Parenthood “Politics” Review

This episode of Parenthood saw a lot of stories left by the wayside and got deeper into the crises of a few of the characters, moving forward their stories with big steps. Jasmine decides to move in with Dr Joe, giving Crosby the oppurtunity to act completely immaturely and overreact until he decide to charm his way back into his life via ballet bar door knobs (don’t ask). The character of Crosby is inherently annoying to me: he’s the guy who’s charming and gets by on his personality, except for me personally, he has no charm and his personality grates so Crosby’s storylines, much like Jason Ritter’s character (seriously, what is his name? Matt? Mark? Something like that) annoys me. Here’s a man with zero agency, who serves mainly as a mirror to make Lauren Graham’s character uncomfortable or to make her feel old or whatever.

Dawes showed up, played no music, and had a chat which was to corrupt Crosby’s soul, AKA do business with him.

Much more interesting was Amber’s storyline. I recently rewatched all three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of my favorite television shows of all time, and this was the first time I realized that Mae Whitman lent her voice to Katara, and it shows, especially in the latter seasons. Whitman is such a great actor and whether she’s Katara giving out to her father for abandoning her and her brother or Amber, feeling that intense rush of anxiety as her aunt reads out a name in flowers sent to her, she makes you feel so many different feelings by doing so little: she can play the romantic interest opposite Bob Little (who has a bit of an Anton Yelchin thing going on there) where they fill the screen with chemistry, or extreme discomfort, like when she’s on the phone to her mother, trying desperately not to let her emotions overwhelm her.

The show, I think, knows what an asset Whitman is and has given her the oppurtunities, especially this season in this episode and in the episode with her father, where they can let her really shine. Giving Whitman something interesting to do is a surefire way to make the episode a very good one, even if everything else is failing miserably around her – which it wasn’t in tonight’s episode. Julia and Joel’s storyline was quite good.

What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below.