The Big C

So The Big C is back. I've been watching this show since its beginning as I love Laura Linney. This show has an interesting take on death, for seasons it has tried to take a lighter stance on death as we watch Laura Linney portray Cathy, who has been diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma.

And now it is in its final season. I just watched the first installment of Season 4, which seems like it will have limited 1-hour episodes (the show has historically had 30-minute episodes). I literally was crying almost the entire episode.

This show is so sad. I've grown used to all the characters and been so impressed with the writing and a portrayal of death which is somewhat unusual. But it is time for it to end, and we all know what happens in the end.

Just expecting the death, feeling it coming on just is really upsetting. But I trust the writer and creator of the show. In this piece she wrote in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, she said she wants to "lift the concept of dying from a loss to a win."

She said she doesn't even know if she ends up completing that in the end, but said she wanted Cathy's illness front and center in the final season so people actually begin talking about death being a reality. And that is happening, and it is tearing this viewer apart.

But that is what good art does. Be a TV or a novel, growing attached to the characters and crying when there is loss or crying when there is unexpected happiness, such happiness. Connecting the reader/view to the characters so that we feel what they feel. That is to be admired.

So this is a thank you blog. Thank you Darlene Hunt. Thank you for facing your fear of death and making The Big C. I think you started a lot of conversations about death in many households and I think that might be a healthy thing. Thank you to Laura Linney and the other actors on the Big C who are so talented and really do Darlene's writing justice.

Thank goodness for quality TV.