The Salinger family starts falling apart once again. This time, Charlie, Julia and Bailey's actions attempt to dismember the family completely. For one side, Charlie's actions and intents of helping two women at the same time, one is his long lost wife and the other the mother of his baby, pushes inadvertently the both away. Kirsten, the once "mother of Owen and Claudia", with the heart broken thinking that Charlie wants to form a family with Daphne, decides to move out the Salinger house and goes to visit her parents in Chicago, likely for the first time since the beginning of season 4. First she is seen talking to Charlie on the phone, he with a face of stupid saying how great that things were working out with Daphne. She, clearly depressed once again, on the verge of tears, was without words and then lied saying "that's great Charlie". It's hard to tell how she managed those moments, still on medication, she needed more than never her daily dosage of lithium, knowing that without it, a relapse in clinical depression would be certain. She packs her stuff and chooses to go to the place where she healed last time, because there's no place else to go. She goes downstairs and talks to Claudia, the now grown up girl who always loved her like a second mother. Claudia asks her something about homework she has and Kirsten says she doesn't know. Claudia sees the suitcase so Kirsten tells she is leaving for a while. Claudia mistakenly thinks that Charlie'll be bummed if she leaves, but Kirsten assures him that he won't mind, it's like she'd be on the way. Claudia thinks that's not truth, surely because she values her more than anyone else in the house now. Kirsten says she doesn't like herself this days, she's like waiting for something that won't happen, rooting for the wrong things, that is a bad time. Claudia doesn't seem to get it, so she gives her a goodbye letter for Charlie, saying she'll be in Chicago for a few weeks. Claudia asks if he can call her then, but she says "if he wants", obviously thinking he won't. And that's how Kirsten leaves for the 4th time, again badly damaged by Charlie. It's hard to find an explanation for what he did. I understand that Kirsten marrying Paul could hurt him, and that he couldn't wait until an eventual divorce, but he always had to prioritize her health. Gene Bennett is right about one thing: Charlie is responsible for Kirsten's chronic illness, his impossible actions triggered it, so he's the only one to blame. But in early season 3 he took that full responsibility and decided to take care of Kirsten forever, to heal her as long as it takes. And that's where Gene got it wrong, he shouldn't have taken away the responsibility for her. Now, again Charlie had to take that responsibility, the marriage of Kirsten and Paul was part of the chain of events that started in the failed wedding. So when she got divorced, he had to take care of her. And that's why I hated this turn out. It's like he forgot all the things he did, the good he did for her and the bad he did to her, and like he forgot that Kirsten still loves him. The only one who doesn't forget is Claudia. As for Daphne, she decides to not return to the house, basically for the same reasons of her depart, she is afraid and insecure of failing in raising Diana, and leave her just as her mother did. Her decision implies that even if Charlie showed her the file when the lawyer gave it to him in 5x03, she would have left anyway. She would have said what she said today, that her mother gave her a disease and now she has to prevent it and not giving the disease to Diana. Then, Charlie's absence and neglect of Owen causes Bailey to interfere, so the middle brother now wants to take Owen away from Charlie and raise him in the loft with Sarah's support. Turns out that Owen has dyslexia and Bailey seems to handle this better than Charlie. Also, Charlie's blindness with Julia's situation, makes him kick Griffin out of the shed and out of the family. As for Julia, she starts to go to a therapist to save her relationship with Ned after he suggests breaking up to protect her (this initial good attitude from Ned was caused by the beat up that Griffin did to him). The therapist, Dr Kessel, later tells Julia that she can go to a group of support for women victims of violence, but she refuses saying she's not a victim and that he doesn't know them. He seems to know that her denial is a common situation but he can't reach her. In the next session, Kessel realizes that Ned has a problem (after he hears Ned's family history, of Richie and their father), Julia is not the first one he hitted, but Ned remains stubborn. Then, they decide to move out to another place, separate totally from their families. And that's how the family fell apart one more time.
As usually in the whole series, the only Salinger that tries so far to keep the family together is Claudia (the best character of the show). She is the only one who realized Griffin's innocence and selfless actions towards Julia. She is the only one who tried to convince Kirsten to stay, because she knows that Kirsten belongs with them. When Charlie arrived, a serious and sad Claudia told him that Kirsten left to Chicago, because what he told her about Daphne. He was surprised (unbelievable), but barely said a word. Claudia said that she left the letter on his room and that he can call her if he wants, he answered ok. She was really disappointed about losing Kirsten again and also because Charlie kicked out Griffin, the good guy of the season, who comforted and took care of her lately. She also realized first than anyone Charlie's neglect of Owen after Diana's birth and tried to warn him. Now, it's too late and Bailey's whim is going to tear apart the family. So that's why this episode is not enjoyable, instead of being a family united in dramatic situations, was totally the opposite. Here, I hated Bailey for taking Owen away from his "father", Charlie for hurting again the love of his life and unfairly kicking out Griffin, and Julia for being so selfish. In this episode, the series was Party of One, because the only Salinger sibling who cared about the family is Claudia. For all this, the writers job here was bad. They had the Salinger family united one season ago, and in season 5, they separated them completely, badly damaging the structure of the series. And surely that's why ratings started to fall in 1998-99, the reasons to watch the show faded away.
0 out of 0 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
