<p>Excellent episode!</p>
<p>Prepared myself for some teary eyes this episode and I was right. I’ve learned anything created by Jason Katims will make me cry. Also the reason why this episode was so good because it was written by him. He knows his characters incredibly well. </p>
<p>The acting in this episode was phenomenally done by Peter Krause, Monica Potter, Sarah Ramos, and Erika Christensen. The scene between Adam and Haddie was heartbreaking. The sight of Peter Krause crying is one I’ve seen repeatedly through his work on Six Feet Under and this one hit it out of the ballpark. </p>
<p>No new episode next week - Presidential Debate will be taking place.</p>
<p>Couldn’t sleep last night so decided to watch my DVR’ed Parenthood at 2am.</p>
<p>After crying through most of it, I WAS able to fall asleep. Kinda felt so drained (in a good way?). Can I buy bottled Jason Katims as a sleep aid?</p>
<p>What about the Lauren Graham and Ray Romano kiss? Is there a break-up in the future for her and Jason Ritter? Hope so.</p>
<p>PackMom,I mentioned the chemistry between them in a post on September 26th so I saw that kiss coming. I do like Ray Romano.
As a long time Little League mom, I found the scene with granddad getting into it with the coach(despite his son telling him not to) very strange . Only in TV would someone interfering like that produce such a good result!</p>
<p>This show has come out so strong this season. The only criticism I could make is that Julia’s storyline is once again overshadowed by all the others. I can’t wait to see what new professional life she will create since she’s been the breadwinner for her family.</p>
<p>She’s ambivalent/confused about her kiss with Ray Romano, and what’s she do? Double down and move in with Mark. What an idiot.</p>
<p>The thing I found most incredible about the Little League scene is that the kid was happy and not mortified that Zeke intervened.</p>
<p>While I agree that the little league scene was far-fetched, it was satisfying. Definitely a tv only moment. I think Julia is going to pick herself up and start her own practice starting with her first client, a certain sound studio.</p>
<p>I believe Jason Ritter is set to play the lead in a show that will be a midseason replacement for something. So, yes, his relationship with Lauren Graham on Parenthood has been doomed since sometime last spring. It’s a common hazard of TV shows that stories can be driven by Fate in the form of contract disputes, budgets, and career decisions external to the little universe of the show. Kinda like the literature of ancient Greece and Rome.</p>
<p>I thought doubling down with Ritter was a believable response for Graham’s character, especially since the Ray Romano character is so obviously high-risk: wounded, closed-off, fundamentally misanthropic AND misogynist, needy, self-esteem problems, pre-existing kid. And her boss. Who wouldn’t think twice, or more, about pursuing that farther? And who hasn’t had guilt inspire new zeal once in awhile? That’s why January is ka-ching month at the health clubs.</p>
<p>I counted five times my eyes welled up in that episode.</p>
<p>Finally saw an episode last night. Good thing I knew what was going on from this thread. I don’t like many of the female characters in the show so I was glad to see something happening with Julia. I don’t like Sarah’s silly character and Monica Potter’s voice is like chalk on the chalkboard to me. Unfortunately, Haddie talks the same way so I could barely listen to the Skype conversation. Maybe I should turn off the sound and turn on the sub titles. I think this season is doomed for me because Potter’s character will be front and center and her whine will be on steroids. Always hoping for more screen time for Mae Whitman and Bonnie Bedelia, but I think Amber is heading towards a rocky road with Ryan.</p>
<p>By the way, a few other things I liked:</p>
<p>-- Katims (who wrote last night’s episode) had Graham respond to the kiss with confused silence. She was unexpectedly good (and gorgeous!) at being confused and not saying anything. People should write that way for Lauren Graham more often. </p>
<p>-- I looks like they actually had Sarah Ramos go to Cornell to shoot the Haddie photographs Kristina was looking at on her laptop. Some of them are on the show’s website.</p>
<p>-- The wardrobe choice for Haddie in her conversations with her parents. A girl in a bright red T-shirt with a cartoon bear on it demanding – and rightly so – to be treated as an adult. Which of course resonated with the Max-Amber conversation about what it meant to be more adult. Just the kind of subtle sub-thematic consistency that marks a show with really good writing.</p>
<p>-- And, in general, the whole little arc of Max reacting to the news of his mother’s illness. I don’t know if it was actually realistic for a kid in Max’s neighborhood on the spectrum, but it felt real for his character.</p>
<p>I can’t really think of a show that I have such a love/hate relationship with as I do with Parenthood. I love so much about it but I don’t think there’s ever been an episode where they don’t do something so completely ridiculous/annoying/unbelievable as Zeke’s behavior at the baseball game. That one has pretty much taken the cake so far this season. </p>
<p>Sarah’s reaction to Hank is totally in keeping with her flakey character. Of course the solution is to move in with Mark! She’ll face her true feelings in the next episodes according to what we saw in the previews. I don’t know if Hank will stay around for the duration but I do think that it’s obviously time to say goodbye to Mark.</p>
<p>Peter Krause is a fine actor and is best when he has the opportunity to portray his acting in a subtle way, as we saw last night, and not in a screaming match with someone else. </p>
<p>I liked the scenes with Max last night, especially the one with Amber. As I’ve said before, Mae Whitman is a gem.</p>
<p>I also liked the way they filmed Christina telling the family, although I thought it was silly that she’d be standing up in a restaurant doing it. The one problem I had with that scene was the sudden arrival of Haddie. How did she know where they were?</p>
<p>I loved the episode! Very emotional.</p>
<p>Yes, possibly the Little League sequence was unrealistic, I have never done what Zeke did, but I have WANTED to do it many times!!!</p>
<p>I tell myself that Haddie found out from her grandmother who did not seem overly surprised when she saw her. But, it was pretty unrealistic. Around these parts, the game would have been stopped until Zeke left the field and went to the parking lot for the remainder of the game. But, apparently, no one every stands up to Zeke’s behavior and his wife cheers him on when he’s behaving like that.</p>
<p>Agree. Zeke’s behavior would never fly at any Little League, basketball, volleyball game,etc. I’ve ever watched my kids at. There would definitely be consequences. Also agree though that there are times I have WANTED to do what he did!</p>
<p>I think Zeke at the baseball field was very much in keeping with his behavior patterns throughout the series and was consistent with his tenacity in championing his causes, especially where his family is concerned. He did the same with Luke. After Luke told him not to come back to his house again, Zeke did just that and brought him into the family fold. I think that the reason Victor wasn’t mortified was that he’s just been adopted by a family that is showing they are behind him…he hasn’t had that before in his life and he’s happy and feeling supported for the first time. I thought it was wonderful.</p>
<p>I don’t think Cristina had a choice BUT to tell everyone at the restaurant. The cat was kind of out of the bag once Hattie arrived, and they also couldn’t take a chance that Max wouldn’t spill the beans as well. Also, the family may have GPS on their family phones so they know where each other is, or even Facebook updates? Who knows?</p>
<p>One of top 5 shows since it started. Just love the Braverman family.</p>
<p>Funny that Haddie knowing where they are didn’t surprise me at all, the way people text and keep in touch. They probably told her on the Skype or in a phone call that they were all going to see Victor play ball and then going to eat at XYZ Restaurant. And she could have texted Amber to verify once she landed.</p>
<p>And, yes, doubling down with Mark is true to Sarah’s character. She just drives me nuts! ;)</p>
<p>True confession time: I once berated a Little League coach (well, Pony League) for not playing my ds. He put my ds in for ONE inning and played almost everyone else for six, so dh and I left the stands and called the coach aside and laid into him, who claimed disorganization. BS. This was fall ball, supposedly non-competitive, and he just thought he’d have a better chance of winning by playing his nephews. Fast forward seven years – I ran into this guy at a HS varsity game where my ds’s team was playing his nephew’s team. Imagine my delight when we beat him, with my ds as a starter. Sarah Palin and the hockey moms have nothing on me.</p>
<p>ETA: I had forgotten all about that until I saw this episode.</p>
<p>Of course the Zeke thing was wildly unrealistic (although the coach’s facial expression when it started was dead on). But I don’t think you could work into a TV show the weeks of whining, backbiting, sidebars, end-runs, conspiracies, insurrections, and the like by which the same ends are accomplished (or not) in the real world of Little League. That’s a soap opera unto itself, and probably far more byzantine than anything they will dream up for Kristina’s cancer. But it wouldn’t be emotionally engaging – especially since, like Julia, I am still waiting to fall in love with her bratty new son – so they have to shortcut it a little to hold the audience and sell ads. That’s OK with me.</p>
<p>Ditto getting Haddie to the restaurant. (I thought she probably texted with Amber when she arrived home and no one was there.) Not to mention the fact that she would probably have had to leave Ithaca (how?) around 4 am to get a flight that would get her to a restaurant in Berkeley by mid-afternoon, and I wondered where she got the money to do it. My kids – whose family was not as hard up as the Adam Bravermans, and whose travel was a lot cheaper than Haddie’s – rarely had enough in the bank to buy a plane ticket home on a whim, and didn’t have authorization to charge that much.</p>
<p>It was NINE year old baseball, and not the competitive club team type but seems to be the little league type where they take everyone. Around here they don’t even have paid umps, the other coaches ump, so it would not be as serious as some people think. Every league has that occasional parent who goes wacko. Also, at that age level everybody is supposed to get playing time, which would justify the call by family to put him in the game.</p>
<p>Sure, it probably wouldn’t go down that way, but really…how much depression can you put in one episode? Julia has to quit her job, Christina and family dealing w/ cancer, you can’t throw in a 9 yr old not getting to play ball/or making the last out. Have to have something uplifting! </p>
<p>I also watch Private Practice (same time, hurray for dvr!) and they were also on the depressive side again this week.</p>
<p>I kept thinking how it would have been so much better if he had been out at home and the whole cheering family would have plopped down together in a big sigh. Then they would have realized that he still won the game because he brought in other runs and started cheering again. I don’t know the score of the game so maybe that wouldn’t have worked.</p>