Parenthood: I’ll be right here…(S4E6)

This was not quite the cry fest that last week was, but Parenthood gave us another strong, if Adam/Kristina-centric episode.

So let’s jump right in.

Adam and Kristina are getting ready for her surgery.  Adam passes off some pre-surgery duties to Crosby, who utterly fails(but I’ll talk about that in his section).  Max decides to drop the bombshell that the election is on the same day as the surgery, and he has to give a speech for it.  Kristina asks to hear the speech, but Max has it all in his head.  Hattie is still home, and is thinking about deferring to spring semester, which both Adam and Kristina are adamantly against.

After Kristina says goodnight to the younger kids, she finds Hattie in the kitchen, talking to the Dean about deferral.  Kristina fights against it again, but Hattie wants to do all she can to help, which includes watching Max’s speech the next day.

While Kristina is in surgery, Adam is joined in the waiting room by all his siblings, all of whom offer him tea, to Adam’s increasing frustration.  Meanwhile, Max is waiting to give his speech, and Hattie is there to give her support, and also gives Max the words he needs to give a rousing, if treacly, speech fully about his Aspergers, and how it affects him.

Of course, Kristina comes out of her surgery just fine, and we learn that Max won the election, completely unbelievably.  Unfortunately, at Kristina’s follow-up appointment, we learn that one of the nodes pulled for biopsy has cancer, and the type she has is more aggressive than expected. 

So what do Adam and Kristina do?  They immediately go home, and tell Hattie that Kristina is fully cured, and that Hattie should go back to school, of course!  Nothing like a gigantic lie to your grown daughter to make her trust you, guys.

Anyway.

Crosby does his best to help, and fails miserably at every turn.  In an attempt to calm down a freaking out Adam, he give Adam the most awkward shoulder rub in the history of the planet.  He then convinces Adam to let Crosby take some day before tasks, like taking the dog to the dog park, and getting Kristina’s favorite meal before she is cut off from eating before go-time.

He manages to let the dog, Otis, loose, only to get attacked by a bigger dog, requiring Otis to get two stitches, and forcing Crosby to be late with Kristina’s final pre-surgery meal. 

To end, Crosby was putting Jabbar to bed, and asked him to teach Crosby how to pray.  It was really cute, especially when Jabbar cut Crosby off in giving the backstory: “He already knows.”

Sarah had a minor plot, in the move-in with Mark day.  Drew was being a little putz, basically throwing a temper tantrum, but they get to Mark’s with little to no issue.  That is, until Mark doesn’t have cable, like some sort of dirty hippy.  This is quickly rectified, as Mark wants to be a good guy, so they get cable, and there is bonding, and only a little weirdness with Hank being all skeevy at work and whatnot.

Julia was the only one with less of a plot, which was basically her being supportive of Adam, and scheduling and stuff.

All in all, not a bad episode, though the whole ‘lying to Hattie’ thing was obnoxious.  I also wasn’t impressed with Max actually winning the election, but I think it may give him more to do this season, which may be a good thing.