I am not sure why you are getting such a hostile reponse for suggesting it is not the best idea for the show to portray someone possibly drinking before driving. Really irresponsible IMO. I don't care if it was just one beer, I don't care if the bottle could have been root beer- if it looked like a beer bottle that is what most will assume it is.  Its just dumb.

Is it irresponsible for Holden to have a beer (if it was beer)  before heading out? I guess that is alright for some, but I would never want my children riding in a car with someone who had been drinking any alcohol. If a beer or two is alright, how about a half a joint?

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In my state.....driving with an open bottle of alcohol is grounds for a ticket or trip to the pokey.....I guess the OP was trying to show Holden as not being so law abiding

Silver - first of all if you've been reading my posts, I've been saying all along that Janet is dead wrong about Jack and the two beers! Second - nobody seemed to think it odd - I mean either Holden or Meg, that Holden walked out the door to climb behind the wheel of a vehicle with an open bottle of beer in his hand. Do I think Holden was impaired or that Ethan had never before seen his dad drink a beer? No, of course not. But I don't know what state you live in - in any state I've ever lived in it's illegal to drive with an open bottle of alchol of any kind in your vehicle. That's my point, especially after Holden had just lectured Lily on the kind of values he wants imparted to his kids! ht

I didn't see Holden get in the car and drive off drinking a beer. And if he did, who's to say he didn't finish that beer before reaching the end of the driveway. eom/silver

I didn't see Holden get in the car and drive off drinking a beer. And if he did, who's to say he didn't finish that beer before reaching the end of the driveway. Or who's to say it wasn't root beer. eom/silver

He could have finished the beer, sure. And he could have polished off a case of beer before we ever saw him. The point is that it is very careless to show a man drinking what could be perceived as alcohol before driving. Not necessary and really sending the wrong message IMO./dandyfop

Sending Holden out of that house to go see his son with what looked like an open beer bottle was flat out W-R-O-NG no matter how you spin it. In many states that's illegal. Unlike Jack's case where the alcohol was consumed PRIOR to getting the news and without knowledge of future events that might require sobriety, Holden KNEW he was going to pick up his son and walked out that door with an a bottle of BEER. I saw that and my jaw just dropped and heck YES that would make Holden irresponsible at the very least given how he just got through reaming out Lily for not being responsible and then heads out the door to pick up his son with an open freaking container. eom Linny

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Posted by: cjpsf
Date posted: Sat Nov 14 8:55:40 2009
Message:
Holden is a responsible parent, nothing on this show has ever suggested Emma keeps much beer in the fridge..I buy bottles of root beer that look exactly like the bottle Holden had in his hand. He wasn't exhibiting any effects of alcohol consumption when he went to Lily's. Ethan was sleeping so he signed off for another day. Nothing in that story line was irresponsible....

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Once again, you are misunderstanding me. First of all, Emma keeps lots of beer in the fridge because we've seen Jack grab a beer out of the fridge numerous times. Second, my point is that in pretty much every single state in the union it is illegal to drive with an open bottle of beer in your hand - I felt that this was an error on the part of the writers or directors - and irresponsible of them. As far as Holden's parenting skills go? Sometimes he's okay, sometimes he's not. Think back to his messing with Julia Larabee in front of Luke and his sleeping with Carly at the girl's summer camp....ht

Well, it is no longer Emma's kitchen. It is now Janet's. Shame on her for permitting beer to be stored in her fridge./mm

Nobody has proved it was a beer, that he was in the car with it or on the road with it. No crime has been committed. It's 2 seconds to the farm...if he walked in the door of his home with it in his hand, showing the label as beer...then this would be a topic for discussion for me. At this point it's a picky observation.

and..Holden has had affair. He hasn't brought his women back to the marital home and bedded them in Lily's bed. She has done that with Damian and Mike in very recent history. Whether or not she's separated...the kids have seen Mom getting it on with more men than they've seen Dad get it on with because she is way selfish about what she wants when she wants it. And if the adults around the kids had kept their big mouths shut around the kids, no one would have known about Holden and Carly except the adults, as it should be. ...in addition..I don't see how showing Holden drinking a beer makes him 'less' law abiding. No proof he got in a car and drove with the beer.

On the contrary...almost every time we see Jaaaack in Emma's kitchen, he's got a beer, so she *obviously* does keep them in the fridge (or somebody does). My in-laws, for example, don't drink at all, thus having no liquor in the house. If me and my hubby moved in there today, we would not be welcome to put beer/wine in the fridge. So, yeah, by my way of thinking Emma DOES keep beer in the fridge.

Sorry, in the shadow of Holden's ''Wholesome'' lecture, heading out the door with the intent to pick up your son and take him to a puppet show while holding and presumably consuming a bottle of freaking beer is the height of irresponsibility. If he chugged it before he got behind the wheel it was irresponsible. If he got behind the wheel with the open container it was irresponsible. And Holden didn't know that Ethan was sleeping until he got there. Had Ethan not been sleeping Holden would have taken him to the dang puppet show after consuming a bottle of beer in what seemed to me to be about 5 mins. Why is everyone falling all over themselves to excuse this behavior rather than just admit that it was a little odd to have the writers let Holden walk out the door with that open bottle of beer? eom Linny

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Posted by: Lulu
Date posted: Sat Nov 14 8:50:50 2009
Message:

Yes I saw that, but I told myself it was rootbeer.   However, that was pretty silly of the directors to have him do that, he could just have easily poured himself a cup of coffee and been done with it.

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Posted by: teajak
Date posted: Sat Nov 14 7:29:33 2009
Message:
Sure did!!!!!!!

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Posted by: gallyn
Date posted: Fri Nov 13 19:20:10 2009
Message:
It's a really good thing Jan isn't around---he might never live it down.

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Posted by: Allison
Date posted: Fri Nov 13 17:48:49 2009
Message:
Yep, but after having called him on his wholesomeness hypocrisy I decided to let someone else post about this latest irresponsibility. I will say that it seemed out of character, Holden is a fairly responsible father.

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It's just a soap, get over it. All this discussion over a scene by the director.

WTH are you to tell anyone to just ''get over it''? How freaking rude! Allison ICAM with your post above and I wouldn't have had any problem with you pointing out this glaringly obvious snafu by the writers. How stupid, to put so much emphasis on responsible alcohol consumption over the past 3 months and then show something like that. eom Linny

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