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!

The post The Big C: Hereafter “Quality of Death” Review appeared first on TVHackr.

When her therapist tells her to expect a curve ball, you can’t help but wonder just how curvy that ball will be.

What the hell was Isaac Mizrahi doing on The Big C? Not so much why was he on the show, but why were we lead to believe he would ever teach at a local college level for a ten student fashion course? That made no sense to me whatsoever. But, later it works so I’ll let it go.

Sean and Cathy have had such a strange and fun relationship during the last three seasons, and when she finally got him to admit he was growing his beard out and wanting to wish on falling stars in the hope that she might live it was one of the most touching moments they’ve spent since she first got him off the streets.

Cathy admitting outright that she’s dying was more difficult for me to take than it was for Cathy. She’s giving everything away to prepare everyone her for the future without her in it, but they aren’t as ready as she is, either. Cathy talks Paul into realizing she knows him better than he does himself, and how much he needs her to find someone after she passes. They have the greatest sex ever and immediately following she sees he has hits on the profile she made for him after he’s dead. Crazy, right?

Adam’s “date” with Lydia was strange, at best. Books about vaginas strewn around the bed and reports about the best chances for orgasm didn’t make it seem all that exciting, and even Adam knew sex should be exactly that for her – not just something to get out of the way. When he passed his test and they met in the hall, realizing they really were attracted to each other, it was a perfect moment for her to lose her virginity. Like she said, I’ll always remember that.

Andrea’s struggles with Mr. Mizrahi at the fashion school lead to him giving her pointers in using the Egyptian’s fascination with death and glitz to capture her own fashion sense, and it resulted in Cathy asking Andrea to make the dress she designed as her funereal dress.

The relationship with Andrea has also been all over the map since she was first introduced, and her induction into the family has been one of the most amazing aspects of The Big C. I can’t imagine the Jamisons without Andrea, but she couldn’t be a more unlikely daughter. It’s fabulous.

With Paul finally settling down and spending time with Cathy instead of running away, it was dead giveaway that something had to give. That curve ball was coming her way. After a night of sleeping together in bed, something Cathy and Paul hadn’t done in months, he awoke happy and content and Cathy had no idea who he was. She was making breakfast and understood the generalities of life, but the tumors were now pushing on an area that left her wanting for those she loved.

There are simply not enough shows on television that explore the realities of death and dying like we have been able to witness though The Big C.  Of course it’s not always been a perfect exploration and some of the decisions Cathy has made along the way have been far out. But they were her decisions and none of us will ever know what ones we’ll make until we get there ourselves.

Two episodes to go until this truly wonderful look at a woman’s battle with life comes to an end. I’ll be here to hold your hand.

The post The Big C: Hereafter “You Can’t Take It With You” Review appeared first on TVHackr.

Running into your oncologist in the chemotherapy chair next to you and learning he, too, has cancer is really the ultimate irony. If he can’t save himself, how can he save you? Because we’re all heading to the same place. The one surety of life – death.

Throughout the first three seasons of The Big C, Cathy has done some crazy ass things and she doesn’t fail us in the premiere of the shortened season that, judging on the full name of the series this season, will lead to her death by the fourth hour. I was happy to learn the ashes that were being tossed into the back yard weren’t Cathy’s, but belonged to Marlene’s dog, Thomas. Marlene, who has been showing up to Cathy since shortly after she killed herself, was there and happy to have her beloved Thomas back at her side.

At the end of Season 3, we all thought Cathy had nearly drowned and been rescued by an islander named Angel and was drifting at sea. That I didn’t see the man who saved her was an angel is a bit of a disappointment, as I’m fairly perceptive when it comes to those things. Cathy saw him many times this week. Does it mean death is getting closer? Even she asks, is he really the angel of death? She doesn’t fail to mention he’s rather hot, married and has kids. God, I love Cathy Jamison.

It’s hard to believe Adam was only turning 16. Cathy’s one big wish is to make it to his graduation, but I don’t think that’s gong to happen. She wanted to badly to make it a birthday he would always remember. She put together so many absurd things for his Sweet 16, including ice skating and a bouncy house. Nothing a boy, especially one like Adam, would want to do, but everything he would do to see his mother smile.

Adam has come a long way since he first found out Cathy had cancer. He’s no longer the brat afraid of losing his mother, but the caring son afraid of pushing her too far too fast. He’s not ready to lose her, and even though he ‘s holding out a false hope that treatment might help, inside he knows it’s a long shot.

Cathy did a lot of quitting in “Quality of Life.” She quit her job and took over the school intercom to give an inspirational speech to the students she was leaving behind. — Don’t make choices because your parents want you to, but make them because you are passionate about them. Finish things you start. Spend time with the people you love. Don’t be afraid. — She made those students she loved laugh on her way out and there’s nothing she would have wanted more than that. I wish she could have seen their faces as she was delivering her motivational goodbye.

I understood why Cathy chose to stop her chemo, as well. Especially since its’  her desire to really live before she dies. When my dad died, the treatment tore him to pieces. He loved beer more than anything, and on our last Christmas together, I can remember buying him a special beer just so he could savor it and enjoy. But he couldn’t taste it. If I had him back, I’d tell him to stop the fight and live. Enjoy the time he had left.

Cathy crapping herself in the bouncy house was the ultimate humiliation. She was having the best time and in one second it was ruined. She and Sean were laughing and having the time of the end of her life. To save her from further embarrassment, Adam cancelled the party and the two of them went over to the storage shed he found in season one full of gifts for the rest of his life. They opened them together and had the best birthday he had ever had. For sure, it will be the best he’ll ever remember.

I’m not looking forward to the next three episodes of The Big C. I can’t wait for them, but I don’t want them to come because I know the end has to bring Cathy’s death. To end the series any other way would be a ripoff. Paul already died and came back to life at the beginning of season 3, so we’re not going there again. Part of me is wondering if Cathy might already be dead, and she’s dreaming all of this, degrading moments included, to give the end of her life closure.

Three more hours of the lovely Laura Linney as Cathy Jamison, Oliver Platt as Paul, and Adam, Andrea and Sean to bring laughter and tears through death and dying. And, yes, for some of us, our families really do deal with the awkward, emotional and horrid situations through sarcasm and laughter. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.

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