The De-Mancipation Of Natalie

Drew hasn't gotten a ton to do this season on Parenthood -- I guess that's what comes from being part of a TV show cast that's 700 strong -- but most of it has revolved around Natalie. Another resident of his dorm, Natalie was the first girl to whom Drew took a shine, post-Amy, and after they slept together, he thought he had his next girlfriend. But apparently Drew doesn't read New York Times trend pieces, so he's never heard about "hookup culture," and when Natalie tells him she isn't interested in anything serious and will, in fact, continue attending frat parties and maybe having sex with guys she meets there too, he's horrified and heartbroken. Things get worse when he walks in on Natalie having just slept with his roommate, Berto; Drew kind of loses his mind, ditches his room, and moves in with Amber to smoke a lot of weed, which I guess we're supposed to think is alarming and a sign of creeping depression or whatever.

This felt like kind of an excessive response given that (a) he'd just come off weeks of Amy loitering around his room avoiding her own life, and (b) the whole point of Natalie and Drew was that there WAS no Natalie and Drew. But still, even as Drew's neurasthenic attitude about the Berto/Natalie hookup made him seem like a crybaby, I admired the show's producers for not punishing Natalie. In general, female characters who like sex and don't care about exclusivity are treated like dangerous nymphomaniacs. Natalie was allowed to continue being the same cool girl she'd always been. She could tell Drew was pissed at her -- she wasn't totally insensitive, or an idiot -- but as she kept having to remind him, she didn't actually do anything she wasn't "allowed" to do, and the show seemed to be on her side. It's not that they were even "on a break": THEY HAD NOTHING TO BE ON A BREAK FROM.

After going through a whole thing in last week's episode where Drew and Berto get drunk together, clear the air, and Drew decides to be cool with Berto again, in the latest episode Natalie dares to approach Drew while he's studying and he bites her head off again. She's like, I was just going to offer you my Astronomy notes, fuckwad, and he feels dumb, and I feel happy.

But then, as much as the show's producers seemed to be backing up Natalie this whole time, they totally her sell out. She comes to Drew's room and tells him that the reason she slept with Berto is that seeing Drew with Amy made her feel "forgotten." And when he finds her later at "Finals Primal Scream" and tells her he wants her to be his girlfriend, she agrees. So I guess this whole time, the confident, smart girl didn't actually know what she wanted, and was built for monogamy just like Drew wanted her to be, and all it took was for her to see Drew with someone who wasn't her to realize it. Lesson learned: never listen to what a girl is telling you, because she doesn't mean it! Just make her jealous and she'll totally come around! Negging is real, and it works! Sorry, Natalie, no more frat sex for you! And double up on contraception because we know Drew's REAL fertile!

In all seriousness (and yes, I know these people aren't real): it's bad enough that Drew's sad-sacking has been rewarded. But the fact that his reward is for Natalie to be "tamed" into being his girlfriend is especially gross. Here's hoping that, to make up for Natalie's new, unearned conventionality, we learn next time that Haddie and her girlfriend are part of a polyamorous throuple back in Ithaca, and that they're also into pony play.