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“Generation Cryo” recap (1.5): The Reunion

This week brings Generation Cryo to a conclusion, and things were just as emotional this week as they were last week. But let’s be honest; every episode of this fascinating little show has been emotional. Last week was the week of discovery: Jonah, the Boston sisters, and Bree went to Oakland and, with the help of some librarians and city workers, found the donor’s name, high school yearbook photo, and address. This week was the week of sharing: all the half-sibs and their parents convene in Lake Tahoe for a family reunion, and the Oakland Four share their big news.

They first break the news to Sherri on the drive to Tahoe from the Reno airport, and like almost everything with Sherri thus far, she seems remarkably laid back and supportive about it all. She remarks that if she ever got to meet him, she’d have to say, “Thanks for your sperm, man.” Bree giggles and says, “Sherri,” meaning, “Oh my god Mom, you are so dorky and embarrassing.” Sherri is the best lesbian mom ever and I love her.

While this whole series has been a hugfest, once they arrive at the lake, there is a genuine hugathon as all the half-sibs hug their parents and all the half-sibs hug each other.

The Oakland Four then reveal their discoveries to the half-sibs alone, and the reactions are interesting. First, curiosity wins over everyone’s hearts, even the ones like Jesse Bogdan and Hilit who had been most resistant to knowing anything about the donor. Everyone wants to hear the name and see the picture. Jayme feels hurt that she wasn’t included on the Oakland trip, which totally makes sense to me. And Jesse Bogdan refuses to admit that the donor looks very much like him, even though everyone else sees the resemblance. Which seems a pretty obvious refusal to accept anything that could make this person appear to be family. Although later, he does say that he wouldn’t mind having a meal with the donor in the future.

The half-sibs then split up to tell their parents alone. Everyone’s parents seem somewhat shocked and taken aback, but to varying degrees of hurt. Jesse and Jayme’s family, who never had a true “father figure,” obviously have the least to lose, and their mom takes it all in stride, saying that whatever happens next, they’ll do it together. Jesse Bogdan’s mother thinks it’s neat. We don’t get to see much of a reaction from his dad, though, which is disappointing to me, as he was the one dad other than Jonah and Hilit’s who seemed really open about discussing everything, and I was interested in seeing how he felt.

Laura, the emotional mother of the Boston girls, has a strong, possessive reaction. After looking at his picture, she suddenly wants to hold her kids closer to her than ever and not let this man interfere. She says, “I feel physically ill right now.” She also mentions that this will hurt their dad more than they know, which has to be hard for Paige and Molly to hear, as they were so involved in this whole process. The girls hug their mom and stroke her hair, which is all very tears-inducing.

We then move to the family we’ve really spent the most intimate time with: Jonah, Hilit, Terri, and Eric. Things get very tense very quickly. Jonah says he already feels like he maybe crossed a line, and both he and Hilit share that they don’t want to know one single more thing about this dude. The person who does want to know more, though, is Mama Terri. And while Jonah says that he understands her curiosity, the conflict rapidly and clearly arises between Terri and Eric. While it seemed in the past that Eric had come to a sort of peace with this whole thing, clearly it’s a process he’s still working on, and he takes out some of his hurt on Terri. He leaves the room while Jonah and Hilit share the picture of the donor with Terri, and a moment later Jonah joins him. They both cry and hug, and Jonah asks his dad to please not overthink things, that things are the same as they were before. Eric says he knows that, and that he knows Jonah will always be his boy. Which is ALSO tears-inducing. Ugh, you cryo kids, always being such good people, so nice to your parents! Just stop it!

The affirmation of what real family is just keeps on trucking, as we wind up back with Bree and Sherri. Sherri asks for more details of what Bree wrote in her letter to the donor. Bree, by the way, is wearing one of my favorite lesbian Bree outfits.

Bree ends up asking if it ever bums Sherri out that they’re not biologically related. “Because sometimes it bums me out.” Sherri doesn’t even hesitate in saying no. She then tells the story of the very first moment Bree entered the world and made her way into her arms. She was crying. Sherri started singing, “This Old Man,” and Bree stopped crying. From that moment, she says, they had a bond, and it’s a bond that will never go away, ever. And I think maybe one of the things that’s remarkable about Sherri as opposed to the other parents–and maybe this is also related to the lack of male testosterone and ego–is that this is a fact that she has never once doubted. More information about the donor can’t threaten her love of Bree because nothing could ever threaten her love of Bree.

The episode takes a turn, however, when Jayme suddenly gets a call from the California Cryo Bank as she and Hilit are waiting in line at a coffeeshop. They step outside, and Jayme gets the news that the donor has finally contacted the cryo bank after Jayme’s official inquiry there. He doesn’t want to release his name or where he lives, but he is open to anonymous contact facilitated by the cryo bank. Jayme and Jesse can send in some photos and bios to the donor, and see where things go from there.

This is a major development, but in weird ways: they finally have official contact, but it’s a message that says do not do the exact things you just did. They worry how Bree will feel. After sharing the news with her mom, Jayme shares with the whole group. She’s short breathed as she does so, nervous but excited, but Bree’s face is nothing but shock and unease. As others discuss whether they violated his privacy or not, Bree abruptly leaves the table and runs into the lake, alone.

Afterwards, Sherri tries to comfort her. Bree says that if she knew the cryo bank was going to get back to them, she never would have done any of this, and that now she feels stupid. She’s not only violated his privacy, but she’s brought all these other people into it. Sherri tries to tell her daughter that she’s not stupid, but Bree doesn’t seem convinced.

In fact, she seems convinced that everything she had just done is very wrong. But I can understand why, at the time, it didn’t seem wrong. While Bree maybe hasn’t openly admitted it, I believe she’s been living under a fairy tale, where all she needed to do was find him and he’d write back and suddenly the mysteries of her origins would be uncovered and life would be happy. But now that the fairy tale seems smashed open, she’s just left with regret. She later apologizes to the donor into her video diary.

But she shouldn’t be filled with regret, because her journey has brought her so many amazing half-sibs, half-sibs who are totally on her side. Jayme feels that it must have been Bree’s letter that forced him to call the cryo bank, which is a development she only sees as positive. Even Hilit wants to make sure Bree doesn’t feel bad. She invites Bree to join her and Jayme on the beach, where she notes that anyone could have written the letter–it was just Bree who had the courage to do it.

Eventually, all the half-sibs are on the beach together, comforting Bree. They talk about how they themselves, being here together, is the most important part of all this. They call her their leader. She laughs again.

Vacation summer bliss in Tahoe over, we next see Bree back in her bedroom in Reno. She’s been checking her email obsessively ever since she sent her letter, but she’s begun to lose hope, especially since the cryo bank news, that she would hear back. She knows she has to get back to her life anyway; start saving up for college.

We then see her check her email again at some later point. And for a few moments, she is speechless. She has an email from Anony Mous which begins: “Breathe deeply.” He says that if everything she said is true, then he is the one she’s looking for, and that he’s willing to communicate and help her on her journey. While the content of the email almost seems strangely poetic, the words are less spellbinding than is Bree’s face.

Emotions ranging from disbelief to a type of hesitant joy spread over her face, in that type of quiet, slow-motion way that occurs when something really big happens to you, when a puzzle piece you’ve been searching for your entire life suddenly falls out of the sky and fits into place. There’s no belly laughter or big tears or exuberant shouts to end out this interesting Generation Cryo experiment. It’s just Bree in her teenaged bedroom, a Nightmare Before Christmas poster in the background, looking into her camera with hope in her eyes, saying softly, “Thank you.”

I don’t know where Bree’s future relationship with her sperm donor will go, and I don’t know if we need to know as viewers. We’ve already seen enough. I know people’s emotions about this show have ranged from intensely negative, almost nasty, to intensely positive and thankful. In the end, I think it helped show that, just like every family, everyone’s truth is different. It was fascinating to see those truths, and refreshing to see a reality show explore something meaningful and actually real. Thanks for inviting us in for the ride, family members of #1069.

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