The Secret Life of the American Teenager: Season Three

At the end of season two’s review, I hoped that in season three the characters would start to come into their own, shedding some of the overpowering stereotyped character traits, with better acting because of two seasons of experience. But as predicted, The Secret Life of the American Teenager did not become more realistic than dramatic.

In the first episode, Anne Juergens (Molly Ringwald) announces that she is pregnant, possibly to another man while still married to her husband. The uber-Christian and abstinent Grace Bowman (Megan Park) decides to have sex with her on-again off-again boyfriend Jack. And Mr. Bowman dies in a plane crash, which Grace thinks she caused because she had sex against her father’s wishes. All of this in one episode is just the beginning of the drama of season three.

The season takes place over the second half of Amy Jeurgen’s (Shailene Woodley) freshman year of high school, the summer (which isn’t shown) and the beginning of her sophomore year. Struggling with being a new parent, school, work and the drama of teenage life consumes Amy’s life, while the other characters are up to the same old thing: promiscuous sexual relationships and jealousy related to relationships and friendships.

Additionally, the parents of the teenagers become a little more involved in the episodes. Anne’s pregnancy leads to her almost engagement to the potential father, David, but ultimately leads to her ex-husband (who was her husband through seasons one and two and part of three) to move back in the house with the other daughter, Ashley (India Eisley). They try and become a family again. Kathleen Bowman (Josie Bissett) copes with her husband’s death and tries to keep her children, Grace and Tom (Luke Zimmerman) from having sex with their significant others. And just when you thought the show couldn’t become more dramatic and twisted… only five months after her husband’s death, Kathleen starts sleeping with and considering marrying the brother of the man who crashed her husband’s plane. Oh, and Amy’s boyfriend Ben’s father — the sausage king — is marrying a former prostitute.

Moving on. Ricky (Daren Kagasoff), the baby daddy, goes back and forth, hating Amy and her boyfriend to being friends with them both, and his “relationship” with bad girl Adrien (Francia Rasia) goes from existent to non-existent to simply sexual to couples-therapy to “I love you” serious. Ashley starts high school, befriends a gay guy who protects her from all the sexual tyrants and gets a little too close to Ricky, according to her father.

The only questions raised during the season that go unanswered is what happened over the summer? Grace went to medical camp and came back thinking she was a doctor, Jack went to football camp and hung out with another girl from school as “friends” and Ben (Ken Baumann) went to Bologna, Italy—the supposed oral sex capital of the world—to work at a family hotel.

During the last few episodes it’s unsure what exactly happened during the summer with these characters, but this and much more will be unraveled in season four, which airs on Monday’s. Even though Secret Life is predictable and unreal, it’s entertaining and addictive and season four should be no different.

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