Throughout its six-season run on NBC, Parenthood served up some of life’s most emotional moments as well as the type of comedic situations only dysfunctional families can create. Though there are dozens to celebrate, Parenthood’s funniest moment involved the world’s most stressed-out-looking recliner and a family at the cusp of unraveling.
In “Road Trip,” a fan-favorite episode from season three, the entire Braverman family is buckled in for a trip to Bakersfield to celebrate Zeek’s (Craig T. Nelson) mother on her 86th birthday. The plan seems arbitrary at first and Zeek is stressed out about the logistics. His wife Camille (Bonnie Bedelia) argues against the importance of this particular birthday. “We didn’t go to her 85th birthday. Or her 84th. Or her 77th,” she reasons. It becomes clear that for some greater purpose, this trip means more to Zeek than just celebrating a milestone. To further complicate things, in his daughter Kristina’s (Monica Potter) home, her son Max (Max Burkholder) is learning the consequences of cursing at his mother. As punishment, he’s banned from visiting Grandma, and Kristina is staying home with him and her infant daughter Nora (Mia Allen). In other homes, it’s the same story. Between work trouble, relationship mistakes and a universal distaste for grandma, it seems that no one is truly game for this sudden 200-mile birthday caravan.
The Children Ruin Everything Cast Dishes on the Joys & Woes of Parenthood
The news of Max’s punishment upsets Zeek, who has strapped a sad-looking brown recliner into the back of his pickup truck, its unexpected seriousness only rivaled by his own. The nine-hundred-dollar birthday gift, normally a symbol of relaxation, is fastened in place by a comical number of bungee cords and locking mechanisms, literally the world’s least inviting place to sit. Zeek interprets the absences as a lack of caring. Despite the setback, the family ventures off. Zeek has prepared pre-printed lunch forms, paper maps, walkie-talkies and implements the use of military time (in one of the episodes' funnier moments, Zeek asks his family not to lose the laughably large and ancient walkie-talkies to which the response is, “How could we?”).
As the convoy cuts its way through scenic Interstate 5, the missing family member's decision to stay home reverberates up and down the family tree. To some, like Zeek’s laid-back son Crosby (Dax Shepard), it’s no big deal, and he encourages his dad to relax. At a sit-down lunch, the family continues to undermine the trip. They discuss their indifferent relationships with their grandmother. She’s a bad cook, offended by holey jeans, an amateur beautician with evil motives, and she never took Zeek’s dreams of being an actor seriously. Zeek, fed up, excuses himself to the restroom and tasks Crosby with keeping an eye out the window on the recliner in the truck and to “make sure nobody steals it.” Crosby tosses the request aside as if to say, “Who in the world is going to steal that ugly recliner in broad daylight?”
Sometimes comedy is just drama in the rearview mirror. Meaning sometimes it takes years of reflecting on a sour situation before the humor of it begins to make itself known. Other times, perhaps in those “If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry” moments, the humor erupts like a maddened geyser from a smoldering basin. When Zeek returns to lunch to find that his mother’s recliner, his big birthday surprise, has indeed been stolen from his truck in broad daylight, he’s livid. He lectures Crosby while others at the table can’t help but revel in the sudden comedy. Is it something Zeek may look back on and smile about? Possibly. But, in the moment, it’s the patriarch’s last straw.
Neagley Punking Reacher Is Season 1's Funniest Moment
Divided, the family raids a roadside souvenir shop for replacement birthday gifts (egg cookers, hats). Later on, and much like Max did at the beginning of the episode, Zeek throws his own wine-inspired temper tantrum and informs the family that because of their attitudes, he thinks they plain “suck.” No relaxation is allowed on this trip. The family responds by turning around to head home and as the failure of the venture resonates with Zeek, he comes to terms with the fact that it was never about the reclining chair and that impressing his mother with the success of the family he created – down to every last one of them – was the actual gift he’d been hauling down to Bakersfield. A happy ending ensues. (It’s worth noting that scenes occurring inside grandma’s house reveal a collection of some of the most uncomfortable-looking chairs imaginable.)
The theft of the reclining chair is one of those moments that Parenthood nails. “Road Trip” argues that sure, sometimes a rearview mirror and the tranquility of two-hundred miles of highway are needed to separate drama from comedy. Other times, seeing the humor in a moment of sadness is difficult, but healing. Because when you’re not looking, family too can disappear in broad daylight even if we’re certain everyone is strapped in tight.