Life Unexpected (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

This was easily my favorite pilot in years, an earnest heartfelt show that has the potential to be the CW's "Everwood". The whole show rests on the shoulders of Brittany Robertson, a teenager who -- in a possible first for the CW -- is actually a teenager. She embues the title character (Life UnExpected = LUX) with a warmth than defuses the sarcastic dialogue. Lesser shows would have had her positively storming at her newly found biological parents. Instead she's acts as if she's perfectly okay with it, which twists the knife in even further. She had plenty of chances for a caustic retort in this pilot following a chain of unflattering revelations, but she never takes one. Instead, she's... grateful for what little they give her. That makes her life all the more heartbreaking.

Kristoffer Polaha, who plays the former star quarterback and present biological father "Baze", will be 33 in February and Shiri Appleby, who plays the radio jockey biological mother, just turned 32. No five year difference between parent and child here, which I appreciated (even if Robertson has a couple years on her character). The chemistry between all three is superb.

Thank God "Heroes" is almost over, because this just became appointment television for me. I hope the series holds up.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I don't know if any one else is watching this, but so far the show's two for two in my book. I love the little moments where the characters show that they're processing what's going on with everyone else. The scene where the parents are granted joint custody, but the father is denied full equal custody was quietly heartbreaking. Baze was devastated, but adult enough to accept it and thank the social worker anyway. Lux sees the heartbreak in Baze's face and loves him a little more for it, even while the bulk of her attention is focused on the wonderful new life she gets to have with her birth mother. The episode seems to forget Baze while all of that plays out, but the final beat has him in front of the house on time, finally ready to drive Lux to school. None of the three prinicipal characters get shortchanged, even when the show is not shy about showcasing their flaws.

 

[mattCR]

It's a very different kind of story, surprisingly well told. The CW has really taken some interesting risks this year, and they've paid off.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Good start for the show, though, not quite sure what the case worker would think of Lux having to use those attic fold-away ladder steps to get to her new room.

That gal friend of Lux's would make a heckuva of a teen Klingon with that 5-head of hers.

Whew, just found out Brittany Robertson (Lux) is nearly 20 years old. She's got that wry, accessible air about her, and very cute. And she does bleach her hair blonde (done so for the past 2-3 years or more).

 

[Steve Armbrust]

I also think this is a show with much potential. Maybe not up to Everwood standards yet. But Brittany Robertson is to LU what Emily Van Camp was to EW, attractive and irresistable.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I hope they don't keep making Baze more and more pathetic. He's already pathetic enough. Accepting money from your teenage daughter is the lowest of the low. And by selling the bong lamp, the only piece of him that was in Lux's bedroom is now gone. I loved that visual metaphor so I was sorry to see it go; of course, I know I was supposed to be sorry.

I love Cynthia Stevenson in just about everything, so I really enjoyed seeing her pop up here as Cate's boozy mother.

My least favorite episode so far, but this show is still going very strong with me. The three main characters have such a natural charisma with one another that it works even when other parts aren't.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Great episode, my favorite since the pilot. It had its fair share of sugary sweet moments, but I felt like the show earned them. I love the tiny touches, too: instead of getting to see Lux find the money and the bong lamp, we get to see Cate find the money and bong lamp and proof that Baze is trying too. Baze is a mess personally, but he's a natural father in a way that Cate is not a natural mother; he can be the bad cop without Lux hating him for it the way she can hate Cate. Kristoffer Polaha has a great way of showing Baze listening even when he doesn't like what the other person has to say. He resents Ryan, but he's not above taking Ryan's advice if it makes things better for Lux.

This is fast becoming one of my favorite shows.

 

[Patrick Sun]

This episode's concept for the turtle races made me laugh, but these characters are unbelievably dopey, but I still like them.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This show continues to grow and improve. The first few episodes had me fearing that the series would lock into a pattern of Lux storyline, Cate/Ryan storyline, Baze storyline with only loose connective tissue. I was especially afraid that Lux would get lost in the shuffle as the show zeroed in on the CW pattern of endless love triangles amongst the former WB stars. If this episode is any indication, I needn't have worried. Ryan got the short shrift, but it also a really involving interweaving between the core family unit of Lux-Cate-Baze.

Baze finally started to step up as a father. He possesses a natural confidence that Cate lacks, so he was able to take control of a situation that badly needed controlling and found his first speech in father mode just as brutal as what he's used to from his father, indeed virtually verbatim. Cate was there to see it even as she experienced her most immature moment as a parent so far, save perhaps for the ultimatum she issued to Lux. Meanwhile, the chasm between the life Lux led and the life Lux has started to lead is becoming readily apparent. Despite being the most Capra-esque show on the CW since Gilmore Girls, it takes small moments to confront realities that are usually paved over on CW shows: this whole arrangement is faery tale-like but incredibly fragile, and everybody is only too aware of it.

The thing that makes Baze such a great dad is what he did after his outburst: he didn't apologize, he didn't try bribe her into being his buddy again. Instead, he sat down with her and explained why what she did was so serious: "If the cops come, I lose the bar. If the state finds out, I lose you." Since the moment he met her until the party, Lux had never given Baze a reason not to treat her like an adult. It's the reason she was able to manipulate him, and it's at the core of why their bond is so strong. He takes what she has to say seriously, and so she takes what he has to say seriously too. The party was a crucial moment for Baze: faced with the fact that his daughter is not an adult but rather the teenager she appears to be, he could have closed off the part of himself that regards her as an equal and become more of a traditional parent. Or he could have stuck his head in the sand and ignored the obvious until circumstances no longer allowed him to. Instead, he chose to consider the teenage immaturity and short-sightedness as just another facet of the same girl he'd already come to love and respect. So he continues to talk to her like an equal, but he's not likely to be tossing her the metaphorical (or literal) storeroom key again any time soon.

And then there's the fact that, as Tasha pointed out, 15 years and change of bouncing around the foster care system has sharply curtailed Lux's future. If she's going to make it to college, she's going to have to claw her way to graduation at Westmont, find a community college that will take her, and then perform stellar enough to transfer into a four year school. On the plus side, she's got incredible admissions essay material.

I loved that Ryan saw Cate and Baze holding hands and was pissed about it, since he comes across as far too passive. I also loved that, in the end, Baze's father swung by for that beer. It's sugary-sweet, to be sure, but right now a lot of us need a little sweetness to keep on going.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Now that Baze is starting to get his life together, we get an episode where Cate is plunging toward rock bottom. Both are wonderfully flawed characters, flawed in deep ways instead of the usual superficial ways of the CW. In trying to prove to his roommate that he's completely over Cate, Baze learns that he's still very much into Cate. Ryan, who has been almost unreasonably perfect up until now, ends the episode still not knowing the whole truth. Lux's storyline was the most emotionally gripping, as she faces the loss of one of the only constants in her life, and contrasted sharply with Cate's own storyline. Lux follows Cate's advice and acts with courage and conviction. But in the crosscutting, we see that Cate's still too cowardly to finally rip that band-aid off. And yet in spite of truly contemptible behavior with regard to Ryan and her own hypocrisy, she's still there to be Lux's mom. I found the final beat especially moving, realizing that this was probably the first time Lux has had someone to hug her and tell her that she did the right thing, no matter how much it hurts. As Lux's old family starts to fray, her new family is finally starting to take hold. The dark underbelly of the show keeps the CBS Sunday movie feel at bay a bit. Lux and Bug have really troubled, screwed up pasts. The conception of Lux really screwed up both Baze and Cate. Cate had to deal with the stigma of a teenage pregnancy. Baze had to live with the shame of leaving Cate high and dry, presumably to an abortion. Neither has really grown up.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Glad to see that bombshell finally unwrapped. All of Cate's hypocrises come to the fore at once, leading to her hitting rock bottom much like Baze did when his daughter had to pay his rent. The story with Tasha and her mother was absolutely heartbreaking, and I think both Baze and Cate made the right call in response. Lux is furious at Cate for not taking in Tasha, but Cate really isn't in any position to deal with any more complications. Had she said yes, it would have just been another failed promise to add to her pile. On the other hand, it was Baze's first real chance to prove he could be selfless for Lux. Taking Tasha in wouldn't have solved his problem with being locked out of Lux's life, but it would have made her life better. Since Lux is the only thing really going on in his life, he had more headspace to deal with it. The social worker was right not approve it, but Baze was in a much better position to try. Loved the moment on the porch between Cate and Baze. Baze has brought his A-game, but he knows what it's like to be in Cate's shoes feeling like your child is being torn away from him. He could sympathize with her as a parent, and you could see this adult part of him awaken that had never been accessed before. Both are incredibly flawed parents, but they love Lux and they're trying their hardest. Tasha's story emphasizes how lucky Lux is for that.

 

[mattCR]

This show has turned into one of the best scripted dramas on CW, a really strong storyline and a fairly difficult story to tell well.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Cate is yucky, horrible moral compass.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Tonight's episode was another mostly cringeworthy journey for Baze, as he sets out on a scorched earth policy to protect his relationship with Lux. Cate suffers through the consequences of her actions in the most unbearable way imaginable. Lux has a very thoughtful date with Jones -- the modelesque football quarterback that us mere mortals almost have to hate on sheer principle -- only to feel betrayed when she finds out how it originated. Ryan finally, finally has the whole story of what happened that night in Baze's bedroom over the bar.

Another good episode for me, although not as powerful as the last few have been. Baze's actions would have been embarrassing for a normal kid, but for Lux they were a violation. It exposed just how shallow the history between her and her parents is. Baze hijacking the bridal show was unbelievably childish, since he should have been happy that Lux had someone else to turn to; I'd like to say that if Baze had spent his lifetime raising Lux, he wouldn't be so insecure about his place in Lux's life, but I've heard plenty of horror stories about divorced parents who pull similar antics (and worse) when they feel like they're being shut out. Baze's first real moment as a father, not as Lux's friend but as Lux's father, was when he asked Ryan to go upstairs and talk to Lux. You know it killed him to do it, but he wanted what's best for Lux and not what's best for himself. Meanwhile, Ryan continues to be the most unimaginably patient and decent person on the planet. Cate appears to have put away the alcohol this time -- which is a good thing, considering her mother -- but finally lets out the emotions that have been building up over the course of this catastrophe with a good cry over her wedding dress.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Lux proves she's inherited her parents' talent for catastrophic violations of social norms by having sex with Bug hours before she heads to the winter formal with Jones. Her winter formal serves as a point of reflection for Baze, who spends the whole episode trying to prove how much he's changed since high school -- only to disprove it by hopping into bed with Kate's sister the first time she bats her eyes at him. Cate begins to come to terms with her animosity towards Baze while making inroads on regaining her relationship with Lux. Too preoccupied by her conflicts with Lux and Baze, she laughs off poor Math's clumsy advances initially before eventually giving him that dance he'd been holding out for for sixteen years. Bug ventures way outside his comfort zone to surprise Lux with flowers just when she needs him the most and saves the evening for her. Back above the bar, Lux's opinion of Baze takes another hit when she walks in on him and her aunt while Cate waits outside ready to bury the hatchet. Apparently learning nothing from Cate's disastrous decision to hide sleeping with Baze from Ryan, Baze feels no need to tell Cate that her sister is hanging out naked in the other room. Another scandal for another episode I guess, sure to ratchet the animosity back up to ten.

My favorite moment? In Jones's van when Lux realizes that the reason Baze was so freaked out is that he didn't want her to have to experience what he and Cate experienced. What a strange mix of emotions that has to be; on one hand, it transforms a desperately overprotective act into something understandable, even sweet. On the other hand, Lux wouldn't even exist if it weren't for Baze and Cate's indiscretion so there had to be a little pang of rejection mixed in there as well. Lux could laugh these things off in the pilot, because she didn't have anything invested in Baze and Cate as human beings. Now they're part of her life, and she cares about what they think to the core of her being. Unfortunately, neither one has sixteen years of parenting experience to inform their parenting decisions, and that -- combined with sixteen years of pent up idealized expectations of what parents should be -- leads to Lux being disappointed time after time.

Part of what I find compelling about this show is that Lux has run from every previous situation that hasn't worked out. She's already run from Cate's to Baze's, and her clear instinct is to run from them both now. Is that intangible bond between parent and child, in the absense of the shared history that develops from birth in most families, enough to keep her from running this time? At this point it's an open question.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Damn, there were a lot of waterworks going on in this episodes.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Stellar episode. A lot of the stuff lingering just under the surface finally bubbled up, and that's a good thing. I have a lot of thoughts about this ep, but they'll have to wait for tomorrow.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I never got around to following up about last week's episode, but here's a few thoughts about tonight's. I can't believe there are only two more episodes this season, with the show hanging very much on the bubble for renewal. I'll really miss this show, whether it's gone for the summer or gone for good.

Tonight's was probably my least favorite episode, because we didn't get much of the relationships at the heart of the show, which are Baze/Lux and Cate/Lux. Baze and Cate continued their dance, with Abby stuck in the middle. Their outbursts made it clear that by no means should Cate marry Ryan until she figures things out for herself. Lux's treatment of Jones seemed like the usual impossible teenage girl drama, full of internal contradictions, until we understand the nasty cycle of Lux's life before Cate and Baze. She couldn't give up the idea of her birth parents, so she pushed all prospective parents away. When they sensed her unwillingness, they paid attention and backed off, which in turn made her feel rejected. This helps explain why Lux had nothing but bad foster families, since the only ones that took her were the ones who didn't care if she wanted to go or not. Ryan was the person she could unravel this to, because he is an objective though caring outsider. Any time she talks about her past with Baze and Cate she makes them feel guilty. I was also happy to see Lux admit to Cate at the end that she moved out of the bar over her anger at Baze for sleeping with Abby. Would have liked to see her chat that out with Baze in person, though. I have a feeling her spotting his lack of enthusiasm at the toast is going to play out in the last two episodes.

 

[Patrick Sun]

More Abby, please.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Easily the best hour of the show since the pilot. The Bug storyline provided a contrivance that allowed this family to exist in a bubble for virtually the entire hour. Every scene had all of the three in it, in presence if not literally. Everything that has led to this point was shaped in some way by Cate's father's absence: Cate made it clear to Ryan than the moment she reached complete hopelessness when grappling with newborn baby was the moment when she wanted to ask her father what to do and realized she didn't even have a phone number to reach him by. To some extent, we emulate our experiences; Cate's father walked, which allowed Cate to walk. Baze blowing Cate off when she came to him with the pregnancy would have been devastating regardless, but it was all the more so because it fit the mold of men she depended on exiting stage left. All her anger and disappointment with her father got displaced onto the already substantial anger and disappointment she legitimately already held for Baze. Never mind that one was an adult and one was another teenager every bit as terrified as she was. Cate's decision to give Lux up has defined the rest of both Baze and Cate's lives. The shame of it haunted both of them, and pinned them in a state of perpetual adolescence that neither could break free of until Lux came back into their lives. And Lux changed everything. Her presence weighed the heaviest of them all, a walking condemnation of Cate's father's moral argument: If Cate had tracked down her father before Lux, her condemnation would have come up against the fact that she did the same thing to her own child. Instead he is faced with two parents that ultimately were able to give their kid the love and commitment that he is too immature to provide despite being many decades their senior. He will never have a flower pot moment, where he goes all in permanently and irrevocably like Baze did in the very first episode. Even when Baze was at his most contemptible, he never ran. He was there for Lux as a friend before he knew how to be there for Lux as a father. Every important change he's made over the course of the series has been meant for the good of Lux, whether it ended up being or not. And this roadtrip gave Lux a chance to understand that; all four grandparents have provided a reflection with which she could judge Cate and Baze. Not just how they measure up, but how they were shaped as people. She got to observe a stark contrast between a bad father in Cate's father and a good father in Baze, two superficially similar men, but more importantly she was finally forced to accept that she is not the only abandoned child in this family. So many of the things she felt growing up, Cate felt growing up too. And while Lux always assumed her birth parents didn't want her only to be proven wrong, Cate has just been explicitly told that she wasn't wanted. It was that reality, that newfound ability to empathize with Cate, that allowed daughter to finally begin forgiving mother.

So many great moments tonight. Laughed out loud when Baze rear-ended the chicken coop truck mid-sentence in his safe driving record, even if it did prop up an overly intrusive State Farm product placement. Loved the B&B scene where Cate tells a seemingly sleeping Baze how much she values their family, and realizing the musical motif used in the promos and previously sprinkled lightly throughout the show is Cate and Baze's theme -- probably doesn't bode well for Ryan next week, but then I think the motif is about their union as parents first and foremost. Loved Baze's disgust at Cate's father's attitude, and what it says about him. Loved the confrontation scene back at the B&B, where Baze declares that if something happened to Lux, he would not eat and would not sleep until he got to her. I loved that Lux finally feels secure enough in her relationship with Baz to risk telling him the truth, and I loved how heartbroken she was to see his disappointment. She used to feel entitled to disappoint her parents, considering the colossal way they disappointed her. Not any more.

I particularly loved the moment when Cate walked around the bend and there Baze was, finally there for her after all these years. And the one time, apart from in high school, when she needed him the most. And, of course, most of all I loved the moment when Lux finally told her parents she loves them. I've waited the entire series for that moment.

Some of the promos imply that there will be shocking revelation in next week's season finale. About the only thing that would dampen my enjoyment of the show is if Lux found herself pregnant. That's the one line this show can't cross, at least not while Lux is in high school. Assuming that doesn't happen, this will be easily the bubble show I most desperately want to make it.