It's the autism thing that really bugs me. Parenthood may be the first, or maybe even the only, exposure the audience has to autism. It is a spectrum disorder. If we are to think that it is 1 to 10, why make Max a raving maniac? This makes me think of some fifth grader at dinner one night who wants a new boy he's met at school to come over, and mentions that he's autistic. (Wait, think the parents - not like that kid Max on Parenthood??!!) Why write Max as having so much anger and so many behavioral issues? It's a social development disorder. There were so many ways to write a stronger and realistic story arc. They have trouble accepting it. They keep fighting for him to stay in general ed classrooms. They don't like the diagnosis and still want to downplay it -- and teachers and administrators and their family and the audience could have been rooting for Max. A breakthrough? They decide to address it and struggle with meeting his needs, not cutting everyone down who doesn't go along with how "special" or whatever their son is. Instead he was just difficult, demanding, selfish, irritating, blah blah blah, with parents who fixed everything and never once addressed the roots of his over the top behavior.
The biggest mistake: Kristina for Mayor? How about the school board. Kristina starting a #%@@ school? How about a perfect classroom for her son, who has a social, and not a learning or physical, disability. General ed isn't a fit, special ed classrooms are dealing with reading intervention and multiplication facts. Hey Kristina of the school board, why not create and find the funds for maybe a couple of bungalows at an existing school site to create classrooms for kids that have autism and have issues typical of a young teenager with high functioning ASD, which again is a social development disorder. This could have shown all kinds of kids on the spectrum, and could have offered potential "buddies" for Max.
And that's just at school. I'm saying this because Autistic Spectrum Disorder is being said a lot. People are hearing it everyplace, the statistics are alarming, maybe they've heard about their own children. So why not show the real struggles of trying to help your child to understand things and learning to integrate into the community instead of just fixing everything leaving Max blameless?
The other thing? Why do they have so much money? I mean opening seasons Adam was a what? Tennis shoe executive? There are a lot of other things too, but they have been stated here and there and again, quite beautifully. I'll miss this show because it's so annoying -- admit it, we all love hating a bad show.