Deadly Furniture

By about twenty minutes into the pilot episode of NBC’s Parenthood, my mind had already escaped into the world that I like to call “Thursday Night Comedies.” I mean…LeVar Burton is on this week’s Community. Come on. For the most part, I don’t like family drams (see also Brothers & Sisters) and from the start the characters of Parenthood came off as pretty predictable bunch of related people. The family patriarch who isn’t as faithful to his wife as his children think; the deadbeat daughter with two teenage children who has to move home after making one too many bad choices; the daughter whose job in a law firm makes her feel distanced from her own young daughter; the son with commitment issues who unexpectedly realizes that he actually has a kid from a previous relationship. We’ve all seen these characters before, and we all know where this is going.

Needless to say, I was about to give up and put in some good ol’ Buffy. But then there was this scene. The oldest son Adam (played by Hey! That’s Peter Kraus from Sports Night!!) has been trying to get his young son, Max, interested in sports the entire episode. Having had problems with his own upbringing, all Adam wants is to be best pals with Max. Adam wants his boy to be a better version of himself, a great athlete, a famous baseball player. It’s a predictable and normal relationship.

But then there’s this scene in Max’s classroom. He sits down at a table, folds a sheet of paper in half, draws a half circle, and tries to cut it out. He can’t. He tries over and over again, getting more and more frustrated, but he can’t do it. Every piece becomes a mangled mess. As you feel ever bit of maternal/paternal instinct set in, you realize that sports is the least of Max’s worries. There’s something wrong with him, and he knows it, but nobody else does. In those wordless moments you see a desperate child and there’s nothing you can do to help him. It’s haunting, in a way, and it’s a scene that I haven’t been able to get out of my head ever since.

Instead of watching Buffy, I kept watching Parenthood out of a desperation to know that someone helps Max--which thankfully eventually happens. Later, near the end of the episode, Peter Kraus turns on the serious acting and admits to his father that there’s something wrong with Max. Those two scenes combined may actually make me watch the next episode of the series--that along with multiple reassurances that the series does get better and the knowledge that eventually Michael Emerson guest stars.

At least--I think I’ll watch the Peter Kraus parts.