The sadness streak continues for the family. Here, and despite some setbacks, the only happy ones were Bailey and Owen. Because Charlie is busy, Bailey takes the kid to camping, and find a mother, Teresa, with her daughter camping next to them. In the first night at the little tent, Bailey and Owen spend a bad night, and after some yelling, the kid calls Bailey mean (how agressive and mad can be this kid!!). The next day, Teresa tells Bailey that her daughter has nightmares so he tells that Owen's life is being like a nightmare, even in the camping. He wants to give up and go home but she convinces him of trying again and offers them sharing their big tent and using a telescope to watch the planets, like Saturn. They spend a good night, showing how parents with kids can be friendly to each other without nothing weird happening. Then, they return home and Sarah is surprised to see Owen happy. Bailey starts to like parenting Owen, and confides in Sarah about this. The bond between the younger brothers now is stronger. This story was entertaining enough but the others are great too.
Daphne decides to leave the house. First, she is with her daughter in the park alone, and suddenly leaves her, but after hearing the crying, she returns. For this incident, she goes to a priest in the church to talk, but he couldn't help her. He asked if if she and Diana's father go to church, if they believe, and obviously Daphne said no. It was good that she went there but I think that the priest's speech wasn't well written. They portrayed him as someone who cares only if the person goes regularly to church and that's a lie. The priest would give a good speech to Daphne talking about forgiveness and would try to understand her situation. Anyway, in the meantime, Claudia has a small role here taking care of Diana. In one moment, Charlie wonders where Daphne went (the meeting with the priest) because he and Claudia have to go to school. After Claudia put Diana to sleep, she asks him if he can call Kirsten, but he says he can't, given that she's going to be busy. Then, Daphne arrives (off screen), and plans her depart, buys many diapers, opens an account for Diana, talks to her with farewell words (she tells her that she will go to college, maybe to be a lawyer, that she will meet guys, etc). Her scenes were all great and sad. Daphne doesn't leave because she is a bad mother or because she doesn't care, she leaves because she loves Diana and wants to protect her. She is afraid of doing what her mother did to her. So for Daphne, her way to show her love for Diana is leaving. Then, Claudia notices the many diapers stocked but seems she is not aware of Daphne's situation. After she shows this to Charlie, who already learned about the savings, he overhears the farewell between Daphne and Diana. Charlie is saddened to realize what she's doing but he understands. He visits Kirsten in the hospital where she had a temporary job (surely they talked before, and that's why she couldn't go to babysitt Diana), and confides in her about this. She still can't understand Daphne, and first tells him that he should ask her to stay (really strange line considering that Kirsten still loves Charlie, probably she was being selfless). Anyway, when he tells her Daphne's feelings about being a mother and that he will let her go, she seems to understand Charlie's position. At the end, Charlie finally confronts Daphne, and he asks her when she's going to leave. Daphne explains what happened in the park, and how she's afraid of being the kind of mother who can and will walk away. She thinks that she's not the mother they need, and wants to leave before Diana can call her "mama". To answer his question she says "truth is, I already left", and before leaving, she only has one request for him: "Don't let her hate me". That scene was really sad and touching. The single line is heartbreaking. I admit that in the ending of season 4, I couldn't feel much compassion for Daphne, but after watching the last few episodes, the terrible mother she had and what she did to Daphne as a child, that single scene, it means much more, being really emotional. In the last scene today, Charlie hears a cab driver in the door and hears her leaving, while he is in bed next to baby Diana. To finish this part: considering the reason of why Daphne left and the discovering in 5x15, I have to say that there were some episodes that contradicted her feelings. In the end of 5x06, in 5x07-08, she didn't seem to have big problems in taking care of Diana. Her affection or non affection for Diana wasn't progressive. Seemed like she tried, she enjoyed it and then after some sleepless times, in 5x09 she retreated back. I know that the farewell moment in this episode was perfect (even with a great score), and Jennifer Aspen did an excellent job here. But my point is that the storyline wasn't perfectly handled, Daphne had more episodes than she should have had. It's like for moments, in 5x07-08, no one could thought she'd be a walkaway mother. And those extra moments she had, unnecessary considering the revelation of 5x15, had an impact on Charlie and Owen. That's why season 5 failed in some ways, not because of Daphne, failed because it contributed to tear apart the family.
On the other hand, Paul offers Kirsten a voluntary job helping disabled children in the hospital. At first she's reluctant, saying he doesn't have to fill her life with jobs with children, she can do that herself, but after giving a look, she tries. She helps a boy named Michael, who has troubles with his legs and is on a wheelchair. As usual, she enjoys it, helps him to put socks in his legs and feels sad when the job ends and the boy leaves the hospital with his family. This would have been a nice story to see, to feel more touched but there were only 3 short scenes. The kid called Kirsten Mrs K, and seemed happy with her caring, same as his family, who thanked for everything she did (what a woman huh?), when they said goodbye. Finally, in a quiet dinner in their house, Paul suggests adoption as a measure to make Kirsten happy and save their marriage, feeling that they are not a family without kids (and well, that scene really felt that way), but she feels insecure because she knows that Paul really doesn't want to be a father, they already talked about it before. Considering the next episodes, seems that Paul is staging a plan. If he is able to accept the idea of having children to make Kirsten happy, he'll stay with her. If he can't, it's over. Anyway, if they shared this kind of lonely quiet dinners since 4x17-19, when Kirsten regained her hope and desires to be a mother (after taking care of Owen and Claudia), why it take so long to Paul to prepare the definitive moment? This is a hole in the story hard to explain.
The other sad story is Julia's. Ned finally shows his troubled side and tries to force Julia to move with him after finding out that Maggie is dating someone. Maggie is surprised when she learns that Julia is moving out the dorm to live with Ned, and tells her she did the same last year with Griffin, to convince not to move. So Julia reacts and refuses to move, but for this, Ned tries to force her and hits her in the face. Julia gets hurt her arm too for crashing to the wall, leaves quietly to cover her face with make up. Later, she avoids Ned's calls and returns to the dorm, also avoiding Maggie's questions, saying she is tired and wants to sleep. Maggie knew how Ned would react and tried to prevent it, but she couldn't. This should have been the end of Julia-Ned's relationship but sadly will continue. Although is not a great story as Charlie's cancer or Bailey's alcoholism, it is good enough to keep the drama level of the series.
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