Requiem for Everwood

Well, it happened.  The finale of Everwood.

I know that it’s been so long since I blogged and now there’s only one person in the world who is interested in what I have to say in this entry (hi, Jess!) but since I promised her, I am devoting the majority of this post to the masterful family drama Everwood, 2002-2006.

I didn’t start watching Everwood right away.  I don’t know what I was doing instead.  Maybe I was still in college, I don’t know.  Whatever, I remember reading about it in some magazine and thinking, “man, that looks good,” but for some reason I didn’t ever watch until I graduated and only got three stations on the TV in my new apartment and the local WB was one of them.  That was also about the time that Jess and I reconnected, and she was telling me about this awesome show that dealt with real issues in a responsible, realistic manner, that was well-written and well-acted.  I realized that this was the show that had made me cry the first time I ever watched it (the episode where Andy was in the church, crying to God that he missed his dead wife and was only half a man now that she was gone) and decided to watch on a regular basis.  And I was hooked.

This is why I love Everwood.  They take real issues that real families face every day and deal with them that involves relationships, talking, and truth-telling.  I mean, these aren’t easy topics: infidelity, death of a parent or loved one, a student having sex with a teacher, teen pregnancy, abortion, depression, drug abuse, more teen sex, suicide, homosexuality… and these are just the things I can think of off the top of my head.  

The real story is the relationship between a man and his son.  At the beginning of Everwood, Andy didn’t even know his son, Ephram.  Andy had been a workaholic, absent father for most of Ephram’s life, and when his wife died, he was suddenly saddled with raising his two kids (Delia was Ephram’s younger sister.)  Imagine that scenario from both sides.  Andy didn’t know how to be a father to his kids, and Ephram had been so used to being the adult that it’s hard for him to be a kid again.  The road was hard for them, too, just as it would have been in real life.  One of the best TV moments I can think of is Andy and Ephram’s very first fight, when Ephram screamed at Andy, “I wish you had died instead of her!” and Andy screamed back, “I wish I had too, you little bastard!”  I mean, you can’t make that stuff up.  That’s a real fight that real people have had.  So often on TV everything is sanitized to make you feel better about watching it.  I think that the best stories are the ones that make you a little uncomfortable, and hearing a man call his son a “little bastard” is uncomfortable.  Just as things started to get better in the second year, Andy told his son a huge lie and almost ruined things forever.  (Andy found out that Ephram’s ex-girlfriend, Madison, was pregnant with Ephram’s child.  Instead of telling Ephram, he kept the news from him and paid Madison to leave town and either have an abortion or have the baby somewhere else.)  Ephram melted down when he found out, but slowly, eventually, came back to where he could confide in his father again.  That brought us to the beautiful moment in the fourth year when Ephram said to his father, “it’s like I’ve got a hole inside me that I can’t fill up…” and Andy said, “I can’t fill it, but I can be here as long as you need me.”  Again, you can’t make that stuff up.  It was such a beautiful moment.

The writing on this show was amazing.  I’ve already given a couple of examples of that.  The writers just had an excellent grasp on the story and where it was going and where it had been.  They used the history they had created to tell the story, and that’s awesome.  Also, they put Andy and Ephram’s relationship through its paces without making it seem contrived.  The characters all underwent tremendous growth, which is the mark of any good story.  I mean, if the characters are static, they’re not interesting, right?  So Bright when from being a shallow, brutal, bully to a kind, hardworking, clever man with a heart of gold.  Ephram went from being an awkward, confused, manga geek to a confident young man who finally knew that his passion was to help kids who hand been just like him.  I could go on and on, but you get my point.  Also, and this may just be one of my hang-ups, but the characters were not perfect, and I liked that.  Sometimes I hated Amy.  She made me so mad with her self-righteous anger and the way she treated Ephram, but it was realistic.  She could also be sweet, she cared deeply about her friends and family, and I think she would do anything for them.  She had flaws without being a total social pariah.  If you think about it, most people are like that.

I’ll devote one short paragraph to the acting, because it pretty much speaks for itself.  Across the board, this cast was fantastic.  The “adults” on the cast made their stories interesting and well-rounded, bringing compassion to characters who sometimes were not that sympathetic.  And the young cast on the show (Gregory Smith, Emily VanCamp, Chris Pratt, and most recently, Sarah Drew) were beyond amazing.  They made the flawed yet likeable characters they played realistic, like someone you knew in college.  I hope they have lots of work lined up now that Everwood is done.

Everwood ended pretty perfectly.  I won’t line out the entire finale because I’ve already waxed poetic for long enough, but let me just say: nearly all my dreams came true.  Nina and Andy are getting married, and Amy and Ephram are back together.  Also, Hannah decided to stay in Everwood.  I’ve talked to a few people who don’t agree with her decision, but I do, and I’ll tell you why.  If she had decided to leave Everwood, Amy, Ephram, and Bright, then she would have known what came next.  There wouldn’t be any surprises. Bright had already said that he would be there, waiting, her best friend.  But by staying in Everwood, she opened up a whole new realm of possibility.  What if she and Bright decided to get back together?  They didn’t have to, just because she decided to stay.  Also, it wasn’t set in stone.  People transfer schools all the time.  She didn’t have to stay there forever.  There’s also the point that if something’s working, why change it?  She had a wonderful, supportive network in Everwood, a place to live, job opportunities… just because something is new doesn’t automatically mean it’s better.  I think she had a lot of courage to stay.  So, there.  That’s my opinion.

All in all, it was a good four years with one of my favorite shows.  There were good times (you go, Andy, for telling Ephram that you didn’t want him to move to New York with his grandparents!) and bad times (I hate you, Madison, you cradle-robbing slut) but, you know, that’s life.  That’s what Everwood portrayed.  So, thanks for listening to my incredibly long fan-wank.  Like I said, this post is mainly for Jess, anyway.  <><