When Parenthood premiered earlier this year, I thought its first few episodes were uneven, forced at times. Then, after sticking with it, the show grew on me. So when I sat down to watch its sophomore season premiere, I was hoping that the last few episodes from its first season, which I thought were good, weren’t flukes.
They weren’t.
What I experienced while watching the premiere was this: God, I have so been there. As a teenager and as a parent, two of the storylines in the episode felt as though they’d been ripped straight out of my life, which is why I think this show may have what it takes to stick around for a long haul … provided nothing with Billy Baldwin or other “stunt” casting goes dramatically awry, which is always a possibility.
As a parent — who, in the past year, had to discuss the reproductive system and sex with my boy-girl twins on several different occasions while my husband nervously fled the room as soon as he heard me say, “You guys really want to know what sex is?” — 6-year-old Sydney’s inquiries about sex and reproduction, as well as her parents’ responses to it, felt very real.
Her mother Julia was saddled with telling Sydney the truth while her father Joel tried desperately to change the subject and offered Sydney ice cream to stop talking. Julia was calm and truthful at first, but wound up skirting the issue when things got a little dicey, and graphic as in, “Daddy, you brought the fertilizer [for the egg]?” Watching Joel’s spot-on reactions to his daughter’s completely normal responses (“Wow! Our whole family came from vaginas!”) proved entertaining because I think most parents feel squeamish about this subject.
It was a clever twist to have this line of inquiry suddenly take a turn down the “Hey we should have more kids” route with Julia seemingly on board with the idea, and Joel, who gave up his general contracting gig and is an at-home parent, was lukewarm at best.
Meanwhile, watching Kristina “teach” Haddie how to drive by making her daughter paranoid about all the wretched, tragic things that can befall teenage drivers and literally grabbing Haddie’s leg, I recalled my days as a teenager, sitting in a parking lot with my mother learning how to drive, though my mom never grabbed my leg, nor did we have a mishap like the one with Kristina shouting at Haddie, freaking her out and causing her to crash into recycling and trash bins. After the driving lesson scenes, I informed my husband that I don’t think I’ll make a good driving teacher when the time comes. I really don’t want to become a Kristina.
Speaking of Kristina, what’s up with her character’s behavior in this episode and in the latter few last season? She’s been depicted fairly negatively, made to appear like a nagging, controlling (telling Adam he was cutting the veggies wrong) and frequently unreasonable person. She garnered my sympathies during her work identity crisis last season, but since then, the character has been a fairly difficult one to which to warm. Scenes like the one where Kristina overreacted to Haddie side-swiping the mirror and later told her husband, “I am not being irrational Adam, okay. You weren’t there, I was. Our daughter sucks at driving, that’s the problem, so butt out,” don’t help.
Loved seeing the go-round-the-parent dynamic play out (as it does in most families) as Haddie asked her father Adam to intervene and teach her to drive instead. When he declined to do so, Haddie asked him, “Dad, do you guys have, like, some stupid agreement about not acknowledging each other’s flaws?”
“Yeah,” he replied, “it’s called marriage.”
In other stories: Sarah came up with the brilliant shoe Lo-Jack idea (which I could’ve used yesterday morning when my 9-year-old couldn’t find one of his sneakers and nearly missed the school bus) which, circuitously landed her an internship at Adam’s shoe company, though she had to explicitly call in a family favor. Zeek messed up a roof repair while attempting to appease his wife Camille with whom he’s been attending marital counseling. Crosby and Jasmine had Skype sex (or attempted to) and there was a weird vibe between Crosby and Lyla Garrity Max’s expertly patient and talented therapist Gaby.
What did you think of the premiere?
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Sep 15, 2010 @ 11:01 EST5EDT
