Parenthood's Hank And Max Show How Hard Friendship Can Be

Even for a show that's about basically nothing else, every relationship in the latest Parenthood seemed like it's under attack or going through a major transitional moment. Sarah realizes that there's a lot more to Carl than she had ever guessed. (This modelizer is a philanthropic neonatologist? Well, shit.) Julia and Joel have to subject their fragile truce to the threat of running into Ed at a school function. Drew and Amy reconnect, adorably, and both seem to have gotten past the crisis that ended their relationship in the first place. And while Zeek is trying to figure out who he is without a wife around to order his life, he finds another old crank at a diner and manages the seemingly impossible: making a late-in-life friend. And yet, as compelling as each of those were (minus Julia and Joel, which just get divorced already), the one that seems most delicate and precarious is the friendship between Max and Hank.

When Ray Romano first came to Parenthood, I read that his character Hank's reaction to and interaction with Max was supposed to presage a reveal that Hank, like Max, has Asperger's or at least was somewhere on the autism spectrum, but then after that, it sort of seemed like that story idea was dropped. And since I am still mad at Hank for having any part in breaking up Mark and Sarah, I was starting to get annoyed at/curious that he's still hanging around, particularly since the chance that Sarah and Hank would get back together was starting to seem more and more remote even before things between Sarah and Carl started to progress. But this latest episode makes it clear what purpose Hank serves in relation to the Bravermans.

The show's producers have already established a couple of salient details about Max. One is that he's had a hard time making friends with his peers, because he's rigid and bossy; another is that the hobbies or interests about which he's most passionate — bugs, getting a vending machine at school — are not really of much interest even to the people who love him most (though, earlier this season, Adam did tell Crosby that when it became clear that Max would never be into baseball, Adam started investigating bugs so that the two of them would have something to talk about). But this season, Max has gotten interested in photography, which has been pivotal for him: it (briefly) put him in a position to, potentially, develop a social life via the yearbook committee (though that didn't work out as his parents may have hoped); it's allowed him to learn what could eventually be a profession; it's connected him with Hank, a remarkably patient mentor. In fact, well before this latest episode, Hank already showed how important Max is to him and how seriously he takes their relationship, when Max took a beautiful photo of a classmate crying, and ran into problems with school authorities because she felt violated to have been captured in such a private moment; while Kristina acceded to Max's teachers' wishes that he leave the yearbook, Hank stuck up for Max's artistic instincts over social decorum.

But when Hank has to postpone a planned photo-developing date due to a client's last-minute reshoots, Max's expressions of persecution and betrayal are directed (aggressively) at Hank: he shrieks that Hank is a liar, throws something at the wall (I really hope it's not a lens, you guys), and tears off running away. And Hank — who unlike almost every other character on the show isn't related to Max and therefore owes him nothing — runs after him and, in fact, chases him the whole way home. Kristina and Adam are apologetic toward Hank for Max's tantrum, but Hank isn't upset: his concern is that the incident won't create an unmendable rift in their relationship. Hank wasn't my favourite person when he was dating Sarah, but he's still a good person — much better than he strictly needs to be, in this instance.

The break caused by the scrap also gives Hank a chance to try to understand where Max is coming from, and he digs into a book about Asperger's, only to find that...maybe it's not only about Max? In a plot point that Dan Harmon hate-watchers (hi) may recall from interviews with him that they've read, Hank starts to suspect that he may also have Asperger's, and he goes to Sarah's to get her opinion on whether she thinks he sometimes has a hard time, for instance, picking up on social cues. She (a) doesn't really know how to answer that and (b) is on her way out the door to her fancy event with Carl, so they don't really resolve anything. (And though I don't generally think Romano is the greatest actor, when the door opens and he sees the handsome, tuxedo-clad Marvel-superhero-out-of-costume-looking motherfucker on the other side, the "oh, OF COURSE" look that passes over Hank's face is perfect.)

The upshot is that Hank doesn't necessarily know the very best way to incorporate this new data about himself; maybe we'll see or hear tell of him visiting a specialist to get an actual diagnosis, and maybe we won't. But the conclusion Hank reaches from his avid annotation of the Asperger's book he bought is evidently that it's best for both of them if he and Max remain in one another's lives. He may have a more personal frame of reference now for how hard it's been for Max to make friends, and maybe the more the two of them can work on understanding each other, the better equipped they'll both be to understand the neurotypicals around them. Max offers an apology that seems sincere despite its being quite obviously coached, and Hank readily accepts, and then, they both get over the hump with a game of chess, while Adam and Kristina look on in happy relief.

Max may never know how fortunate he is to have made a friend who's willing to roll with what is, quite often, very off-putting behaviour. But it seems clear that Hank knows how fortunate he is to be in a position to mentor Max on more than just photography.