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Back after too long, Parenthood resumed on Tuesday night with an episode that typified what inspires such an ardent following for this series. The hour was filled with small moments — nothing big, grandiose, or excessively dramatic — that nevertheless added up to a meticulously moving hour.
The inescapable center of the series is now Kristina’s cancer diagnosis and how she and her family are responding to it. The episode was titled “Together” with some irony, since the urge to help Monica Potter’s character, a crisis that can bring a family together, is also what left her frequently feeling isolated, misunderstood, and with a desire to be left alone.
This regrettably Ray Romano-free hour was all over the map, in an intentional way — the art ofParenthood is frequently in capturing that feeling that events are occurring in the various Braverman households simultaneously, or in quick succession, and we catch up when the cameras get there. Thus the opening sequence, one of the best yet, with Adam trying to, in his eldest-child Adam-y way, to control everything in his household, telling Max to “cut the crap” with his excuses, his videogame-playing, his reluctance to accept some responsibility for the puppy. In trying to make things easier for Kristina, Adam just made the house mood more tense. Later in the hour, when Crosby convinced him he needed a “cocktail,” Adam nearly got into a fist-fight with a rude bar patron, and shared how “scared” he was about his wife’s future. Some fan ought to do Peter Krause a favor and cut together a montage of these great, clenched, Adam moments. He may not win an Emmy, but he deserves to see how good he is in this show, scene after tricky scene.
I loved the way sad-sack Drew used Kristina’s illness to score a mercy-make-out session with his former girlfriend, right down to shamelessly using one of her “cancer-baskets” as a gift. The show understands that adolescent hormones are devious and devoid of good taste.