... maybe with a different show

So, I just saw the latest episode of The Secret Life of the American Teenager (or, as I like to call it, Why Am I Even Still Watching This? I Barely Like Anything About It!), and it was a doozy.

Ben and Adrian, who have been expecting a baby for the whole season, and who have just gotten married, have just had a stillborn baby girl. At 16/17 years old. Ouch doesn't even begin to cover it.

This was a sad, serious episode and the dramatic parts were very well done and very heartbreaking. It was sad to see everyone's reactions to this tragedy, especially Ben and Adrian, whose actors did very good jobs at portraying grief.

... and now here're my complaints.

First of all, all this drama and good acting (and watchable TV) happened at the end of the episode. Like the last couple of minutes were devoted specifically to deal with this.

This episode, Episode 26, is supposed to directly follow the events of last week's episode, Episode 25. It picks up directly where 25 left off, instead of a week later. At the end of 26, Adrian and Ben are in bed when Adrian says that she feels that something isn't right, and when we see them in 26 it's the next morning and the two are headed to the hospital.

So there's my first problem really: Episode 26 takes place over the course of the day where Adrian and Ben have their baby, and we see very little of all this. Actually, we see none of this. During the episode, we see small snips of what's going on at the hospital smushed in between scenes of the other characters of the show being annoying. There's also a big gap there because we go from seeing Ben and Adrian being admitted in the hospital, then something else happened with other people (I don't care or remember what) and then the next time we see them, Ben is standing in the hospital hallway looking traumatized and the audience knows that something bad has happened. This is the point where Ben and Adrian know that the baby is dead, but, and I'm assuming here, before the baby is actually out. Then someone else does something, and then we're back with Adrian and Ben, but Adrian is in the hospital bed and visibly no longer pregnant and they hold each other and cry. So we pretty much know what happened, but everything is now over. And then the next time we see them is at the end of the episode where everyone shows up to comfort them and all that.

I saw the preview for this show last week and I thought that the show was gonna be all about Adrian and Ben and their loss (since that's really all that was shown in the previews). I was wrong. I mean, I'm pretty sure that the episode where John was born all took place in the hospital (uh... as far as I can remember, I haven't seen it in a while), and that whole episode was dedicated to that, for the most part. So it wouldn't be much of a stretch to expect the same for this baby, especially since this episode was more emotionally charged.

I'm not saying that they should've shown the birth, or Ben and Adrian holding a dead baby (it is a show for teens on a family channel after all), but they could've shown a little more. Maybe them first hearing the news firsthand, maybe Ben wandering aimlessly around the hospital, maybe 'what if' daydreams, maybe Ben wandering into the nursery area thing, anything really. I mean, they were at the hospital for the whole day, and they only called their parents later on, like in the afternoon or something.

So I didn't like it that we didn't spend much time with Adrian and Ben. Instead, we got to hear about Tom's new girlfriend, Madison and Jack harping about sex, Lauren being annoying, Ricky and Amy doing... something, and everyone else but Ben and Adrian. At least there was a scene early on with Alice and Henry where they were talking about things having to do with Ben and Adrian (weird foreshadowing if you ask me). But I don't care about all that, I often don't but now less than ever. What I care about this episode is what's going on with Adrian and Ben. We know that something is wrong, and it's something really serious and life-changing and not good.

And my other problem: why the dead baby? Why did that baby have to die? Why Ben and Adrian's baby? Why did something like this need to happen to them at this time? I know that miscarriages and stillbirths happen, and I know that this show can't have the same outcome happen for every pregnancy in the show (somehow I'm convinced that this can't be the last pregnancy in the show), but what were the writers going for here? I'm not against having this kind of thing happen, but I have to wonder why it happened.

It could be an interesting development. The real reason why Adrian and Ben got married was because of the baby, but what are they gonna do now that the baby is gone? How will their relationship change, and how will they grow and change as people? What will they do now? Will we even find out?

I mean, the most of what I take from this show when I watch it (which is not that often because it grates on my nerves) is that everyone is always talking about sex. It's always who's having sex with who, when someone's having sex, will someone or won't someone have sex with so-and-so... GRAH!

And I've read comments from other people on the Internet saying that a happy ending for Ben and Adrian would be boring, or that it wouldn't be good plot lines to have Ben and Adrian's pregnancy end the same as Amy and Ricky's, and they do have good points. But, 1) happy endings aren't boring, 2) just because Ben and Adrian are married with a baby doesn't automatically lead to a happy ending, and 3) Ben and Adrian's situation is not the same as Ricky and Amy's situation.

Let's just say that the baby had lived, we would've gotten a happy episode, but that doesn't mean that Ben and Adrian's lives would be all sunshine and roses. Amy managed to have a baby and juggle motherhood, school and work and yeah, that is boring, but I think that's only because we don't see any of that. We see Amy at school complaining about it, or Amy at home complaining about it. But we don't see her taking care of John, or at work (I keep forgetting that she even has a job... she does, right?), or anything. Every so often she'll mention it, but all we really see of her is her complaining about Ricky, talking about sex, her in the halls at school, and not much else. Ben and Adrian having a baby would be a different scenario since they're married and living together. It would be a happy ending, but with different issues. There could be Ben and Adrian arguing about who's taking care of the baby too much or not enough, them juggling parenthood, work and school (because we actually see Ben at work), can they really handle this or are they just playing house? So they could have their 'happy ending'.

But the baby didn't make it, so we have to work with that. I'm not a fan of this plot twist, I'm not a fan of dead babies (no matter how much I hate the show), but I do like the way the reveal to the rest of the cast was handled here (except for that one line Leo had, he's all like "but Ben and Adrian will never be the same again"... thank you, Captain Obvious). It's an unbelievably sad and life changing event, and it has to be done in certain ways, especially in a show aimed at young viewers. Anyway, I already talked about the content of the episode so, moving on.

Where do we go from here? Well, this could go many ways. Ben and Adrian have to recover from this loss, both emotionally and physically. Adrian has to get over that she is no longer pregnant, but neither does she have a baby to care for. Both were pretty excited about being parents, but that's pretty much shot for the time being. So now they're both living together, married, in a condo where there was probably a nursery set up and everything. How will they deal with the loss, with each other, and with everyone else? What are they going to do now? Will they both move back in with their parents, will they stay in their condo, will they divorce, will this help to strengthen their relationship, will they draw away from each other, will they come together to help each other deal? Where will they go from here?

Well, this is Secret Life, and from the previews for next week's show it looks (to me) like everything is going to cause more relationship drama between Amy, Adrian, Ricky and Ben.

Oh, fuck me.

Do we have to go into that right away, or at all? Can't this show steer away from dating and sex for a bit to deal with this blow? We saw all the characters crying and sad because of the death of the baby, now we have to see them deal with it all in their everyday lives. The news still has to circulate, people have to know, and Adrian and Ben have to deal (preferably with no big fanfare), and so do their families.