Parenthood S06E13 May God Bless and Keep You Always
Long time fans of Parenthood might've sat down for the finale with trepidation. The show has always seemed a bit like it was engineered in a lab to make us cry even on a week to week basis what devilry could the final episode conjure with nothing left to lose What manipulations would it attempt to perform on our tear ducts Going in we were mere instruments in series creator Jason Katims' hands our heartstrings ready for tuning so he could play us like a violin.
So May God Bless and Keep You Always was something of a waiting game. There were some things we knew from the outset the Joel and Julia drama had been shored up (well the marriage part) Amber's baby is just fine Hank was going to make an honest woman out of Sarah. But the big hold out was Zeek and the quality of his health. The demise of the Bravermans' patriarch could not have been more timely.
Zeek had been on a farewell tour for weeks. Every individual family member had a chance to sit next to him as he breathily reminisced and spun wisdom like every NFL player at the end of a game against the Vikings in Brett Favre's last year. As the season neared its end each of his children enjoyed a sitdown with dear old dad while he laid out their next moves. Get back together with Joel. Run the Luncheonette on your own. Marry that Kermit voiced robot human. There was something a bit off though about his speeches. Something wasn't quite right.
It pronounced itself most fully during his farewell conversation with Sarah on the porch. They were chatting about her life talking about how she was his favorite kid (rude). Then he choked out Was I a good father The question could've been interpreted in a couple different ways. On one hand it was easy to sympathize with a man who realized that his family was rushing through their lives to make sure he'd live long enough to participate a man who was dealing with being confronted by the end of his time. On the other it was possible to see through the tear prompt and roll your eyes at the obvious attempt to start the waterworks.
While watching I have to admit I felt the latter.
Maybe there was something about the prolonged nature of Zeek's goodbyes that ruined the mood for me. After remaining on the edge of my seat for so long with regard to when Zeek would shuffle off this mortal coil I grew tired of his amends making and sage spitting. It felt like every scene with him became a rehashing of the same formula kid gets dad one on one kid presents problem dad presents heartfelt platitudes kid gets misty cue the folk singer swell to really drive home the moment.
Don't get me wrong it's a tried and true formula that just about any show willing to engage in melodrama has used for at least 20 years. Parenthood certainly isn't alone in using it. However while the show's execution of said formula was special because of its characters and structure I think it was the repetition that killed it for me. We saw it so many times in such an unaltered form and combined with the knowing without knowing that Zeek was on his way out it ultimately lost some steam. After a while the emotion started to wane.
I did love how Parenthood handled the actual event of Zeek's death. We didn't see the family members receiving the news we didn't see the funeral just the world's most macabre baseball game played on his ashes and intercut with scenes that revealed where the rest of the characters ended up. That definitely helped to bring back the feelings that were drained in the approach.
While we're here let's dig into what happened to each member of the Braverman clan as seen in the finale's extensive montages (all of which predictably were soundtracked by a wan cover of Parenthood's theme song)...
After Zeek's death Camille went to France instead of Italy to visit Chez Marie. It's nice there too.
Crosby is rocking it at the Luncheonette with Amber Wyld Style Holt behind the mixers. Jasmine is pregnant again which has to be hell on a dancer's body.
Speaking of Amber she and the baby are doing fine. They'e hanging with Sarah Hank and Ruby. Amber has a new man in her life (Friday Night Lights' Scott Porter ) but Ryan is still around to help out.
Max graduated from his father's school. No one was surprised. But they cheered him on anyway and he managed a smile despite being a brat for most of the season.
And then there are the Grahams.
You may have thought to yourself that Parenthood shot itself in the foot by having Amber give birth in the penultimate episode. How will this season end on a pregnancy if no one is pregnant Well surprise Victor's biological mother got knocked up again but decided she couldn't care for the kid so she offered it up to the Grahams to adopt since the baby is Victor's half sister.
And this is where it gets... icky.
First I want to say that it's not that I don't think this sort of situation happens. I'm sure it does maybe it's even common. But in Parenthood's case it was strangely convenient and definitely problematic in the way it depicted a woman from a minority culture as popping out babies for the pleasure of white privilege. Hear me out.
Joel and Julia finding themselves in this position represents the kind of casual yet subtle racism where you're not even sure if it's there (and people often talk themselves out of it existing). We never actually saw Victor's mother so we can't make an assessment as to her background or her socioeconomic status we can only make educated guesses based on our knowledge of Victor's history. But the fact that she had another unplanned pregnancy with a man who isn't Victor's father and was immediately ready to surrender the baby seems to play into at least some unfortunate territory if not outright stereotype. And then Joel started talking about how the baby was theirs suggesting that because Victor is their adopted son Joel and Julia have a claim on his sister too. Apparently this mother is now producing offspring exclusively for Mr. and Mrs. Graham.
Of course I also see the sweet sentiment Joel was trying to express by giving Victor a sister who shares his blood and reconstituting his place at the head of the family. But it's a sticky situation and one that I can't imagine will go unnoticed.
Also the family's montage showed them getting a puppy for Christmas. The greedy bastards.
In the end the episode's nice moments outweighed the overplayed and questionable ones. Haddie coming back and having a moment with her brother was good. The photos were lovely (and almost saccharine). The wedding itself was everything we could've wanted for Sarah and Hank. There was a slightly creepy moment where Camille and Zeek tried to alleviate their empty nest syndrome by sucking Amber back into their clutches but it was balanced out by bro hugs and Max asking a girl to dance.
And the episode ending baseball game played atop an incinerated Zeek was possibly and fittingly the best sequence of the season. The game seemed to vacillate between featuring individual characters and showcasing the dynamic chemistry this group of actors have fostered beyond the structure of the show. Parenthood ended the same way it began with baseball in the truest spirits of Americana. For as clannish and privileged as the Bravermans were throughout the course of the series they were also a mixed bag of relationships and tenderness that made you want that for your own family if you don't have it and commiserate with if you did. It's unfortunate that Modern Family always gets so much recognition for its conversations about family values when Parenthood had so many of the same conversations and usually did them better. Maybe the show will be rediscovered in a couple years like Friday Night Lights was and people will talk about the unfettered emotion it can tap from even the most granite of faces.
Until then we'll have to look to About a Boy and whatever Katims' next project turns out to be. Presumably it'll just be a show about soldiers coming home from war to greet their excited dogs. With Sarah McLachlan singing in the background. And you'll love it.
What did you think of Parenthood's series finale Are you satisfied with how things ended How many boxes of Kleenex did you go through
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