So far I’ve mostly done thoughts posts (reviews) on a weekly basis for Gossip Girl and 90210, but this year I want to write thoughts posts for more than those two shows every week, and I like I mentioned in my post about what shows I’m planning to blog about this year I want to expand the audience for my blog beyond people who watch teen dramas. I’ve been a huge fan of this show since it started, but the cancellation of Brothers & Sisters has given me a whole new appreciation for this show, so I’ve decided to start writing thoughts post on the show. Anyway, onto my thoughts on this episode.
I have to say that as a whole, I really enjoyed this episode for the most part. Although, I have to say that I’m really confused about exactly how much time has passed since the season two finale. After all, Kristina found out that she was pregnant in the season finale, and I’m pretty sure that it also the end of the kids’ school year, but in this episode Kristina was as big as a house and looked like she was about ready to pop at any minute, Julia said that they’ve been trying to adopt for six months, and yet it looks like the kids are just starting a new school year, which means only three months should have passed. I’m guessing that’s just a major continuity goof on the writers’ part.
I thought this episode did a really good job of setting up several ongoing storylines for the season. My favorite storyline was definitely Julia and Joel’s storyline with them still trying to adopt a baby. Julia was getting nervous about the fact that they hadn’t gotten a single interview with a potential birthmother in the six months that had passed between season two and season three, but she got excited when she found out that the new coffee cart girl at the law firm where she works is a young pregnant girl who wants to give her baby up for adoption. I love how she described her desire to adopt the girl’s baby to Sarah as wanting to “buy” the girl’s baby rather than say that she wanted to adopt the baby. My other favorite part of the storyline with Julia and Joel trying to adopt a baby was the scene where they were making their video for the adoption agency and Julia mentions on the video that they like to listen to Lady GaGa, because she thinks that will give them an advantage over the other prospective adoptive parents. I thought that was pretty funny.
I have a feeling that Julia and Joel will end up getting the coffee girl’s baby, because this show can be a bit cheesy/weird that way. After all, Crosby found out that Jabaar was his son at the end of the series premiere and about just two or three episodes later, Crosby is suddenly father of the year award material. Sometimes the sappiness of the writing for the show annoys me, but the cancellation of Brothers & Sisters really has given me a whole new appreciation for Parenthood as a show. Brothers & Sisters had a great first season, but the show pretty much only went completely downhill starting with the show’s second season. This is the third season of Parenthood, and it’s still a pretty great show.
My other favorite storyline was definitely Sarah’s storyline with her dealing with turning forty and Amber moving into an apartment. At t first Sarah claimed to be completely fine with turning forty, but it seemed pretty obvious with the way she reacted to Amber getting ready to move out of Zeek and Camille’s house and the discovery that Amber hadn’t been given her high school diploma yet because she had some overdue library books at the school’s library that deep down she was at least kind of upset about turning forty. While Sarah was at the high school to try and get the high school diploma, she ran into Amber’s old teacher, Mr. Cyr (I can’t remember his first name), and ended up having coffee with him. He helped her to see that maybe Amber waiting a while to go to college might be a good thing, because he had seen a lot of students at school who were nowhere near ready to go to college, and yet they still went to college right out of high school. Things got awkward between them after Sarah kissed him, which I think was another thing that was brought on by the fact that she was turning forty soon. I have to say that I’ve always liked Mr. Cyr, and I would love to see a lot more of him. I liked Sarah’s storyline with Amber in this episode because it seem very consistent with her character and Sarah’s desire for her kids to not make the same mistakes she did such as not go to college and have a better life than she has had at times.
I agree with Sarah for thinking that the apartment Amber decided to move into wasn’t a good place to live. That place was a complete and total shithole, and I think it looks like the places where prostitutes, and homeless drug addicts and alcoholics go to die. I wouldn’t move into that apartment if the rent were just one dollar a month.
I also thought that it was pretty self-centered of Amber to leave Sarah’s birthday party early just so she could go pick up the keys to her apartment. I don’t get why Amber couldn’t have picked another time to get her keys. I did think that it was kind of weird that Amber was meeting her landlord at night to get the keys, because I recently moved into an apartment, and the lady who’s the manager of my apartment complex typically leaves the complex and goes home for the day at five. I’m pretty sure that it was well past five when Amber left Sarah’s birthday party.
Sarah ended up having a talk with Camille in the kitchen, and she told Sarah that she needs to give Amber the chance to make her own decisions, even if it ends up being a mistake, and that she may even make the same mistakes that Sarah made. It turns out that Sarah also didn’t go to Camille’s fortieth birthday party, which Camille said made it the worst birthday party of her life. I thought that it was really sweet when Sarah told her mother happy fortieth birthday as she walked out of the room. I have to say that was probably one of my favorite scenes from this episode. I also liked the scene at the end of the episode between Sarah and Mr. Cyr where he shows up at the house to give her Amber’s diploma, telling her that he stole it from the school and they end up having some birthday cake together. I thought that scene was really sweet, and you could tell that it really meant a lot to Sarah that he did that.
One thing that bugged me about this episode is that Sarah made a big deal about Amber not staying for the entire party, and yet none of the characters acknowledged whether or not Drew was at the party. I’m not even sure that he was even in the episode at all. One the main complaints that I have about Parenthood is that they constantly feature all of the kids except Drew and Sydney. I can understand them not having Savannah Paige Rae, who plays Sydney on very often, because she’s pretty young, but they give Max Burkholder (Max) and Tyree Brown (Jabbar) quite a bit of screen time, and they are fairly younger than Miles Heizer (Drew) who’s seventeen. I really wish they would start giving him more screen time. Based on the spoilers for season three that I’ve read, it looks like Drew is going to be getting a girlfriend this season who will be around for a while. I’m hoping that will give Drew some more screen time. I would also like to see the writers do some storylines that focus on Sarah’s relationship with Drew for a change instead of only focusing on the relationship between Sarah and Amber. Other characters that I would like to see more of on the show are Camille, Zeek, and Joel.
Haddie was getting ready to go to a party with her boyfriend Alex, and Max due to his Asperger syndrome kept talking about how he didn’t think Alex should go since he was an alcoholic and there might be alcohol there. This annoyed Haddie, but Alex understood that Max meant well and was just looking out for him. He ended up deciding not to go to the party and that he would just pick her up from the party, but when he went to the party he saw that Haddie was drunk and ended up getting into a fight with the guy who was throwing the party, and the guy had him arrested. Haddie ended up calling Julia since she’s a lawyer and had her bail Alex out of jail. When Julia asked if he had any other prior offenses that could be used against him in court, he admitted that this wasn’t the first time that he had been arrested for something. I have to say that I liked this part of the episode, and I would love to see Haddie have some scenes with Julia in the future.
I have to say that I thought both Amber and Haddie’s new haircuts in this episode were hideous. I hope they change their hairstyles soon.
I’m not quite sure yet how I feel about the storyline with Crosby and Adam opening a recording studio together. I think it sounds like a potentially interesting storyline, and I’m glad that in the end Adam decided to work with Crosby, but I hate how Adam was basically whining to Kristina about not being able to find a job when she was able to get a temporary position that led to a permanent full-time job. That made him seem like quite the Neanderthal to me.
I did think that the whole sequence with Adam goofing off at home until he was called about a job interview and tried to act like he was very busy and tried to make a joke about working for a beverage distribution company was pretty funny. I also found his drunken apology to Kristina about him being mad about not finding a job and telling her he was excited about the baby pretty amusing.
One other thing that I liked about this episode was the scene where Crosby was saying goodbye to Jabaar as he left Crosby’s place with Jasmine and Crosby told his neighbor that she (Jasmine) was his baby mamma, that part made me chuckle.
Jasmine annoyed me in this episode when she got mad at Crosby after a woman that he had gone out with once and had never called her back ran into him while he was with Jabaar and told Jabaar that she was Crosby’s “special friend”. It’s not like he went over to the woman’s house with Jabaar and intentionally introduced her to Jabaar. Their encounter was purely a coincidence. I also thought that Jasmine was way out of line for basically telling Crosby that he wasn’t allowed to date other people, but she was. I get that they have a child together, but they aren’t together anymore. Crosby should be allowed to date other women if he wants to. Crosby was definitely right last season when he said that Jasmine was too controlling.
All in all, I really enjoyed this episode, like I mentioned there were some major inconsistencies in the writing for this episode and Adam and Jasmine really annoyed me, but this episode had a lot of great moments that outweighed the things that frustrated me about it, and it also did a great job of setting up several potential storylines for the season.
All things considered, I give this episode a rating of a B.
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