the ship and it's smooth sailing from there on out, but, despite the typically superlative acting and a few highlights, there were real problems here.

Somewhat cheesy spoilers ahead.

Since the nature of the show's disparate story threads invites simply doing a series of mini-reviews for each, I'm going to take the path of least resistance and do just that. Let's start with the one story I liked more or less unreservedly:

Amber/Ryan - I mentioned recently that Ryan York has been the best thing to happen to Amber's character in some time – possibly going back to season 2 – and that carries right through to what appears to be their breakup, though hopefully not Ryan's final exit from the Parentverse.

Of the several Friday Night Lights alums to have been snatched up by Parenthood, Matt Lauria may be the one who has fit the most naturally into the show's rhythms (and, given Michael B. Jordan's greatness, that's saying something), and what makes him and Amber so compelling goes way beyond simple "oh they're so cute together" shipping nonsense. His character has been an interesting (if a bit tangential, with us only really seeing him through various Bravermen) examination of a veteran readjusting to normal life, but more importantly, pairing him with Amber gets right to the heart of the wounded bird complex Amber has partially inherited from Sarah, genuinely deepening her character and pitting what she knows is best against what her heart wants.

While Amber and Ryan's screaming, red-faced fight outside Amber's apartment was definitely the flashiest scene of this storyline – and a thunderously well-acted scene at that, yet another worthy of sticking on Mae Whitman's Emmy reel that's never going to exist because Emmy voters are fucking stupid – it was the final breakup scene, where Amber connected her heart's desire to take care of Ryan to the way her mother's life got dragged down with Seth's, that it became rather brilliant, an "Ah! There it is!" moment of seemingly disparate threads connecting. In fact, it was a better story for Sarah than Sarah's actual story this episode.

Sarah/Hank - First off, let me just say that I didn't always love everything the show did with Mark Cyr, but damn, does it feel like they broomed him quickly. I mean, he's part of Parenthood's DNA – he first appeared in the fifth episode of the series and he's been in all four seasons, and now not even one episode dedicated to Sarah moving out? Vanished from the show just like that? Seems a little cold.

But it looks like Mark is gone, and a few scenes later, Sarah is in bed with Hank, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I actually like Ray Romano in the role – big words from me, since I made fun of Everybody Loves Raymond for years and years – but would it really have been the worst thing in the world for Sarah to just be single and work on her fledgling career in photography for a while? I'm not stupid, I can read the signs and I saw it coming, but I still didn't really need for Hank to be a big romantic interest.

This desire for characters to always be in the midst of a romantic pairing for every second seems to be a trap more small-scale serialized dramas fall into especially with their females (see Rory Gilmore, Lauren Graham's onscreen daughter in her other major show, who got horribly bogged down for the entire last three seasons of Gilmore Girls by a shitty love interest). I realize I just praised Amber and Ryan's pairing, but the difference is that Amber and Ryan actually got to something interesting at the heart of Amber's character. Sarah and Hank doesn't with Sarah.

Kristina/Adam - Kristina's breast cancer is clearly this season's flagship arc and this was clearly this episode's flagship story, and while I think the arc as a whole has been handled tremendously well, there were a few nagging issues in this particular episode. I will say upfront that none of these issues lay at the feet of Peter Krause or Monica Potter, who both delivered incredibly great performances, especially Potter. As much as her video will thing had the feel of middle-aged TV writers who just discovered vlogging, Potter's delivery of her monologue was absolutely some of the best acting work I've seen on TV this fall/winter.

The scene where Zeek just happens to come ambling into the hospital room just as Kristina happens to go into septic shock, and it turns all chaotic and shouty? Not so hot. It felt very "TV," from a show that normally feels impressively naturalistic, the polar opposite of the great hospital scene earlier in the season with the adult Braverman siblings all sitting with Adam in the waiting room. Now, the scene later on where Adam asked Zeek to stay a while longer? That I could get behind.

Things went a little screwy at the end too. Not Kristina's sudden and semi-miraculous recovery – I understand that Kristina isn't going to die, it's not that kind of show – but the whole damn Braverman clan crowding into the hospital room with a poopy baby and a lot of grubby kids all surrounding the hospital bed of a woman who literally a couple hours earlier was about to die from infection because of her broken immune system? I was definitely saying, "No, that's... that's incorrect." That's where story was sacrificed for cheesiness. A more modest ending with Adam and Kristina honestly would have been fine.

Also, Haddie just strolls on in and joins the family, now apparently fully aware of her mom's cancer situation? What the hell, Katims! Adam and Kristina lying to Haddie about the severity of Kristina's cancer to keep Haddie in college was a big plot point – the climactic scene of the "Haddie comes home" arc, in fact, the last scene of that episode. It was a horrible thing to do, of course, the worst kind of babying, but part of what makes this show normally so good is the occasionally shitty decisions its characters make, and I for one was really looking forward to seeing Haddie explode with righteous fury upon discovering the truth. And now that story is apparently done and dusted, entirely offscreen. This is the "the Kraken washes up dead onshore in At World's End" of Parenthood stories.

Jasmine/Crosby/Nora - There really isn't a whole hell of a lot to say about this. Jasmine spends the duration of the episode carrying around a cute baby and then reports to Crosby that she'd like to have another baby. Perhaps we're in for a confirmation of pregnancy in January 22nd's season finale (and, by extension, a birth episode around a month into season 5), or would that be unrealistically soon? Either way, I have no complaints – this story fell onto the "earnest" side of the war between earnestness and cheesiness. I liked it.

Victor/Santa - Hoo boy. This was the doozy. This was, I think, hands-down the single worst story in any Parenthood to date (and I'm especially bitter since the first scene tricked me into thinking we were getting the Sydney/Victor story the show has been needing for about ten episodes now). Jabbar and Sydney's belief in Santa I can roll with – even if Sydney being able to do fractions but still believing in Santa seems weird – but Victor, who, mind you, is played by an actor clearly too old to believe in Santa, rough childhood or no, having his mind all screwed up by a bunch of elder Bravermen lying to him truly left a toxic taste in my mouth.

Look, I'm not so cynical that I can't see the appeal in letting a kid believe in Santa for a while, but – and yes, I totally get how silly it is for me, a non-parent, to start sharing my parenting tips – I do have to draw a personal line at looking in the face of and lying to a kid who has already outgrown believing in Santa just because you feel they're too young to have done so (which, again, Victor isn't). That's when fantasy crosses the vaguely gross line into dishonesty.

And then the final scene, where "Santa" appears, is definitely the closest Parenthood has come in 64 episodes to cover-your-eyes, train-wreck-in-slow-motion, oh-god-please-don't-go-there-oh-god-no-you-went-there awful. I'm sure it'll never come up again, which thankfully makes it easy enough to block out, but still, yuck, Parenthood. I expect better. And hopefully will get better in January when season 4 returns for its final four episodes. Onward and upward.