The Everwood Rewatch Fest: "We Hold These Truths" (S1, Ep. 7)
 

We'll keep this up for one week and then go on to the next episode. After you've watched the episode, you can comment on it anyway you'd like, big or small. You can focus on certain characters, scenes, quotes, or the episode as a whole. You can tie the episode to the rest of the series, or comment about it as a self-contained episode. It's all up to you! You can always give your thoughts after the one week period, as all rewatch threads will stay open for more thoughts and anymore discussion. Thanks!

We Hold These Truths

Written By: Joan Binder Weiss
Directed By: Jason Moore

Imdb

If you haven't already, please feel free to comment on our previous episodes:

The Pilot
The Great Doctor Brown
Friendly Fire
The Kissing Bridge
Deer God
The Doctor Is In

Amy placing her cross into Colin's hand at the beginning of the episode remains one of the more powerful images the show has created. The scene doesn't even have any dialogue and I tear up. Great episode.

Chris Pratt knocked out his confession to Harold. Too bad they didn't give him a lot of stuff like this later on.

The Nina/Ephram dynamic was great and once again, something we shoulda gotten to see more of. Curse you, CW!

Yes, two of the best scenes in Everwood were Nina/Ephram scenes....this scene (Season 1) and the last episode (Season 4)..going to Irv's wake. I love those two together. They had real affection for one another and a lot of mutual respect.

Some other thoughts about this episode:

- Uncle Brian was a very nice addition to this episode....there were a couple of really nice scenes involving him. I just loved when Ephram gave Andy the mixed CD....he was so casual and aloof....great response from Uncle Brian, "He can't hate you all that much."

-I love Treat's acting...so much warmth. The scene on the Brown porch with Brian showcased this. Brian gave Andy a complement about what a great surgeon he was. The expression on Andy's face....no words.....just a smile and an ecpression of gratitude. I thought that it was beautiful.

- How adorable is Delia. She didn't want to be a brain surgeon because she has to work on Saturday. She wants to be a tap dancer and a fireman in the daytime. I love the way she responded to Andy with the word, "Good." So cute and natural.

-Don't the Abbott meals seem so appetizing? Everytime I watch them have a meal together I want to raid the refrigerator. :lol:

Harold was so hilarious during the July Fourth celebration...so pompous...so proud...."Stop!! We're not finished yet"
(Amy) "It's okay dad, noone's listening to us anyway."

-Funny line: "Clue doesn't come in travel size?"
"One of the world's greater atrocities."

Slackers! :lol:

Hee! I love Vivien's delivery in this scene, so adorable.

Another thing about the Fourth of July thing, the costumes! The Abbott women were certainly...up for the challenge. :blush:

I'm doing mine today! Looking forward to it. This episode is easily one of the Everwood classics. :) Great flashbacks, montages, music, acting and travel-size Scrabble!

-Obviously an important episode: it sets up almost EVERYTHING that happens between now and "Home". Which is probably why "Home" refers back to it at least once in a major way.

-Where the heck is Bright when Amy and Colin are having their crazy long discussion at the beginning? Did he drown when he jumped into the water? Heh. Colin and Amy don't seem all the concerned that he appears to be missing.

-The revelation that Bright was driving on July 4th seems so minor of a revelation for a normal show, but it's actually quite big as it sets things off for Bright as a character so wonderfully. Bright really comes into his own in this episode. We see his emotional side for the first time. He's likable, sympathetic, nice. 7 episodes in and he's already lost the role of the bully. Chris really steps up here, too.

-Mike Erwin! Colin fan or not (and it seems like most people not me aren't, hee), that guy can ACT!

-Like a lot of season one characters (the grandparents, Dr. Trott, more of Dr. Douglas beyond his season two episode), Brian was a fun character that could have came back once in a while. Good friends with Andy, and Andy didn't have many before Harold and him became better friends. Brian could have been a good person for him to talk with.

-Aw, Ephram making breakfast AND a mixed-tape/CD for Andy is adorable.

-Nina's smile after Ephram says "You know, I forgot how good women are at this stuff" is really cute. :D

-Damn, Everwood had some nice directing, eh? The switch up between the scenes where Bright is driving and the surgery is incredible.

-Is it weird for me to say that after all the great acting in this episode, my favourite line delivery is Harold's, "Thank you" once Andy performs the surgery.

:nod:

Season one, adorable Delia is so great. I love that scene when she wakes Brian up and it's full of Vivien's screams and giggles. Like you said, cute and natural. I hated when she grew up and got an attitude. :lol:

No wonder Chris Pratt ate a meal every single time!

Hee! You and I also should get ten bucks from everyone for not saying anything about Emily in a bikini. Although she looks really young then anyway, so it would be all skeevy, but, still, ten bucks everyone! ;)

Oh, yes.....the muffins were definitely revolutionary. :lol:

Yes, and Ephram's mixed CD provided great background music for these dual scenes. :)


He had some great lines this episode...one example: "If the British knew they were losing you.....they would have fought a lot harder."

Oh yes! Agreed. That reminded me that I was going to ask one song is playing when Bright is driving and Colin is about to be comafied and Andy is working on Colin? I don't know if it will be any good when not playing as the background of such great scenes, but it really really works!

That was good! I also liked: "Hey, Johnny Tremain. Want to see something that will knock your pantaloons off?"

Maybe you would have liked him better had he stayed this funny and not turned into a big meanie to Ephram? ;)

You're absolutely correct. Even though I wasn't thrilled that Colin was competition for Ephram....I did like him.....(he was sweet, sad, and innocent).... until he became that big meanie. :irked: :lol:

"Caught By the River" by Doves? Yeah...it works better as the background of great scenes, heh.

I might actually just go ahead and watch this one. It's my favorite of that whole slew of post-Friendly Fire eps that I've failed to rewatch so far, so maybe I should just forget about what I've missed and do it. It's not like I'm foreign to the show and risk confusion by jumping ahead, hee.

You definitely should, Thief. Don't feel like you have to go catch up unless you really want to comment on something from the other episodes. That's to anyone reading, by the way: if you do want to participate, don't feel like you have to go back and do all the episodes previous, just hop on! It'll give us something to do in the summer, anyway. :)

Aha! You did like him! The truth comes out, hee. He was really sweet and sad. I guess I just didn't hate him so much when he went all nuts on Ephram. It was more tragic to me than anything.

Alright, I've broken one of you Colin-haters, heh! Who's next? ;)

This. So amazing to watch. Directing and editing was exceptional in this episode. The fade to white was also used well too.

So I suppose this isn't what my reaction should be, but Colin's confirmation cross stunt annoys the heck out of me. What if he had dropped it? It's bad enough to lose an object of sentimental and potentially monetary value (it didn't look especially pricey, but those things can be deceptive), but even worse to lose it because your boyfriend was goofing around like a big doofus. And all in the name of coercing Amy to plunge...tens of feet, or whatever, when she wasn't comfortable doing it (but then, I don't even know how to swim, so maybe I'm projecting here), which is just mean, and, and...

Not I! *shakes fist* Dude, I just defended Amy's honor in the process of denigrating him. This is how strong the Colin-hate is with me, hee.

In other notes...

• Colonial garb may work for the Abbott women and, curiously enough, Harold [Tom should really consider doing an 18th century period piece], but Bright just looks stupid. It's too bad that we never saw another Fourth of July celebration, though, because with Ephram around, they could've thrown in some goofy meta Patriot reference.
  
• Also, in keeping with my rebellious spirit tonight, I don't like Colin's "If the British knew..." line, because, even though Amy ignores it and it's pretty much treated as the cheesy line it really really is, it still makes him sound like he's coming on to an overworked, underpaid waitress in some Revolutionary War-themed singles bar. Yeah, I said it. Come on, you ever-burgeoning band of Colin-lovers, give me all you got. I can take it. :P
  
• Delia and Andy, however, are terribly adorable. No arguments from me on anything involving those two, or Uncle Brian. And Ephram! And Ephram/Andy! Yeah, I'm with the crowd on all things Brown-related, hee.
  
• "I think she's amazing and beautiful and completely out of my league. She agrees." Heh.
  
• Mike Erwin is pretty. And a decent actor. I'll give him that much. But Colin gets nothing.
  
• Ephram's so cute with the board games. I wish we could have had more scenes of Ephram geeking out over Clue and Scrabble. I don't know what the context would possibly have been, but it would have been awesome.
  
• Bright's first really great moment. It's not Chris's -- he got better with these sorts of scenes as the series went on, though he's still perfectly good here -- but the confession still added so much more to Bright's character, and even served to put his earlier actions in a new light. At least, I think a lot of that initial jerkiness was related to his sense of guilt. Not that he couldn't have just been a bully towards Ephram for the sake of being a bully, heh, but it did mostly seem to stem from some sort of need to protect Amy, but really, by extension, Colin.
  
• Mr. Hart is one scarily intense dude. Not that he doesn't have every right to be, but still. Yow.
  
• "I'm really not this boring. [more stuff that I don't feel like transcribing]" Hee. But, rats, Amy actually made me feel a little bad when she noted Ephram's being the only person to show up at the hospital. Take note, Amy: extroversion doesn't always get you real friends.
  
• Shallow, wardrobe-related note (just scroll down now, 'Tos and shadow), but Amy's multitude of peasant blouses here really take me back to late 2002. I think I still have two that look just like the ones she wears. Good times, good times.
  
• Oh, come on, I can't close things on that stupid a note. Uh...hmm. Oh! Irv's V/O at the end: "Sometimes it's just a perfect day." That was a phrase the show liked, wasn't it? Or, at least, that Irv and Hannah liked, hee.

So, yep, just as excellent an ep as ever.

During a time that Bright tried to come over to Ephram's lunch table (beginning of Season 2)...when he couldn't stand his old friends anymore and tried to pawn them off onto the cheerleaders and soccer chicks...it would have been amusing if Ephram had some board games in his backpack and tried to get Bright to play.
Bright would roll his eyes....but would find himself enjoying it. :)

I honestly cannot accept Bright's bulliness toward Ephram...even with this logic. He was cruel....insensitive about Ephram's mom and insulting about Ephram's dad. A really good person doesn't do that.
The complete turn around of Bright's character remains a little far-fetched to me.

Oh yeah, Bright making fun of Ephram's mom was just the worst. I definitely don't think it was in the plans for Bright to move away from being the guy in the first episode as quickly as he did. I still think that has to do with the writers writing towards the actors, because Chris is so NOT a bully, and Bright shifted very dramatically more to who Chris was/is in a very short period of time.

Hee! An Amy defense is actually a little scary coming from you. :look: It would be like me defending Madison, even for a second. ;)

I think that's about as far as you're going to get on the Colin-liking--which isn't much, hee--because this is sadly one of Colin's more likable episodes.