Parenthood continues to stumble out of the gates

After being bombarded with characters and story lines in last week's premier, I was relieved that the pacing of this week's episode of Parenthood slowed considerably. Unfortunately, the "buzz-kill factor" was still in full effect.

The plot of episode two basically just took the stories presented last week and built upon them, without adding a whole lot of new material, which I appreciated. Adam, who we find out is some kind of shoe industry executive or something, is still, at least partially, in denial about his son's Aspergers. Determined to get a second opinion, he seeks out a specialist, a doctor referred to as "the Bob Dylan of Aspergers" who confirms his fears, Max exhibits the tell-tale symptoms of the syndrome. To make matters worse, Adam discovers a bag a weed in his backyard and spends most of the rest of the episode trying to find its rightful owner.

Meanwhile, Crosby uses Max's Aspergers as an excuse to break a date with his girlfriend. Initially this sounds like a totally dick move, but the reason he doesn't want to hang out with his girlfriend is because he would rather hang out with his new-found son and his ex-girlfriend/baby-mama, who have decided to move back Berkeley (which, as we find out, is where the show takes place).

Sarah's family suffers a series of defeats, starting with her attempt to land a fantasy job as a logo designer (or something like that). Adam uses his connections (who knew a guy in the shoe business had so many hook-ups in unrelated industries) to get her an interview, which goes really well initially. The interview scene was one of the few lighthearted moments and Sarah's chemistry with her would-be boss, a much younger Asian dude, is pretty strong. Unfortunately, I don't think we will be seeing anymore scenes with the two together because after the interview Sarah is informed that the job requires a college degree, which she is lacking. After receiving that tough news, she finds out that her daughter is being held back a year because some of the credits from her former school won't transfer to her new school. By the way, is it just me or does Sarah remind you a whole lot of Nancy from Weeds? I'm just waiting for Sarah to say, "Fuck it," and start selling bud to UC Berkeley students to support her kids.

Speaking of Weeds, or weed in general, the episode ends on a high note, literally, with the adults of the family huddled together outside a school play (or something like that) smoking the bud that Adam found in his backyard (which, as it turns out, belonged to his formerly goody-two-shoes daughter). It was nice to finally have a scene that was lighthearted and showed a family just hanging out being a family, not dealing with super heavy issues. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately (I haven't quite decided) I think this scene may spell disaster for the show having any sort of longevity. Networks, historically, do not look too kindly on TV shows that depict recreational drug use in an honest and non-judgmental fashion.

I caught a little bit a flack last week for being so harsh on the show, but I still contend that Parenthood has some major problems. The biggest and most obvious one is the scenes that are supposed to by funny just aren't. Granted, there were a couple that made me chuckle a little bit, like when Max was listing recording artists with number one records. I can't help comparing Parenthood with Modern Family because the premises of the two or so similar (large extended family dealing with issues of parenting and growing up), but the difference between the shows is that when Modern Family ends I feel good about myself and life in general, and when Parenthood ends I just sort of feel depressed. I'll give it a few more weeks to see if Parenthood is able to find its voice, but I'm starting to think that maybe this just isn't the show for me.