The Big C: Hereafter “Quality of Death” Review

When Cathy decides it’s time to go to hospice on the penultimate episode of The Big C: Hereafter, she also decides driving there like a bat out of hell as her last hurrah might be kind of fun. Of course she was pulled over the by the police, and he issued her a ticket with a court date way past her expiration date. Her mouthy questions of the officer were all the things a non-dying person would wish to be dying to ask of someone who pulled them over. The perks of dying are few, and taken when you can get them.

Adam’s behavior at the hospice was heart wrenching. Watching his progression from the bratty kid who hated his mother, like any normal teenager, to a caring, concerned young man who wanted to ensure the people who would take over the care of her as she faded into death knew she would play down her pain and how to recognize the signs of her pain and when to be forceful with her.

Adam also took the collage she had on the ceiling at home and painstakingly recreated it so that when she awoke on her first morning, it would be above her, staring down at her with love.

They have shown it in many other pieces featuring the dying, but the hospice had roaming the floors a cat named Dethany/Bethany that smells death, seeking out the next to go, and snuggling up to them for the night. Of course, this enraged Sean and he smuggled the cat out for two reasons. To give Bethany a rest from all the death and to keep her from pointing out the next to go.

I found that funny considering he was in the process of giving away one of his kidneys and concerned about his own potential demise on the operating table. How Sean went up and down with his decision to donate an organ was such typical behavior for him. At one moment he wanted to save a live, and the next he believed the recipient was an elitist pig and decided it would be better if he died.

As a pacifist, he was not only determined to deny his kidney to an elitist, but willing to drive to a far off location to score some suicide drugs so he could help kill Cathy before she withered and died without having a say in how she went. While I completely understood where she was coming from in making her decision to take her own life, it was still very hard for Sean to go agree to go along with it.

It was also good to see Cathy see a spirit again…even though it meant Nan had to die. I knew when her oncologist showed up that it would turn out like it did. Cathy’s getting so perceptive as she nears the end. But there is that nagging thing she didn’t expect when at first she felt so much comfort upon entering hospice.  “People die here every day. Ugly brutal dramatic deaths…every day.”  The screaming never stopped. Rest became more futile. Finding a happy place was more difficult knowing you might be next.  That you were there to see it through to the end.

Adam, meanwhile, was being the man of the house at home, and fired Amber while Paul was holed up in bed. Adam said if Paul wasn’t going to be the grown up, then he’d have to make the tough decisions for the family and discovering Amber was planning on doing an expose on their family for her dissertation was more than Adam could take.

t of sad and unhappy things. She got pissed at the nurse for calling the patients by their room number and had all of her fellow hospicees wear their images around their neck., proving to him that they, too, were once just like him. Young and full of life. Never believing they would end up where they were.

Everything fell into place and Cathy realized she couldn’t ask Sean to help take her out of the world. Angel made an appearance as Cathy tried to drown out the sound of death by playing the Entertainer on her keyboard. That was her solace. She would take what she could and make her happy from what was available. Sean’s reaction to his own strange behavior – a pacifist ready to take out not one, but two lives in the span of a week had him laughing at himself. It was a perfect Sean moment of self-recognition. He couldn’t kill Cathy any more than he could deny an elitist pig his kidney out of spite.

It was time for Andrea’s big fashion show for the art institute, and her model didn’t show up. It’s because Cathy took a huge amount of morphine and snuck out of hospice to make it to Andrea’s show to model her own funeral dress. She was brilliant and the hit of the runway. But I know how difficult it had to be for her to detach and put forth so much energy for the show. And so did Sparkles. The hour ended out with Bethany (renamed Sparkles by Sean) escaping his clutches and finding her way to Cathy.

One episode left to The Big C, and it’s a doozy. I’ll be here to knock it out for you. Long Live Cathy Jamison!