Parenthood: ‘Small Victories’

Over the past couple of weeks I had a chance to catch up on Parenthood from the beginning of its run and I’m really glad I did. It’s different than so many other shows on television as it truly allows for characters and scenes to breathe in a way that feels organic and not shoved together like you would expect anything filmed by cameras to be. Jason Katims deserves a world of credit for being able to do that, much like he did on Friday Night Lights, and managing to not just give us a window into the lives of the Bravermans but to make us feel like a part of the family.

Besides episode one of this season, ‘Small Victories” is the first episode to not have cancer be mentioned even once(*), so in typical Parenthood fashion they have to drop an anchor on our hearts somehow and this week’s culprits are Drew and Amy after the revelation that Amy is pregnant and chooses to get an abortion. And it turns out abortions are not fun. If this season didn’t have to come to an end in three more episodes I think we would have seen this play out over at least two weeks, to make it even more heartbreaking when Amy decides to abort. But still it was very emotionally hitting and all the actors involved did a terrific job.

(*) With the exception being that Monica Potter still looks completely ridiculous with that bald cap. For whatever reason I didn’t notice how bad it was last week until I saw people pointing it out on the internet and now all I can see her as is a Conehead what that horrendous thing on. They have to have her at least keep a scarf or something over it for the remainder of the season.

Joel and Julia are also on the harder side of problems this week as Victor continues to be a problem. The Joel/Julia side of Parenthood has been my least favorite of the four siblings families and it’s because of stories like this. How many times is Joel going to be way more awesome than his wife before he realizes he needs a divorce? If that’s been the plan all along then bravo Parenthood because that would be such a devastating story. However, I think Joel’s going to stick it out with this family where his adopted son is a total jerk and his wife is lacking even the more basic of parenting skills. Obviously Julia and Victor are going to reconcile their differences by the end of the season and he’ll probably call her “mom” to make us all cry but I’m just not into this whole thing at all.

Adam and Christina finally got a lighter story as Max’s unwillingness to shower leads them to explain to him about his “ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.” Approaching how to have “talks” like these with your kids can be difficult enough, mix in the fact that the child has Aspergers? It certainly throws a monkey wrench into the equation. But there was lots of humor mixed in here as well like when Grandpa and Grandma arrive for dinner and Max exclaims to them: “I have pubic hair!” And of course Grandpa Zeek replies: “there you go!”

Some other thoughts:

• Crosby, as usual, gets the most trivial of the problems as he deals with his mother-in-law living with them. But it did allow for Adam to tell him “you’re going to pee with impunity” once Crosby gets news that Renee has a job offer.
• Can someone please teach Drew and Mark how spit words out? Them talking to a normal person is a slow enough conversation, them conversing with each other took up 20 minutes to get across two lines of substantial dialogue.
• “No matter what’s going to happen, it will all be fine.” – Sarah explains this to Drew not knowing what his real problem was but it was applicable all the same.
• Speaking of Sarah I’m not especially looking forward to the inevitable resolution of the Sarah/Mark/Hank love triangle but at least it should have an ending soon.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.

Nashville: "Pilot"

Coming from someone who is far from a fan a country music fan, I thoroughly enjoyed ABC’s new drama centered around the country music world. Nashville tells the story of an older country music idol Rayna James (Connie Britton) who is beginning to be pushed off of her top spot by the young up-and-comer Julia Barnes (Hayden Panettiere). We also get stories from young country musicians who haven’t been “discovered” yet as well as the political world involving Rayna’s husband running for mayor with the support of her father.

Considering I’ve never been a fan of Hayden Panettiere and that I’ve been a huge fan of Connie Britton since I’ve known her as Mrs. Coach on Friday Night Lights, I might be a little biased, but I’m going to be rooting hard for Rayna Jaymes going forward. The character of Rayna definitely has way more likability so far than Julia at this point, but we got some brief glimpses into Julia’s family life which may explain her less than desirable behavior.

It was kind of tough to keep track of all the minor characters involved outside of Rayna's family, but the show has a lot of potential to work with going forward with the young kids just breaking into the industry with their singing/songwriting abilities. The end of the episode seemed to allude that two of them may be teaming up with Rayna in the future for music concerts and tours.

The political aspect of the show wasn’t one I would have suspected going into the show and I could see it being tough to balance with the other storylines of the show going forward. That being said, I’m sure it was a big selling point for the initial pitch of the show seeing as the show is called “Nashville” that this show would be about something bigger than music(*) and much more about how everything and everyone in this city is affected by some of its most recognizable citizens.

(*) The big comparison here is Connie’s former fantastic show Friday Night Lights. The show was centered around a high school football in the town of Dillon, Texas, but all the football did was set the table for so many brilliant and emotional moments for the fantastic characters we got to know.

Well I’m positive that Nashville is never going to be my favorite drama of all time, but I liked the Pilot episode a lot and I’m excited to see where the show goes from here. Based on the pilot I think I’ll be sticking with every episode and it seems like there will be plenty to discuss for the reviews of each.

Some other quick thoughts:

• I think it should be mandatory that Connie Britton tells Hayden to shut-up, either directly or indirectly, at least once per episode. In this episode she told it to her via the tv set in her dressing room.

• “Thank God for autotune.” – Music Producer. Ah the music industry. Julia Barnes unfortunately is representative of a lot of the pop singers in today’s world. I know that at 23 years old I’m too young to be considered a curmudgeon, but man I can’t agree more with Rayna’s rant that Julia overheard in Randy’s apartment about the “adolescent crap” she sings about.

Comments are certainly welcome, whether they are for agreement, disagreement, or indifference.