If you've been following the series so far, then you should be fairly familiar with the strange web of relationships that surrounds the cast. This season starts off just after Amy (Shailene Woodley) has had her baby, John. The baby's father, Ricky (Daren Kagasoff), has decided to stay in the baby's life and as it turns out is becoming quite a good father. Meanwhile, Amy's boyfriend, Ben (Ken Baumann), is staying by Amy's side... despite their failed attempt at marriage last season.
Throughout these 12 episodes, animosity between Amy and Ricky's girlfriend, Adrian (Francia Raisa), grows as Amy sees Adrian as a bad influence on John and Adrian sees Amy and John as a threat to her relationship with Ricky. Also occurring this season is the divorce between Amy's parents, George (Mark Derwin) and Anne (Molly Ringwald). Of course, the fact that George and Amy's sister, Ashley (India Eisley), ended up buying the house next door means that they are still going to be a big part of the other half of their family's lives.
Besides the normal amount of drama you would expect to follow from the previous season's events, the show also throws in a few twists. Right off the bat, one of the only few good actors in the series, John Schneider (of Dukes of Hazards and Smallville note), exits the show. His departure causes one of the worst side plots to the entire series (and that's saying something). Schneider's character's daughter, Grace (Megan Park) finally decides to break her vow of chastity with her boyfriend, Jack (Greg Finley), the same night Marshall (Schneider) is involved in a plane crash and dies. For about a third of Volume Three, Grace ends up in a funk and believes that her father's death was God's way of punishing her for having sex. Like I said, this ends up being a low point in a not-so-great series, and since the season/volume starts off with this event, it really brings down the entire package.
The other major reveal at the beginning of the season is another pregnancy ... this time Anne's the one with child and the relationship between her and Amy gets tough as the pair try to figure out how they will handle raising two babies at the same time. To make matters worse, there appears to be some confusion as to who the father is... it seems unlikely that it is George since he had a vasectomy 10 years prior, but it's just as unlikely to be Anne's new boyfriend since a genetic disability leaves births in his family rare (but obviously not impossible since he was born).
Around the show's mid-point, the school year lets out and summer begins. What should be a few months of everyone being together ends up being a brief scattering. Ben is asked to go to Italy to help out at a family member's hotel (though everyone else suspects other reasons for the trip), Grace goes off to a Future-Healer's camp where she gets a jump start on some medical training, and various other characters get scattered off to the wind. When everyone gets back together, more than one relationship ends up being strained. For one, it appears that Jack might not have been all that faithful to Grace while she was away, and suspicions surround Ben for the same reason. Ben's Dad, Leo (Steve Schirripa) ends up with a new girlfriend and eventual fiancee as well... the former Internet prostitute that we saw a few times last season, Betty (Jennifer Coolidge), creating a few awkward moments throughout the season.
There are only a couple of bonus features in Volume 3, the pilot episode for a new ABC Family series, Make It or Break It featuring teen Olympiad want-to-be's and a Q&A session with the cast of the show called "Hat Chat" where they pull questions out of a hat and ask other cast members the question. While amusing, it really didn't add anything to the overall experience.
The Secret Life of the American Teenager feels like one big after-school special filled with cautionary tales about sex and... well that's pretty much it. Every scene is somehow related to having or not having sex and if it isn't about the physical effects (most notably pregnancy), then the emotional and psychological (like with Grace, and towards the end, Adrian). If the acting and writing were better, then this might be an amusing show, but those issues coupled with the bad acting just makes the experience hard to watch. I had hoped by the time the actors had gotten to this point in the series, things would improve, but that isn't the case. Unless you are truly enthralled by this series and want to see more of the teen drama unfold, then you can just pass up Volume Three. Sure that will make it harder to pick back up after this point, but unless the show improves dramatically after this, there isn't much point.
Clips
On Set SecretShailene About Ben
Hallway Conversation
Ben Calls Adrienne
Another Pregnancy
