Monsters of Television

“What makes you think you can ever be normal?”

Said the man calling himself Bug.

My reviewing of this show fell off near the end of Season 1 out of a combination of interest in other shows and disinterest in what happened to this one. But, after watching all the episodes I missed today (five of them) and then the season premiere, I can honestly say the show improved at the end of last season. It’s not great but it found its place and, finally, I can see what others can see in this show. I’m just not sure the season premiere helped it at all.

For those of you who fell off the show like I did, let me help you get up to speed. What forced the show to improve was a dismantling of what established the beginning of the show. The formula was a plot set-up around Lux being a teenager while Cate and Baze flailed around like children, inevitably learning some lesson Lux probably should have learned. The series took the sit-com trope of the kids teaching the parents about themselves to another level where the child actively and knowingly imparted knowledge to her sophomoric wards. Lux does this at the tender age of 16 after a lifetime of foster care and, as she briefly mentions, some pretty hefty emotional trauma. Not unrealistic that she would have some sage knowledge after a hard-knock life but you had to wonder, “How could a judge so blindly attribute this small wonder to these insane overaged children?”

As the season wore on, Cate and Baze started to settle better into parental roles (making the ridiculous antics from earlier on look like growing pains in hindsight) and, after the Well-Adjusted Foster Child Trust crumbled into a far-flung group of “just teenagers,” the show revealed Lux to be just as messed up as she probably should be. She’s a bright girl and extra resilient but she also has a lot of baggage and a host of mommy and abandonment issues. The last three episodes of the season really explored these characters (especially Cate and Lux) in a way that made you care about them. Baze’s development was also around but was far more hackneyed. Although, what else do you need to know other than he’s a man-child trying not to be a man-child but constantly put in his place as being, you know, a man-child.

So we finally had some development which led to strong emotional connections which led to stronger stories. The almost-The-Graduate scene at the end of Season 1, where Baze has just as much of an idea of what to do after he breaks up the wedding as Dustin Hoffman did, demonstrated an impressive amount of strength for this show by making Baze bust in late but giving Cate the opportunity to decide between the two men — and choosing Ryan right there. It’s still stuck in that late-90s WB genre (if that can even be a genre) and still leans on old standards to invent cabin scenarios (where characters are all stuck together in a closed-off area and are, therefore, forced to air their grievances or confess their inner desires) but it’s building.

So Season 2 started. And I’m not sure I very much liked how they’re moving things around.

The problem they had at the end of Season 1 is they explored many of the issues they brought up in the latter half of the season and, for the most part, let them settle. That’s not to say they’re resolved but they have certainly found themselves in the lowest point of resistance. For instance, Lux is still working through her abandonment issues, her missing out on experiences, and Cate giving her up but those things have been dormant for a few episodes (mercifully since she would probably come off unlikable if she was mad about it all the time). Heck, even Baze has made good with pops. So, if the family has come to stasis, where does the drama come from? Well, new people of course. And a little tiny reset.

I’m not accusing the series of hitting the reset button (not like Chuck at the beginning of season 3) but many of the same situations have cropped up again despite their progression from them when the show first started. Because Baze busted into the chapel during the wedding, showing his ass a little bit even if he didn’t say anything, he and Ryan are no longer “cool.” Even though Bug isn’t talking about running anymore, he does want his life to be about just him and Lux so, instead of suggesting they bolt, he proposes marriage to a sixteen-year old girl instead. Math and Jamie are exactly the same (almost completely absent). Cate is still on the fence between her husband and the father of her child. Lux still has an unfortunate trust in strangers. But, let’s face it, that dude she trusts is essentially future Jones.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the new people. Lux is candy to her Aryan counterparts as anyone with blonde hair and blue eyes is game for our bedimpled protagonist. A stranger in the bar fitting just that description, one who looks like Jones but aged 10 years, is willing to whisk her away to see the ocean and she goes, even though (as Lux is wont to do) she announces her understanding of how ridiculous the situation is (think about when she rattled off all the rom-com tropes she was falling for on her road trip with Jones and defused the last-five-minutes-of-Full-House moment with Cate during the winter formal). I mean, she’s already committed the illegality of serving this guy beer (a minor pouring should be enough to ruin the bar) — why not decide to lie to your parents about where you are that night and get into a car with a dude at least six years your senior? The guy obviously wants to bag the girl (totally statutory rape) and tries his hardest to impress her with sweeping gestures. But she needed someone to poison her engagement to Bug and I guess the kid playing Jones wasn’t available. Besides, Eric being teacher at her school adds a new level of wrong for Lux to tease. Another new character is Kelly, the new co-host of the Cate and Ryan’s radio show, who eventually supplants Cate. She is obviously interested in Ryan, giving him a bit of romantic intrigue (good because the Baze/Ryan scenario needs some complexity, lest we fall into Ben/Noel territory), although this person “Julia” who sent a nice wedding gift and makes Ryan nervous with her phone calls might indicate some pre-existing intrigue (maybe when he and Kate were on a break). Then, lastly, we have Paige.

Paige who burns down the bar. Paige who is Ryan’s sister (providing a future blow-up I’m sure). Paige who looks like future Lux. Messy blonde hair, dimples, effortless attitude. And Baze sleeps with her. To me, that says something more about Baze than I think they intended. Baze’s relationship with Lux has always been something less than parent-child. They are friends and she is comfortable with his sex life (even if he makes some bad decisions). For him to sleep with a girl that could be Lux in six years (right down to the backpacking around the world, presumably to gain the experience Lux longs for) adds a incestuous dimension to their dynamic. Clearly, Lux is into older guys: Bug, I assume, is a bit older since he’s allowed to be a bar-back and, of course, Eric is at least old enough, if not a tad irresponsible, to get a teaching gig at a high school. It’s weird, right? Maybe it’s just me.

All in all, the series picks up where it left off from last season, seeds some new drama (since the old drama is about played out), but clunks forward. What the show has going for it is the building of history. It’s often compared to Everwood and Gilmore Girls and history is what made those shows impactful. But what Life Unexpected suffers from (especially in the beginning of the series) is a lack of history between the characters. Everwood kicked off its series with Ephram’s resentment (from his mother’s death, his father’s absence for so long, his move to the middle of nowhere in Colorado) and Gilmore Girls has the unique mother/daughter dynamic compounded by Lorelai’s stressful familial past. Baze and Cate had a blank past, dotted with her getting knocked up and him ignoring her after they conceived. Obviously, their history with Lux is extremely limited. Only in very recent episodes have they started to fill in some blanks. But their exploration of characters (rather than leaning on melodrama) will help the show in the future.

I maintain what I said about this show before: there is potential here but I don’t think it’s quite there yet. Though it’s getting closer.