Mark And Sarah Have To Get Back Together

One thing that happens to you when you moderate the bulletin boards of a TV website during the somewhat formative years of the internet is: you stop letting yourself get emotionally invested in any romantic pairing any show throws at you. For one thing, you learn through bitter experience that as soon as you start caring about a couple, the producers of their show will inevitably contrive a pretext to part them. For another, you see so many crazed, perspective-less fans going nuts for whatever pair they've created a cutesy portmanteau for that the idea of counting yourself among them horrifies you. So with all that said, you must understand how almost unprecedented it is for me to write the following: PLEASE LET SARAH GET BACK TOGETHER WITH MARK.

It's not like Mark (Jason Ritter) and Sarah (Lauren Graham) haven't earned it. They overcame so many obstacles to get together: their age difference; his having been her son's teacher; her lingering (non-carnal) attachment to her ex (John Corbett) as he dealt with addiction. And then once they were together, and eventually engaged, they still had more to deal with, from her parents' refusal to acknowledge the longevity of the relationship by agreeing to include Mark in a family photo (which...well, they changed their mind on that one, but I guess they did turn out to be right) to Drew (Miles Heizer) struggling to adjust to a move into Mark's apartment. Through it all, though, the couple solidified their relationship with forthright communication, mutual respect, and undeniable cuteness.

But I guess someone at Parenthood was a huge Men Of A Certain Age fan, because right on the heels of Mark and Sarah's engagement, along came FUCKING HANK (Ray Romano) to fuck everything up. Sure, it's great for the generally unmoored Sarah to get a job doing something she's suited for and that she might excel at; she definitely fills in the people skills Hank lacks. But why couldn't he have just served the purpose he seemed to have been hired for: to embody a professionally successful adult who is maybe (probably) somewhere on the autism spectrum, so that Max (Max Burkholder) could use him as a role model? Hank had to respond to Sarah's kindness and helpfulness, particularly with regard to easing relations between Hank and his distant daughter Ruby (Courtney Grosbeck), by overstepping his bounds and kissing her? And stupid, needy Sarah had to respond to his overtures, lie to Mark about a work trip she and Hank had to take that was really about his kid, and end up finally pushing Mark so far that he couldn't trust her anymore? Hank and Sarah, you had to join forces to crush poor Mark's adorable heart? FUCK BOTH OF YOU.

Last night's episode found Mark suggesting that he and Sarah get together for coffee to talk about what went wrong, because despite her age relative to his, he will always be the grownup in their relationship. Fortunately for Sark shippers (OH MY JESUS I MEAN ME), Sarah took the opportunity to tell Mark about the time Hank kissed her at work, and that she didn't realize what it meant: that he was starting to fall for her for real. Fortunately for Sark shippers (I HATE MYSELF), Sarah felt free to be honest about this because, Mark having already broken up with her, she might as well. And fortunately for Sark shippers (DON'T LOOK AT ME), Mark responded by realizing that his hurt had impetuously pushed Hank and Sarah together when they hadn't really even done much of anything, realizing he wanted Sarah back, and confronting Hank about the incident and, frankly, the fucking balls on him, for having so little regard for Mark and Sarah's relationship at the time of the kiss, and in general. Mark, being the grownup, states his intention to get Sarah back, which revelation Hank takes back to Sarah, telling her she needs to decide what to do.

So...this is probably bad for Sark shippers (UUUUUUUUGH), because what Sarah is best at is self-destruction. Hank is patently the wrong choice, not just because he's never going to be as emotionally available as she needs her partners to be, but because (as we saw in the scenes from next week's season finale) he's planning to move away to live nearer to Ruby. Clearly, Sarah's not going with him; she's a series regular. But just because she can't be with Hank doesn't necessarily mean she's going to make the smart, emotionally mature choice to be with Mark; if any contemporary TV character were going to pull an "I choose me," it's FUCKING SARAH. This Sark shipper (KILL ME) is, therefore, looking forward to the season finale with both excitement (because its arrival means SMASH WILL ONLY BE A WEEK AWAY) and dread. Goddammit, Sarah. Act right for once.