Episode Report Card Al Lowe: B | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Tracks of My Mother-Freakin' Tears
By Al Lowe | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 03.02.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Would you like to hear the most frightening, horrible words in the life of a TWoP recapper? They are "Limited Commercial Interruption." It's enough to bring tears to my eyes. Why, NBC? WHY?
So, here we are at the premiere of "Parenthood," a television show based on a movie released 21 years ago. An iconic and memorable film, to be sure, but I mean, Road House was also a huge movie in 1989. I'm just saying. [It's also the second attempt at a show based on the film, while Road House has bupkus. Gyp! - Zach]
Sarah (played by my beloved Lauren Graham) is moving from Fresno back to her hometown with her two surly teenagers, Amber and Drew, to live near her family. This family includes her overwrought brother, Adam, and his own family, made up of his wife, daughter and supersensitive son, Max. Also on deck is another brother, Crosby, who is single and gross, and sister, Julia, who is married and successful. The cherry on top is their pushy father, who mysteriously keeps condoms in his desk drawer and thus, may be cheating on their sweet mom.
Adam's son, Max, has trouble dealing with his emotions. He hates playing baseball, but upon being forced by his father to play, he gets a surprising hit. When he is called out by the umpire, his father comes to his defense loudly and aggressively. When Max, who insists on wearing a pirate costume to school, has trouble using scissors in class and is taunted by a classmate, he lashes out aggressively. After being evaluated by his school, it appears Max may have Asperger's Syndrome.
Adam's daughter, Haddie, makes the serious mistake of inviting her cousin, Amber, to hang out. Much to Sarah's shame, the girls end up at the police station, arrested for pot possession. Sarah must follow up this embarrassing revelation with a blind date, arranged by Julia, with an ex who is now a dumpy, bald barista (and ends up being awesome). Sarah has a surprisingly great time, until she is busted by her son while she is trying to get busy with the barista. This causes Drew to run away back to Fresno to see his drug-addict musician father.
Meanwhile, Crosby, who is an idiot, is struggling to make a commitment to his equally dumb girlfriend who wants so badly to have a baby, she keeps Harvard sperm in her freezer, and yet is somehow held off from her plans to do so by Crosby's vague promises to maybe marry her sometime, maybe in three years or something, whatever. Turns out, Crosby already has a kid -- one that he did not know about -- with a dancer he used to know.
Y'all, just when I thought I was going to hate this show, it hooked me so hard my head spun around. Max returns to the hated baseball field, determined to support his team, and overly sentimental premise or not, I fell for it. Maybe it was the Dylan soundtrack. Maybe it was Lorelei Gilmore, back on my TV. Maybe it was the kid who plays Max who is illegally cute. Or maybe it's that five months ago my husband and I adopted our wonderful daughter, careening into parenthood, ourselves. Great. Now I'm crying again.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!So, Internet... how's it going? When last we met, I was your innocent recapper-about-town, blithely roaming to and fro, getting laid off from my full-time job, having a somewhat laissez-faire attitude about the whole thing. Yes, back then I spent my days cleaning my house and watching Magnum, P.I. reruns, applying for jobs half-assedly, just knowing that eventually someone would call me and my life would get back to a normal, non-Ramen-eating pattern. Guess what? No one called! Oh, except our adoption agency that was like, "You have two minutes to fly to Texas and pick up your daughter." Which we did, in October, and now I am a parent, still jobless. That's just to get you up to speed, people. I mean, if you are remembering me from the salad days of Deadwood and Gilmore Girls recaps, what I'm saying is: things have changed. Thus, it was with a little bit of the ironic smirk that I took this assignment mere moments after entering the state of parenthood. I'll tell you in advance, I have never cried so much in my lifetime, combined, as I do now on an average weekday. Not from sadness -- just from feelings. I am like a walking, talking Barbara Streisand album over here with all the feelings. And I'm not trying to be stupid about it, like, "You'll never know real love until you have a child," or whatever. No. What you'll never know until then is real anxiety. I'll wait here while you rush off to get pregnant...
Our new show opens with a little old-fashioned sponsor smooching. Lauren Graham and Peter Krause welcome us with the most emotional appeal to buy a Nissan one could ever hear. What is the deal with this? Have we gone back in time to the days of the Texaco Star Theater? I get the feeling Lauren G. is not into it. Also, did y'all know "Krause" was pronounced "Kr-OW-suh," like it's Germany up in here? I've been reading it "Krauss" for years. Good for you, Krauses, for keeping it real.
Finally, we see Peter Krause, who plays Adam Braverman, jogging through his neighborhood. Clearly, he started this jog feeling positive and with the best of intentions, and you can't beat the Avett Brothers' "Heart Like a Kick Drum" as a running song... until your heart actually starts beating like a kick drum and you have to sit down or pass out. Luckily, he has brought his phone along so that he can be available to his sister, Sarah (Lauren Graham), in her time of need. "I lost Amber," she says, when he wheezes hello. "She fled; she escaped; she snuck right out of the window." Ah, now, here's the L.G. I so fondly remember. Why use a few words by way of explanation when you can use a zillion instead? All her chatter, however, gives Adam a chance to catch his breath. "Are you having a heart attack?" she asks him. "You're like, wheezing like an old person." He must have oxygen deprivation to the brain, because his big suggestion as she stands amidst her belongings being packed up to move, worrying about her teenager daughter who has disappeared, is that she needs to... find her daughter. Sarah is incredulous. "Here I am, moving our entire situation, just to make her life better," she says. "And what do I get?" During this she tries and fails to get her teenage son, Drew, to turn down his video game. Can we talk about how dead I'd be if I tried to play a video game while my mom was packing up a house? I'd be ghostwriting this, for real, as a ghost from beyond the grave.