Parenthood Extracts Your Tears With Surgical Precision

Eve Of A 96% Chance Of No Destruction

Situation: The night before Zeek's surgery, all the kids plus Amber come over to wish him luck, assure him that everything's going to be okay, and in Julia's case give him a super-long hug of foreboding.

What makes it awkward? Making an attempt to defuse all the tension and get everyone's hearts out of their throats, Zeek reminds them that his surgery has a 96% success rate and that he has a lot he intends to continue living for: "I got four just beautiful kids, and nine wonderful grandchildren, a great-grandchild on the way...." And then everyone else is like "THE FUCK?!" because Zeek forgot that last part was a secret.

How is order restored? Amber comes out later to let Zeek off the hook, laughing that she was stressing out about how she was going to tell everyone anyway, and now it's just out and they'll always have this cute story about how he accidentally broke the news. She also has an ultrasound printout to show him and the obligatory cry comes early this week considering we're still in THE COLD OPEN. Anyway, Zeek asks how Ryan's doing with this, and Amber has to admit she hasn't talked to him yet, but she knows she has to, and she will. She tries to give Zeek the printout, but he tells her he doesn't need it: "I'm going to be there to see this child, okay? I'm going to hold him or her in my arms, I promise. So you keep the picture...and you show it to Ryan." And then SHE takes her turn comforting HIM, reminding him that everyone in the family takes their strength from him and that he's going to get through the surgery fine. "I wish you were my doctor," he jokes. So he's fine, and his advice finally gives her the push to make a plan to go tell Ryan about her pregnancy, so everyone's being a grownup for now.

Side Bitch, Bitching Out All Over The Place

Eating lunch in her office with Side Bitch, Julia reports that Zeek is still filling out paperwork and hasn't even checked into his room yet. Side Bitch comments that Zeek will probably be fine, since he's a "tough guy," per everything Julia's ever told him and the time he met Zeek. Julia denies that she ever let Side Bitch meet Zeek when they were dating, and Side Bitch agrees that it wasn't then -- it was before, some time that Zeek came to see her at school and walked all over the complex looking for her and screaming her name; when he finally found her, in a study group with Side Bitch and some others, he had a Cal t-shirt (because he refused to accept that she went to Stanford) and some Twizzlers, still her favourite work snack. Julia is pleased to be reminded of this story but a little weirded out by how much detail Side Bitch still remembers, a million years later, and he confesses that he took six months to work up the courage to ask her out, only to have her dump him after five dates so she could focus on her schoolwork. Oh, Side Bitch. It's nice to share, but keep SOME of that to yourself. IT'S CALLED DIGNITY.

Sticky Little Fingers

Situation: Since Hank has been ignoring Ruby's bleats to take her shopping, as promised, Sarah has tried to distract her by taking her to the drug store across the street to do whatever shopping they can there.

What makes it awkward? Sarah sees Ruby shoplift a lip gloss, gently calls her on it in a "Did you want to buy that too?" benefit-of-the-doubt way, and gets a bitchy blow-off in response.

How is order restored? It's not. Sarah tells Hank about the incident, and since he apparently wasn't paying attention when Sandy told him all about the bad crowd she'd fallen in with back in Minnesota, figures Sarah misinterpreted the situation and also blows her off. But enjoy that denial and complacency while you can, Hank! They will not last!

Ring Of Ire

The Scene: When he finally gets into his room, Zeek discovers that he doesn't have the lovely view of the courtyard Camille had suggested, earlier, that he might; instead, it's a view of a GRAVEYARD. (Beside a hospital? What idiot city planner is responsible for that one?!) Then the nurse comes in to make things worse.

The Symbol: Zeek's wedding ring, which the nurse is supposed to make sure Zeek has removed before surgery. But Zeek throws a shit fit, first implying that if he puts it in his closet someone's going to steal it, and then choking up at the idea of spending his last night before his operation without it.

The Meaning: I mean, a wedding ring is a symbol to begin with? But in this case, Zeek evidently wants to hang onto it as a magic talisman that will protect his potentially endangered life and keep fate from separating him from Camille or something.

Nice Will Get You Nowhere NOW, Joel

Situation: The morning of Zeek's surgery, Julia is on her way into the hospital when she runs into Joel, on his way out.

What makes it awkward? Still in the middle of his Season 6 charm offensive, Joel is extremely solicitous of Julia's feelings, and she's kind of still not having it.

How is order restored? When Joel calls her later to check in and offer to talk about what she's going through, she finally has to blurt out that she's seeing someone. Joel is shattered, and even though I don't REALLY believe the series will end with them broken up for goodsies...I mean, fuck, he had to hear it already.

Away We Go

With Zeek seemingly already a bit out of it, all the kids troop in. "Big day!" says Crosby with fake heartiness. Zeek agrees: "Yeah -- A's-Tigers; we gotta win this one." Crosby tries for a little more bravado, saying that if this "goes sideways," he wants the truck. Is this the time? Really?

The nurse enters and says that it's time to take Zeek to surgery, but that Camille can walk down with them. "We're gonna win this one, son," says Zeek firmly. "And you're not getting the truck." In case you weren't sure what he meant by "this one," guys.

Just outside the OR (they), the nurse reminds Zeek that, for real, they do need him to take off his ring, and I think this is the first time I ever noticed that Zeek's ring is approximately the size of a mechanical bull. I'm surprised he was even allowed to wear it INTO the hospital considering that its gravitational pull probably fucked with a lot of the machines. Anyway, he takes it off and gives it to Camille, who slides it onto whichever of her fingers is strong enough to support its weight.

After Zeek is wheeled away, Camille takes the moment she's been left alone to freak out for like ten minutes. You Bravermans all realize this isn't, like, emergency surgery, right? 96% success rate. Zeek's not that old. Stop planning his funeral.

The Game Of Life

The Scene: The Bravermans are hanging out in the waiting room trying not to freak out.

The Symbol: The aforementioned A's-Tigers game, which Crosby is watching on his phone when another hospital loved one comes over to check on the score.

The Meaning: Since it was the last thing Zeek mentioned before going down for his operation, CROSBY HAS A LOT RIDING ON THE A'S RN.

A Glass Case Of Emotion

After a while, a doctor comes out to take the baseball-loving stranger and a bunch of his fellow loved ones to a glassed-in area adjacent to the waiting room. Crosby comments that he hopes his new friend is about to get good news, but Adam flatly says he isn't. Crosby scolds him for being pessimistic, but (for once) Adam isn't: he explains that spending a year in hospitals during Kristina's illness taught him a few things, like that families don't get bad news out where other people are around to overhear and get upset by it; they go into that little glass room to muffle their sobs (I'm paraphrasing). Crosby is, as usual, not emotionally equipped to handle the possibility of ending up there after Zeek's surgery, because he is the/a baby.

Side Bitch's Bitchiness Proves Useful

Julia is surprised, in the middle of her waiting-room waiting, to see this kid James from her office show up with an enormous briefcase he says came from "Chris," but even though we now know Side Bitch has a name, I don't feel obliged to use it. James is very apologetic, and says that Side Bitch told him to let Julia know it was urgent that she look through this discovery, and that he's available "day or night" if Julia has any thoughts. Sarah is offended on Julia's behalf that anyone from Julia's office would send her work to do at this particular moment in her life, but Julia shrugs it off...except, of course, it's not work.

There's a Cal shirt (because that story) and a shitload of Twizzlers, a bag of which Sarah snatches up. And while earlier Julia had told Sarah that she thought she and Side Bitch were just casual and is now worried that he might be in love with her, NOW, in light of all this bounty, Julia smiles shyly and admits, "I think I like him." "I like him too," says Sarah. Let me just say as a Canadian how fitting it is that they're eating American Twizzlers in an American hospital waiting room since, much like the Canadian health care system, Canadian Twizzlers are FAR superior to their American cousins, and if more Americans knew how good they COULD have it on either they medicine or the licorice fronts, there would be non-stop riots in this country.

"You Might Not Remember Having Sex With Me When You Were In The Hospital Because Of The Drugs, But Here's The Thing..."

Who called the meeting? Amber.

What's it about? A fun surprise for Ryan!

How'd it go? It doesn't start great in that, like so many things Amber does, it was arranged in haste and with little forethought. After asking Drew to borrow his car to drive to Wyoming and tell Ryan about her pregnancy, Drew resolves not to let her go alone and joins her, except he doesn't think to ask until they actually pull up to Ryan's mom's crappy house whether Amber's called to let Ryan know she's coming, and guess what? She hasn't! Anyway, things start out badly when they find Ryan sleeping (or passed out) in front of a tiny, extremely elderly TV and he's kind of confused after they rouse him. But once Drew excuses himself to give the new parents some privacy, Amber gets to it with very little preamble. At first, Ryan is totally gobsmacked, but Amber has barely had a chance to start telling him she intends to raise the baby by herself and isn't asking for anything from him before he's flown across the room to hug her and tell her how excited he is. Huh.

Hank vs. Sandy

Sandy comes to pick up Ruby from her stay at Hank's, and once Ruby's fucked off to the hall in a cloud of resentment and probably whatever Exclamation! equivalent perfume teenagers are wearing nowadays, he very minimizingly tells her that Sarah told him something about Ruby. Sandy gets her hackles up at the mention of Sarah, but listens, and when Hank says Sarah thinks she saw Ruby shoplift something, Sandy immediately believes that it's true, and is furious...at Hank? Sandy's position is that Hank obviously didn't think she meant it when she told him about Ruby's bad time in Minnesota, which was the whole reason they've moved back to the area, and that Ruby shouldn't have even been with Sarah; she should have been with Hank: "SHE NEEDS A FATHER." Sandy says that from now on, she doesn't want Ruby to be around Sarah at all; when Ruby's with Hank, she has to be WITH HANK, and she makes him repeat what she's just decreed so that she knows he really gets it. Hank just says, "I'm trying, you know? I'm really trying." Sandy: "You're just going to have to try a little harder." I mean, I kind of get where Sandy's coming from? It's not Sarah's fault that Hank, by his own admission, sucks as a parent, and if the only way to make him engage with Ruby is to make sure there's no one else around to pick up the slack for him, then that's what has to happen. But also maybe Ruby should be present for this conversation so that she knows she hasn't actually gotten away with shoplifting? From what I can tell, EVERYONE is sucking at parenting her. (Also, she sucks.)

Winner: Sandy.

Drew vs. Amber

After Ryan's shockingly exuberant reaction to her life-changing news, Amber comes out to Drew, where he's been politely waiting, and tells him he can go; she's going to stay for a few days. Drew's like, FUCK NO you are NOT. While Amber mealy-mouths that she's having a baby with Ryan and that they therefore have some shit to discuss, Drew reminds her that she came there to tell him that she's NOT having a baby with him; she's having a baby by herself. He further reminds her that Ryan was such a mess that Amber couldn't marry him -- and that he STILL is, judging by the large collection of pills they saw on his coffee table. In Drew's opinion, Ryan is just like their dad, in that he's going to make Amber a bunch of promises and not live up to them, and that Amber has to accept that she can't fix Ryan and stop trying: "If you were going to help, it would have already happened." Drew's righteous fury is so laser-sharp in its focus that when he declares that he's going to give her an hour to sort everything out with Ryan but that he is ABSOLUTELY NOT letting her stay there, she has nothing to say in response.

Winner: Drew. He maybe just won the next seven fights they have, too.

Two Wheels And No Sense

When Adam takes Crosby into "the bad news room" to order him to call Oliver -- who's just thrown a shit fit at a sound check on tour and stormed out -- I'm pretty sure it's just a clever pretext to distract Crosby from his anxiety over Zeek...but no, Adam really does think Crosby is the right person to talk Oliver off the ledge, for some reason. I assume it goes without saying that Crosby is not successful in this mission. When Oliver hangs up on him, he chucks his phone at an ambulance (hey bro, it's not the phone's fault) and then gets on his bike like a dink and takes off WAY too fast. After about a minute of blissful silence, things end badly when Crosby takes a curve too fast and wipes the fuck out. MORE PERFECT TIMING, CROSBY!

Baby Shove

Amber goes back in to talk to Ryan about next steps -- like, starting with, what's the deal with the million different prescription painkillers he's on? Ryan instantly says he's going to call the VA, like right now, and get them to start weaning him off. Amber picks up from this that this is not a conversation he's been close to having until now, and as she starts choking up, she takes his hand and starts in with her goodbye speech: "I want you to know that I will always want you to be in this baby's life--" Ryan cuts her off to excitedly say he will be her teammate and a father to this child, but Amber has apparently really heard what Drew was saying and realized how right he is: "I believe in you, just like I always believed in you, but you have a lot of work to do, and I can't do it with you, because I have to start taking care of myself and of this baby, right now, and I'm sorry, but you're just not ready yet." Ryan resentfully tells her that he only found out he was going to be a father today. And that's when Amber withdraws her hand and leaves them to sit in awkward silence, because yeah, he is maybe SO messed up on drugs and/or PTSD that he has not understood her point at all. Good luck, baby.

Stupid Crosby comes limping back into the waiting room just in time for Dr. Gordon to come out and give the Bravermans an update on Zeek OUT IN THE WAITING ROOM! Which means good news! Zeek came through fine! No complications! Everyone's operatic worry was overblown!

With the kids waiting outside, Camille goes in to sit next to Zeek's bed...

...and return his giant ring. Good thing, because wearing it all day was probably really hurting her back.