Heart-Breaking Bonaduce
Heart-Breaking Bonaduce by Roxanne McDonald
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Breaking Bonaduce. It is intensely loud at times, and terribly endearing at other times … especially for those of us who grew up with the wise-cracking red-headed terror known as Danny Partridge. And Breaking Bonaduce is as real and as heart-rending as celebreality TV gets. |
I am still reeling from my first exposure to two episodes, featuring Bonaduce’s therapy, drinking and anger problems, revelations and histories, and relationship ills.
Danny has cheated on Gretchen in the past, and while it still stings, she has pretty much forgiven him and let go. But Danny is not so relaxed about the threat of losing his wife – to even a birthday party in her honor where strapping hunks perform strip shows for her. Danny gets word that this is a possibility, and immediately initiates phone communication to instill his power over her.
But the strippers are a gift from her buddies (who have flown in from all over the place to share the celebration), and
Gretchen does little more than stare and press a fingertip to an ab or a lat.
When Gretchen reports the innocence of it all, Danny gets even more insecure. It is sad to watch the cheery cherub of our childhoods get so twisted by the fear of losing his wife, a fear which is based on too low a self-esteem, but it is also irritating to watch him have tantrum after tantrum, each one more insipid that the previous, each one lending itself to more invasive behavior. So while we sympathize with the Breaking of Bonaduce, we also bristle at his incessant phone calls, his insisting on going to the party to confront Gretchen, her agent or body guard or assistant (whoever he is), and any stripper unlucky enough to still be around.
It is equally poignant to watch Bonaduce breaking in his therapist’s office, where he one moment concedes to weaknesses beyond his control and the next confesses with some amount of glee (for the attention) that he has broken down and gotten loaded, or “chosen” to drink, then opted to do a truckload of pills (he says he takes them until he is “full”),
then indulged by his own volition in slamming
some dope, then eroding even further to searching for a tool to off himself – which turns out to be the ineffectual safety razor he finds in his wife’s toiletries.
We are not trained to diagnose or analyze his alcoholism, his Thanatos, his child star syndrome, his rage. But we are capable and attentive enough as engaged and interested viewers to understand we are watching life breaking Bonaduce, relationships breaking Bonaduce, and Bonaduce, a brilliant, sharp-witted and sharper-tongued dynamo, breaking Bonaduce. Our hearts swell for him.
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