Oh, Parenthood, we don’t quite know what to say. It is the morning of your second season finale, but you’re on the bubble, and quite a few signs point to this potentially being your series finale, too. And if that’s the case, we have a feeling we are going to walk away severely bummed, for lack of better or more professional term.
We’ll be bummed because we’re so emotionally invested in the Bravermans, and we want to see them all succeed, and though many of them, namely Sarah (Lauren Graham), have taken great strides towards that this season, they still have a long way to go. Like a mother who is sending a kid off to college knowing that kid still has some maturing to do, we want to be there to watch all of the growth and changes! But we may have to settle for trusting they can do it on their own. Off-air.
But enough of the pessimism, right? With this one episode left, we are certainly going to make the best of it!
In “Hard Times Come Again No More,” we do see some pivotal, beloved characters take a giant step backwards after we had thought they leapt forward, even in the previous episode. It is there with Adam (Peter Krause) being unable to deal with his teenage daughter having sex after Kristina (Monica Potter) takes her to a gynecologist; it is there with Adam being unable to hide his frustrations with Max (Max Burkholder) when he doesn’t understand why he was promised pancakes but instead forced to sit in a hospital waiting room and then later when he loses his retainer; it is also there when Adam blows up at his boss but ends up sulking in his office rather than leaving the company’s new erratic regime once and for all.
It is even there with Sarah bringing her daughter cookies in bed after she was in a horrible accident, but an accident she “kind of asked for, in a way” because she was willingly in the car with a loaded driver. It is there when Sarah and Drew (Miles Heizer) relegate Amber (Mae Whitman) to just not listening, rather than saying the one thing (“You’re acting just like dad”) that actually might have forced her to rethink her recent actions.
But the show isn’t going to go out with at least one Braverman growing some balls, and in this case it is Zeek (Craig T. Nelson), who has a somewhat selfish conversation with his granddaughter (and mostly likely an unseen one with the rest of the cast of Sarah’s play) that still manages to put things into perspective, especially for the audience.
“Hard Times Come Again No More” certainly feels like Jason Katims preparing for the worst and bringing all of his characters full circle in case they do not get another chance to grace our screens. The staged reading of Sarah’s play alone serves as the perfect tribute, reflecting on quite a few fan favorite moments from earlier this season and last. But as Julia (Erika Christensen) says to Joel (Sam Jaeger) after she helps a woman deliver a baby, “We’re not done.” The show has more stories to tell and leaves this season finale with little hints of conflict to come.
The season finale of Parenthood airs on NBC at 10pm.
Want more television news and coverage? Follow LA TV Insider Examiner on Twitter!
Source:
No comments:
Post a Comment