The Secret Life of the American Teenager

So after season one everyone knew Amy was pregnant and she stayed in school despite some glares and whispers. Season two Amy has to start making decisions, such as if she is giving the baby up for adoption, getting a job, and how to handle dating Ben and having to deal with Ricky. Her family is still in chaos too as her father & mother are planning on getting a divorce and there is talk of him moving out. But it is not only Amy and her family that will face challenges as Ricky’s dad pops up causing problems, Adrian will have to adapt to having her new father in her life, Ashley will learn what it is to be invisible, Jack will be a mentor, and Ben will have to get over his jealousy of Ricky.

I watched the first season for review and had a hard time figuring out what exactly they were going for. Was it to teach a lesson, or show everyone has problems, or give you soap opera drama? I still have yet to figure that out. As far as any parents being responsible for their lives, their children’s lives, and helping teach them responsibility and consequences they are pretty much absent yet again in this season. For example Ashley skips school, plans behind her mother’s back to move out, and even has a boyfriend stay over when no parents are home (Seriously? Your other teenage daughter is pregnant and no one thinks to perhaps keep an eye on the other daughter now?).

This show also has a hard time balancing its Christian undertones and soap opera drama. Adrian in order to try and get her step-brother into bed thinks about reclaiming her virginity by asking God to restore it. How gross can you get without them actually being blood related and to make matters worse it is the little Christian cheerleader Grace that comes up with the idea. They toy with Anne Juergans displaying some form of parenting as she gets a job for Amy and they work together; it is only for one nite though. But she still just sits back and takes it as both her daughters Amy & Ashley talk back and disrespect her to no end. Meanwhile George Juergans is so weasely; mocking his wife like a 5 year old, talking bad about his daughter behind her back, acting cocky, keeping it from his wife that Ashley will be moving in with him, and going to take pictures of his wife working at the hot dog stand to insult her. We are supposed to care about him as a character and actually want him to stay in the lives of Anne and the girls? Why? Finally if they are attempting to go for a “real” life feel with “real” life problems then where is DFCS? Where are the police, lawyers, restraining orders, etc?

All I can guess from this show is it tries to set up storylines where lessons & Christian undertones can come in to solve it; however they have no idea how to follow through with any of it. So you get a jumbled show of adults that you want to smack some sense into, children running amuck and extraordinarily rude, characters that you don’t really care for and some that are so annoying you wish they were no longer on the show, random lessons that are throw in without being carried out so watchers will understand why we should learn it, and finally a baby.

I have had to sit through 2 season of this now and I guess if you try hard enough you could possibly find some sort of guilty, addictive pleasure out of it; but I have yet to truly be sucked in. In fact I think that this season turned me off of the show more than the first season did.

Episode List:
The Secret Wedding Of The American Teenager
Baked Nevada
The Father And The Son
That’s Enough Of That
Chocolate Cake
Unforgiven
Making Up Is Hard To Do
Money For Nothing, Chicks For Free
Maybe Baby
Whoomp! (There It Is)
One Night At Band Camp
And Unto Us, A Child Is Born