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Parenthood FINALLY remembers the grandparents

After several weeks of focusing on the four adult siblings' trials and tribulations with child-rearing, marriage, and work, 'Parenthood' at last allowed the grandmother to have a scene or two.

- Season 1, Episode 10 - "Namaste No More"

Part of the promise of Parenthood was that it was going to present a multi-generational portrait of mother- and fatherhood, not simply focus on the four adult Braverman siblings and their issues.

While we’ve seen a bit of Zeek — behaving like an overbearing and opinionated grandfather — we’ve seen precious little of his wife Camille, who, up until this episode, had only been portrayed as either flitting around the house preparing or serving meals to everyone,  gardening, or cheering on the sidelines of her grandkids’ soccer and baseball games.

Camille successfully raised four kids into adulthood, and now has her grown daughter Sarah, and Sarah’s two teenaged children, living with her. Certainly this development would alter her relationship with Sarah in some way, as well as put pressure on her relationship with her husband Zeek now that their nest is no longer empty. But the show hasn’t really explored this, and Camille has had less face-time than virtually every other cast member.

I’d love more scenes like the one in this episode where Camille listened to Sarah whine about how difficult her Photoshop project was, and lament how she’d never figure it out … to which Camille said, “I think you’re afraid of trying.”

This unleashed Sarah’s snark:

“I’m just saying Mom, what do you know about failure?”
“I’m acquainted with failure,” Camille said crisply.
“No, Mom, real failure,” the irritating Sarah continued, “not like, ‘Oh, my organic pastry dough didn’t rise!’ I mean real failure.”

Then a cloud passed over her mother’s face and she labored to hold back tears. Clearly there’s more to the story.

We’ve known for a handful of episodes that Grandpa Zeek got himself mixed up in a bad real estate deal after he tried to unload property onto Adam. In this episode, Sarah discovered that her parents’ financial situation had become dire, as her father had pawned many of his cherished possessions including cuff links, and a signed Reggie Jackson homerun baseball. Only Camille knew nothing about any of this.

At a family intervention dinner — where Adam, Sarah, Julia, and Crosby were going to offer to help their parents — the discussion deteriorated in a realistic fashion, sans over-theatrical hysterics the writers could’ve easily employed in order to amp up the drama. But the actors all underplayed things nicely, leaving the scene full of awkwardness and long silences, one of which was broken by Camille who said, in almost a whisper, “Perfect, more lies, huh? This isn’t about money, is it Zeek? I don’t want to continue with this right now. You’re all so sweet.” Shortly after she retreated to her room in quiet tears, Zeek, just as quietly, got up and left, only to later show up at Adam’s doorstep bag in hand.

This made the scene where Camille confided in Sarah that Zeek had cheated on her for years, and that she’d hidden it for the children’s sake — “I covered for him. I’ve been covering for him for years” — pack an emotional punch.

Sure, there were lots of other stories — Haddie breaking up with Steve who moved on quickly to Haddie’s cousin Amber, who he hit on at an 80s-themed party at a country club; Julia pulling a female version of Will Farrell from Kicking and Screaming; Adam and Kristina shopping for friends; the Crosby/Jasmine courtship — but I was most drawn to the story of the grandparents. I hope that the writers don’t take shortcuts and let it unfold slowly as they dissect decades of Zeek and Camille’s marriage, children, and grandchildren.

Photo Credit: NBC

Categories: | Episode Reviews | General | Parenthood | TV Shows |

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