Parenthood’s remarkable February sweeps resurrection has come from a number of factors. It’s turned from the goofy, occasionally broad humor of the first half of the season to a much more dramatic series of storylines, and it’s taken those storylines seriously. It’s started giving its episodes ridiculously long titles (see above). It’s smartly figured out ways to give all of its characters smart, compelling storylines at the same time. And it’s invented a way to have the actions of one Braverman reach out to affect all of the Bravermans who aren’t Joel and Julia, who at this point may as well just live somewhere on an island with their petulant, spoiled child. This abrupt turn toward quality isn’t totally unexpected, since the show did something very similar back in season one, but it’s amazing that it so suddenly embraced all of the things it needed to do to make for consistently compelling television.
Tonight’s episode is a key piece of the “no Braverman is an island (except for Joel and Julia)” puzzle. Crosby, of course, slept with Gaby at the end of last week’s episode, as powerless against the might of Minka Kelly’s sheer feminine wiles as I imagine any straight man would be. Now, it’s the morning after, and he’s having second thoughts. Remember that whole thing where he’s still technically engaged to the mother of his child? Remember how they were just having a really big fight, not actually splitting up? Yeah, this is the kind of thing that turns those “big fights” into permanent separations and turns engagements into extreme bitterness and angry feelings, until Jasmine is sitting in a dusty mansion, surrounded by decaying food and wearing a yellowed wedding dress in tatters and Crosby is, I dunno, a chimney sweep or something. (He’s certainly thin enough.) But the great thing about this is that it doesn’t just stay confined to the Crosby-Jasmine story. It snowballs.
See, Gaby has to quit her job helping out Max. And when you’re Adam and Kristina—and we all know Adam and Kristina—that simply will not do, now will it? So the two pick and pick at the question of why Gaby quit, refusing to take personal reasons as an answer (and, to be fair, it was kind of shitty for Gaby to quit that abruptly, no matter how badly the whole thing was hitting her). And after picking at it long enough, Kristina gets Gaby to crack: She slept with Crosby, and she just couldn’t go on. Thing is, Crosby already KNEW this. He’d been over to the Adam and Kristina house to apologize for blowing up at Adam on the basketball court. (His mind was elsewhere, see.) He’d seen Max freaking out, even with his super best pal Alex there, hanging out. He’d heard that Gaby had quit. He’d tried to convince her to come back, when she just couldn’t, because, see, she liked him. But he wanted his fiancée back. That’s all anyone wants after they cheat: to go back to how it was before.
At the same time, Crosby’s confessed to Jasmine (and thank you, show, for not delaying this revelation; Crosby’s the kind of guy who’d tell right away, naïf that he is). She’s told him how devastated she is, told him he doesn’t deserve anything good in his life (sheesh). So he’s lost his fiancée and maybe even his son. So when he comes over to Adam and Kristina’s house at the end of the episode—after Adam’s gotten done talking about how much he just wants to punch his younger brother—he’s continuing his ritual tour of being punished for his misdeeds. He doesn’t know that Adam and Kristina already know. And he doesn’t know that things are about to erupt into a giant argument about who’s been hurt more. Sure, Crosby’s lost everything he once cared about, but Adam and Kristina have lost the one woman who was able to help them deal with their son’s Asperger’s. Cue the shot of Max standing on the staircase, woken up by the shouting, asking what Asperger’s is. And that’s the end of the episode. A snowball started by one Braverman has completely altered the life of a younger Braverman.