Parenthood’s fifth season begins on Thursday, September 26th. A MONTH+ AWAY! Uggghh, I want it nowwwwuh! How is Crosby?! Is the Luncheonette still okay? Has the beautiful adopted boy chilled out at all, or is he still a maniac? Is the non-adopted daughter still terrible? IS HADDIE DEAD OR ALIVE?! I NEEEEED TO KNOWWWWWW. Luckily, NBC released a few promotional photos from the upcoming season on Pinterest today. (Sure.) They don’t explicitly tell us much, but since we are pop culture aficionados I think we can use our expertise to read into them a bit. In this first one, it looks like Amber and Ryan are back together! See? This will be fun, come on, let’s take a look at the others!

Oooookay. So, it looks like Grandma has a letter. I don’t know what Grandpa is fixing. A lamp? She’s like, “I need to talk to you about this letter!” And he’s like, “Not now, I’m fixing a lamp. Can we talk when I’m finished?” And she’s like, “You know, no, I’d really like to talk about it now.” And he’s just like, “It’ll only be a few minutes.” But then she says, “Now.” And he’s just like ooookay, here we go!

What your eye goes to first in this photo is: “No Personal.” No personal what? RELATIONSHIPS? Because Ray Romano had to move to where his daughter lives, so he could spend more time with her, even though Lorelai had already chosen him over her young boyfriend, meaning that at that point Lorelai was left with no boyfriends? Very tricky, but I think we nailed it!

Amber has a new job that she’s never done before and is a bit unsure of but is immediately very good at. She’s smiling at Ryan, who is out of the frame. “C’mon, babe, let’s go do something, you’re working too hard,” he says. Then she says, “You know I’d love to, but I’m just so swamped,” and then he interrupts her with a kiss. You think she’s going to give in, but she just goes back to work. Hah! Later, though, they have a lot of fun. “See, isn’t this better than working so hard?” Ryan will say. “Hmmmmm,” Amber will say, pretending like she has to think about it. “CAAHMOON!” Ryan will say, giggling.

“Whoooaaa, buddy. There have to be some rules in the Luncheonette, and I’m the rule guy — I’m gonna make ‘em, and you’re gonna take ‘em.” – Adam

Oh, no personal CHECKS. It looks like Max either flew to wherever Ray Romano lives in order to give him this piece of paper, or Ray Romano doesn’t move to be with his daughter in order to stay near Lorelai. Or maybe just for another nonsense reason, and he doesn’t even tell Lorelai that he never moved, and later Max is going to be like, “So I gave Ray Romano this piece of paper earlier today,” and Lorelai is going to be like, “Wait, you gave WHO a piece of paper today?!” And Max will say, “WHOM. I gave WHOM A PIECE OF PAPER TODAY.” And Lorelai will be like, “Jeeze, Max, okay, but whom did you say? Ray Romano? MY Ray Romano? I think you’re mistaken, he lives somewhere else, near where his daughter lives.” And Max will just be like, “Well I gave him the piece of paper so I don’t know wtf you’re talking about.” Lorelai won’t really believe him, but then she’ll walk by Ray’s old place anyway. Just to check, right? And then — WHAT!! HE IS THERE! “I dedn’t waaanyouudoobe maaad at me,” he’ll say in his Ray Romano voice. What?! He is the worst. “MAD AT YOU? I LOVE YOU! I JUST WANTED TO BE WITH YOU, AND ALL THIS TIME YOU WERE HERE!” “Well, yooue knooww, youue didn’t aassk,” he’ll say in his Ray Romano voice. What?!

Well, we still have over a month to wait until the new episodes, but I think we did a decent job of figuring out a few of the upcoming plot lines! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in September!