Monsters of Television

“I’m going to sing now.”

“Adam, stop doing your Taxi Driver impression. No one is talking to you.”

I had a hard time picking out an opening quote for this episode. There were so many choice lines from Max’s celebrations of Haddie’s new hair color (“You look like a panther. Or a vampire from Twilight.”) to characters asserting series theme-summations (“You be a man, dad” or “I consider myself too big to fail”). One of the goals when writing television/film is to temper realistic dialogue with dramatic substance. If it’s all “realistic,” it might come off “banter-y” (and, at times, robbing the emotion of a scene). If it’s all dramatic, it turns out to be a Nic Cage flick. A balance is necessary and has been a goal for this show from the beginning.

We’ve discussed the “Robert Altman scenes” between siblings in this series, scenes where the characters (typically the adult Braverman siblings) talk over each other, have natural cadence, and laugh at each other (a crime many shows commit, especially sit-coms, where people will say something funny but no one will laugh diegetically). The comfortable, conversational tone between them is often tempered by dramatic, sometimes poignant, scenes from the characters when they’re without the other siblings. This is a balance the series has been hoping to hone throughout this half-slate and this season finale is the culmination of that practice, an execution of character and narrative that shows real potential for next season. Although, I’m not sure where next season is going.

I think they might be writing Julia off.

Seriously, let’s look at the facts from this episode. Sarah does most of the heavy-lifting (a burden Lauren Graham does well to bear) and Adam assists in her story. Of the the Lesser Siblings, Crosby has his own actor workout, present in just about every scene that doesn’t involve Sarah. Julia, on the other hand, doesn’t even show up on-screen until the second act (for a breakfast Robert Altman scene with her siblings) and then doesn’t show up again until the third act, her shining scene not even coming until the fourth act. I would say the only characters getting short-changed more often than Erika Christensen’s are Drew and Camille but even Drew has some influence on this episode and Camille’s part has been ramped up dramatically in the separation arc during the latter part of this season. Julia, on the other hand, only serves to give Zeek some showboating time and the straw that finally breaks him, forcing him to take control of things (though, in my eyes, she is overshadowed by Crosby’s “you be a man, dad” declaration).

Crosby has increased his capital dramatically over the season. Just as Adam and Sarah are opposites (Adam being the “fix it” guy while Sarah is still a mess), the Lesser Siblings Crosby and Julia are just as polar. Crosby started this season doing his laundry at his parents’ house, essentially living the life of a teenage/collegebound child while Julia has been career-minded and juggling a family with relative success (despite the writers wanting us to believe to the contrary 13 episodes ago). The presence of Jabbar has provided a natural progression of his character and, suddenly, to me, Crosby is almost the more mature adult among the Lesser Siblings. Julia is impulsive (“Deep End of the Pool”), prone to immature banishment (“The Big ‘O'”), and naïve (any episode featuring Timmmmmm). Crosby transforms from a guy afraid to deal with the future to a man that doesn’t want to be robbed of it as he insists Jabbar (and, thereby, Jasmine) stays in his life. Jasmine, by the way, could stand to be a little less selfish. I get that she has raised her son for five years without Crosby’s help but she didn’t introduce her kid to his father, then get involved with his father, just so she could ditch out whenever she wanted. While I’m not sure how that’s going to go with a Braverman son moving out of the great state of California, it does show his commitment and the growth of this character should not only be placed on the writers’ careful construction but Dax Shepherd’s able delivery. Who knew the Punk’d guy had it in him?

Jabbar does the Charleston.

Despite Crosby’s winning performance as a dad who wants a chance to raise his kid and Zeek and Camille’s storyline that has been burdensome on the Braverman children for weeks, the heavy-lifting of this episode comes from Sarah and Amber (and, by extension, Adam and Haddie). I’ve contended that Amber is the strongest character on this show, the most diverse in emotion and an ability to demonstrate descendance, that is exhibiting that she is her mother’s child. She’s been having trouble lately with the kids at school pointing out her terrible mistake of sleeping with Haddie’s freshly-ex-boyfriend, Steve, and, with no solace even at home since Kristina has been making Sarah’s life miserable which leads to Sarah taking it out on Amber (by suggesting her depressed self-destruction is bringing the entire family down with her), she strikes out on the road. Sarah’s tour of central California (first to get justification for her to move her family out of Oakland then to find Amber) brings a lot of poignant moments. The first is with Mr Cyr (who tells her not to leave town), then with Camille (who reflects Sarah’s assertion that Camille doesn’t need “an invitation to your own life”), then the journey of self-discovery with Adam as they drive to Fresno and, eventually, to the truck stop to which Amber hitchhiked. While I thought the broken taillight part was unnecessary, it did provide a nice parallel for Sarah and Amber as two women willing to run away from things rather than deal with them, especially when dealing with the morally-superior Adamandkristina brood.

The mother-daughter reunion scene was especially well-played, as their scenes always are, since they play well off each other. Their connection to each other is unique as two people that are so alike they can’t stand it and so headstrong they don’t want to deal with it. What could have been a schmaltzy, treacly scene (and the writing was there to support it) turns out to be something better with their portrayal, their conveyance of emotion. Also, it helps that the scene continues beyond their admissions for being glad to be in each other’s lives. Sarah: “Oh my God. I can’t take it.” Amber: “I know. I’ve really got to get it together.” Natural extensions for two characters that generally feel themselves above the melodramatic.

The theme for this episode is (obviously from the title) things that are lost and found. Adam and Kristina thought they lost a daughter but found her moving into a new stage in her life. Sarah lost her daughter and found her. Crosby felt like he was losing his family and found a way to keep them together. Julia — lost her keys or something. Zeek and Camille lost each other, to their knowledge, years ago and are starting to find their way back. Zeek has been far gone for quite some time, fooling around and buying up bad land investments that could shatter his family and his swollen pride, hubris even. His assertion that he is “too big to fail” would typically be a second act declaration for a tragic character but Zeek doesn’t suffer a conspiracy to dethrone him. He’s just a flawed patriarch with a family fully in support of him. So, despite desperate betrayal and Camille’s feeling of losing her sense of identity in their swollen marriage, Zeek is able to start the road to recovery by apologizing and singing with ukelele accompaniment. His daylight serenade has the entire family as an audience before attending Drew’s baseball tryouts. Did they “find” each other with that stunt? I really hope not. And I have enough belief in this writing staff that this is just the beginning to the healing process.

I’m not sure if this is an indication of the climate in the writers’ room when the finale was written but there was definitely a certain level of, well, finality to the whole thing. It all wrapped up in a satisfying way, which would be great if there was nothing to look forward to. But with a second season, I’m not sure what is in store for this show. The only remaining storyline I thought would happen by season’s end was Adam being tempted by Gaby, Max’s behavorial therapist. I suppose it’s a difficult thing (especially in a hairy NBC climate) to simultaneously leave things open-ended for a new season and wrap things up in a satisfying way in the event that the network says, “No, thank you” given their time-constraints.

So what are we looking forward to next season? I still think the thing with Gaby is going to happen, especially with the indignation Adam showed for his father’s philandering. The push for Amber to go to college (and her inevitable push back) will get stronger. Haddie will attempt to define herself outside of the Adamandkristina’s kid and Max’s babysitter box. With a fall season, maybe Kristina sneaks back onto her pal’s political campaign with an upcoming Election Day episode. Zeek and Camille eventually patch things up with some relapses. Crosby’s New York Adventure will go horribly awry. Sarah and Adam will consider incest. And Julia — Julia will look pretty and find ways to disrobe and/or get wet without having any actual influence over what happens in the Braverman household. Graham, Max, and Jabbar will continue to be the coolest guys you know. And Jasmine — my guess is Jasmine will, sadly, be reduced to guest roles.

Where do you think all this built capital is going?