Parenthood
It takes guts to be a parent—as any parent will be sure to tell you as they're a) scrubbing crayon drawings off the new flat-screen TV, b) getting another call from the principal, or c) raising bail money. Parents may fret about world trade imbalances, the environment and the effect of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on our military … but if you want to see them get really stressed, tell them their pride and joy is taking off his shirt and waving it around like a matador cape during snack time.
NBC's Parenthood is based on the 1989 cinematic comedy of the same name and is produced by that film's director, Ron Howard. Don't be expecting a bouncy, one-liner-filled comedy this time around, however. The hour-long TV version is much more of a dramedy that unfolds slowly and shines a light on the frazzled parents of the extended Braverman clan.
Adam and Kristina are raising a boy with Asperger's syndrome. Single-mom Sarah is responsible for two terribly truculent and at times delinquent teens. Julia worries that her young, cute-as-a-button daughter doesn't love her. Crosby, a single guy who initially struggles with whether or not he wants to be a father, discovers he already is. And Zeek and Camille are the patriarchs who helm this motley crew of siblings, but the deck of their own marital ship is none too stable.
That's a lot for one show to handle. And frankly, Parenthood doesn't always do the best job of keeping all those relational juggling pins up in the air.
Sure, it adequately illuminates how messy family dynamics can be: The parents we see are flawed (good television-based role models went out with The Cosby Show) but filled with the very best of intentions. Everyone wants to do right by their kids … they just don't quite have a handle on what "doing right" involves. Parenthood pounds no lesson harder than "Wow! Being a parent sure is hard," as if the parents were in some sort of touchy-feely childrearing class where good grades are given just for trying.
Yes, the Bravermans are likeable enough. Yes, they mean well. Yes, they love their children in their own ways, and that's really encouraging in context. The writing here is crisp and multilayered, and the family dynamics we see may feel very—perhaps even too—realistic, as if snippets of dialogue were pulled right from dining room tables across the country. But this particular tribe hasn't fully grasped the idea that raising children well requires more than love and good intentions. It requires patience, discipline, perspective and an ever-firm but ever-flexible game plan. And it requires parents to be, most importantly, good, living role models—templates from which their children can see how adulthood does (or at least should) work. Even that doesn't guarantee success, of course. Parenting is as much art as science. But it helps.
Episode Reviews
"I Hear You, I See You"
Parenthood's second season starts off with patriarchs Zeek and Camille working on their broken relationship and Zeek implementing relational techniques given to him by their marriage counselor. The session's "seeing and hearing" injections in Zeek's otherwise obtuse norm seem to be working, even though he confesses, "$150 an hour, and I don't understand a d‑‑n word." (The word "h‑‑‑" shows up elsewhere.)
Adam is feeling pressured at work, and he gets his boss off his back by grabbing credit for a new shoe idea that sis Sarah actually came up with—another thing to feel guilty over. At home, Adam's wife, Kristina, and daughter, Haddie, are at each other over highly stressful driving lessons. "Dad, do you guys have some stupid agreement about not acknowledging each other's flaws?" Haddie asks her dad in exasperation. "Yeah, it's called marriage," he replies.
Meanwhile, Crosby is missing his son, Jabbar, and girlfriend, Jasmine, since she landed a dance job in New York. That strain is all the more exacerbated when his "Skype sex" attempt with Jasmine falls flat because of a WiFi glitch and she begs off on a visit. And finally, Julie and Joel have unexpected anatomy lessons to teach when 6-year-old daughter Sydney wonders, "Did I come out of a vagina?"
"Man Versus Possum"
Adam and Kristina learn that their son, Max, has Asperger syndrome and begin to develop a strategy with how to cope. Meanwhile, Crosby, who still hasn't told his girlfriend that he has a son by another woman, skips out on a romantic getaway to spend time with his progeny.
We see Crosby's girlfriend in lingerie and hear joking speculation that Julia's husband may be having an affair. Several profanities ("h‑‑‑," "b‑‑ch" and "a‑‑" among them) mix it up with pseudo profanities ("fudge" and "frickin'") and a half-dozen misuses of God's name.
Conversations between siblings and between parents and kids can sometimes be both poignant and even useful. Other times, not so much. Adam and Kristina disapprove of their daughter smoking dope. But then Crosby and Kristina smoke some while other family members look on and laugh. In Parenthood's ethos, pot smoking—and, by extension, hypocrisy—is seen as one big joke.
"Pilot"
Sarah's mortified when Amber runs away and moves in with her boyfriend—and when she smokes cigarettes, and when she and Adam's daughter get arrested for possessing pot. But all is temporarily forgiven when Amber helps Sarah dress "sexier" for a date—that culminates in sex and an embarrassing walk-in by Sarah's son, who then runs away to live with his drug-addicted father, who rejects him. After a sexual romp with his girlfriend, Crosby finds a canister of another man's semen in her fridge: she wants a baby, it seems, so to mollify her, Crosby promises that he'll have one with her … in three years.
Sexuality, if you haven't noticed, is everywhere, from Zeek's hidden stash of condoms to references to "makeup sex" and masturbation.
Adam, while coaching his son's baseball team, screams at the ump and gets kicked out of the game and off the team. His boy, meanwhile, gets elbowed during a driveway basketball game by Zeek, who wants to toughen him up.
God's name is misused about 10 times, and profanities such as "d‑‑n" and "h‑‑‑" share space with euphemisms such as "frigging" and "fricking."