grey’s anatomy, private practice, and the deterioration of “romance” in shondaland
enjoy it while it lasts, lady. // abc promotional photo
Pete and Addison are kind of back together on Private Practice, which made me think for a moment that things were finally righting themselves in Shonda Rhimes’s world. See, Pete and Addison totes made out in Practice‘s backdoor pilot, and then they had some more hot kissing in the first handful of episodes, but before long, the wheels came off the wagon. Most recently, Addison’s been doing some kissing with Sam, and Pete’s still inexplicably obsessed with Violet, who really should be with Cooper, who’s AGAIN NOT AGAIN hooking up with the excruciating Charlotte.
When Pete and Addison most recently fell into bed together, they admitted they were just settling for each other. But Sam’s officially put the kibosh on his flirtation with Addison, and Violet doesn’t seem to be coming around any time soon, so it’s possible that my personal pick for Private Practice OTP may actually have a shot at something here.
However, despite my appreciation for Pete/Addison, I’ve recently come to realize that it’s stupid to keep your fingers crossed for ANY couple on Private Practice or Grey’s Anatomy, when the absolute best you can hope for is a Post-It “wedding.”
See, Shonda doesn’t do relationships–she does hookups. The characters can appear to make it work for a while (Callie and Arizona, Owen and Cristina), but there’s always someone lurking in the background (Mark, Teddy) to make one or both relationship participants behave like children. And even though she’ll bring on new characters as “potential love interests” for established characters, I don’t believe for a second that she has any plan as to who’s supposed to end up with whom. For instance, Alex. At the end of the show’s run, will Shonda pull out all the stops to get Katherine Heigl to do a Clooney and reunite with Alex? And what about Cooper? Are we supposed to want him to figure things out with the unimaginably horrifying Charlotte, or are we to believe that he and BFF Violet may one day become more than friends?
I’m far more inclined to believe that the notion of who-ends-up-with-whom will boil down to which pairings are doing the dirty in the on-call room in the episode prior to the series finale.
Which isn’t really that big of a problem, except for that it (A) doesn’t exactly instill trust in the producer, (B) gets a little ridiculous as the characters grow up, and (C) makes fools out of the people who stupidly get excited about things like weddings. (On the flip side, it makes break-ups almost humorous–consider how pain-free Mark/Lexie’s break-up was.)
So when Kevin McKidd goes out and says, “I’ve always thought it would be cool to see (Owen and Christina) have a baby together down the line,” I want to pat him on the head and say, “Dream on, little ginger one.”
cristina’s never have a baby or getting married..shonda rhimes is a hack writer.
Well Meredith and Derek are together for the rest of the series. Dull as dirt, but together. I think Grey’s is just like every other primetime soap – there will be love triangles and break up/make ups. Its just part of what the show has always been.
are you kidding? charlotte and cooper are the best couple on this show!
Totally fair assessment–I just really can’t stand Charlotte. How can you tolerate how many times they’ve had the saaaaaaame break-up over and over again, only to fall into bed the next week?
Agree with brooke!! Coop and Charlotte are wonderful, entertaining and have so much chemistry! They belong together!
btw Charlotte is beautiful, strong and smart woman, well no wonder certain women don’t like her.
Now, see, that’s just rude. Why do internet disagreements about TV relationships have to get personal? I maintain that I just can’t stand Charlotte, mostly because she’s the exact OPPOSITE of “strong.” How many times has she picked a fight with Cooper, broken up with Cooper, and then gone crawling back to him? Or allowed him to come crawling back to her? Watching them together is so frustrating because I feel like they’d both be so much better off cutting their losses and finding new love interests. This whole “Oh, we’re broken up.”/”Hey, let’s have sex in the bathroom at Maya’s wedding!”/”Aw, man, now he ran off to Costa Rica because he’s scared! I’m going to have sex with Sheldon now!” is just getting really, really old.
And if my problem was with beautiful, strong, smart women, I definitely wouldn’t be watching Private Practice, which features, despite their flaws, a cast full of characters who have at least some of these qualities. Except for Charlotte. She sucks.
Look, that is your opinion, i think Charlotte rocks! And for me she IS strong. I personaly cannot stand Violet on the other hand.
Well, i love Cooper with Charlotte, so i root for them.