Most Moving Moments: Everwood, 1.01 "Pilot"

I've been thinking a lot about how to write about Everwood. I've tried liveblogging, I've tried recapping, but none of those formats were really able to capture what it was that I wanted to convey about this show -- how I felt while watching it, and how I wanted readers to feel when reading about it. I concluded that this was the best way to accomplish that.

When you get down to it, the main reason I love this show so much is for its realism in emotional drama, often stemming from the basic tragedies of life. So many of the characters' conversations have mirrored my own in my life, and while there are some plot lines that may seem a little unlikely, the reactions and growth of the characters are always organic. Everwood is really a show about death, and how people in all walks of life deal with that simple truth of mortality. Some find in themselves a spirit of resilience; others, just brokenness. Death is what really motivates us all in the way we choose to live, affecting our relationships with everyone around us. And with just a hint of snowy magic, the sleepy mountain town of Everwood, Colorado leaves us with a sense of hope, and an understanding that, too often, tragedy and joy go hand in hand.

After my own mother passed away, this show became all too relevant, and watching grief being handled with such pathos and elegance on this show was, for me, a cathartic experience.

Quick Recap:

We're quickly introduced to the Brown family: Dr. Andy Brown, world-famous New York City neurosurgeon. Julia Brown, loving wife and mother. Ephram Brown, surly teenager with a gift for the piano. Delia Brown, four years old and loves wearing baseball caps. When Julia dies tragically in a car accident, the Browns survive as best they can. For Andy, this means quitting his job and taking his two kids to live in Everwood, Colorado, an antiquated small town at the foot of snow-capped mountains. He opens up a free clinic, befriends his neighbor Nina Feeny, and antagonizes the long-standing general practitioner and grouch, Dr. Harold Abbott. Harold's got two children: Amy Abbott, all-around nice girl, and Bright Abbott, all-around douchy jock.

Ephram makes the acquaintance of his daughter, Amy, who it turns out only took an interest in Ephram because she thought his father might be able to help Colin Hart. Who's Colin Hart? Amy's boyfriend, Bright's best friend, and beloved golden-boy of Everwood, who slipped into a coma a year ago following a car accident.

We also meet Edna, Harold's mother, who becomes Andy's nurse. Edna is married to Irv, school bus driver and narrator of this story. We find out that there is some residual animosity between Edna and Harold, who believes his mother re-married too quickly after his father, Hal Sr., died.

This episode introduces us to heart of the show -- a father and a son, each struggling to find footing in their new lives, Andy without his wife, and Ephram without his mother.

Most Moving Moments


1. The opening scene.

The opening always feels like the start of a movie to me -- it's cinematic. It starts with a beautiful sweeping shot of New York City and its forest of trees and skyscrapers, as an orchestra plays over the beginning of a story. The narration begins, "I wasn't there the day Dr. Andrew Brown's life changed forever. But like most folks in Everwood, I've heard the story enough times to be able to tell it. It begins where many stories begin, in the city of New York, where Dr. Brown lived comfortably with his wife and two children. Night fell and a nasty storm rolled in. In his usual fashion, Dr.

Brown worked late again. So late, he was still at the hospital when he received the news. There had been, it seemed, an accident. Sadly, Andy's wife never made it from home to their son's recital that night. Instead, her life was taken tragically on the icy highway in between. Oh, sure, the Browns did the best they could to get by after that. Pretending as though nothing had changed. Knowing that everything had."

2. Andy and Nina talking about life after death.

"Do you believe that people live on after they die? That their souls are with us?"

"Yeah, I do."

"I need to prove to my wife that I can do this. That I can be the kind of doctor, the kind of father, that she wanted me to be when she was alive. I know that makes me seem nuts. Maybe I am."

"To love someone so much you're still proving it to them after they die? Well if that's crazy, Andy, I hope my own insanity isn't far away." 

It's a sweet moment between two friends about regret and unfinished love, both of which the bereaved know all too well. 

3. Andy and Edna talking about fathers and sons. 

"You think that's possible? That a father and son who don't get along can actually have something in common?"

"In my experience, when a father and son don't get along it usually means they got everything in common."

4. Andy and Ephram's screaming match.

Probably one of the most emotionally intense scenes I've ever seen on television.

"Mom would never have done this! She never would have moved us here!"

"Don't be so sure of that!"

"I am sure! I knew her! You didn't know her. You were never around. We just tolerated you!"

"That's pretty good. What else you got?"

"I wish you died instead of her!"

"I wish I did too you little bastard!"

5. Andy remembers Julia telling him that if something ever happened to her, he should go to this little town...

"When I was a kid, I took this train trip with my parents across the country. There was a snowstorm and we had to stop for a day in a town called Everwood. It was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen Andy. It was on this hill surrounded by the Rockies. And I remember thinking, even then: This is what heaven must look like."

I like how this scene shows how a family can grieve over the same person in very different ways, because they all had a different relationship with that person. Ephram felt so sure he knew his mother, and he did in fact know her in a way Andy never did. And Andy also knew Julia in a way Ephram never could. 

6. Andy and Delia. 

This scene always makes me cry (which isn't saying much because Everwood makes me cry pretty much every single episode). Andy's voice cracking as he says I love you is heartbreaking. There's nothing Andy can do to comfort Delia, and he doesn't try to explain grief or offer empty platitudes.  

7. Andy, Ephram, and the piano. 

I LOVE this scene, it is so beautiful. As Ephram plays the piano for the first time since his mother's death (Bach's Prelude No. 1), Andy hesitantly tries to get to know his son for the first time. Ephram tells him that his beard looks distinguished, and Andy smiles, remembering Julia say the exact same thing. Ephram is so like his mother.

"You play so well. I'd forgotten how good you are."

"Mom used to say I had your hands."

8. The closing narration.

"And there they sat, father and son, like they were sitting together for the first time. No, I wasn't there the day Dr. Brown's life changed forever. But I was around for many days thereafter, when he and his family would call Everwood their home."

Other Thoughts:

• These aren't the regular Everwood credits, but I love it. It's beautiful folk country music ("Miles From Nowhere," Cat Stevens) playing over scenes of snow-capped mountains, frosted branches on trees, and quaint old churches and houses in this sleepy mountain town. Reminds me very much of New England.
• Delia is one of the few child characters on television I've seen that is not even remotely precocious or annoying. She doesn't use big words. She doesn't spout wisdom and truths. She's just an innocent little kid.
• Ughhhhh the show's portrayal of high school is a little too cheesy. I mean, high school itself is cheesy, but the bullying is definitely more subtle than jocks making dumb jokes about comic book geeks. Actually...nevermind.
• Ah, Mrs. Baxter, the town's resident gossip. Everwood's version of Ms. Patty from Gilmore Girls.
• The playful clarinet theme always accompanies Dr. Harold Abbott and his wacky antics. Shout out to Blake Neely for a wonderful score.
• The scene where Andy is led to his new office is a little too mystical for me. There's always been an element of magic and faith in the show, but the smell of his dead wife's perfume leading him to where he's meant to be is a little too on the nose. It is a beautiful shot, however, of Andy standing in the middle of the empty, old train station, light filtering through broken-down windows like stained glass.
• HAHAHA teenage hormones. Heehee I love Andy's cluelessness. "I'm making pancakes." "Go to hell!" I can't wait to be a parent to a teenager someday.
• Aw, I miss the mountains. How awesome would it be to live so close to them that you could hike them after school.
• Ladies and gentlemen, it's Chris Pratt!!!! I was his fan before anyone even knew who he was! I'm a Chris Pratt hipster!
• "Yes Father. For it is only through the gift of music that I can heal the pain that grows deep within me." Ephram's dry delivery is so on point, it cracks me up.