In the ninth episode of the first season of Dead Like Me, George makes a new friend who helps her understand her father better. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Dead Like Me.
OH MY GOD, SO MANY FEELINGS.
- So much of this season has been about growth. How does George change her life now that she’s undead? What new experiences will she have now that she’s gotten some perspective on her mortal existence? How do the people she left behind cope with her absence? It feels like this episode brings a lot of the characters to a new chapter in their lives, particularly George and Clancy. Clancy was the last character who hadn’t gotten much attention from the writers, so now they decide to devote a whole episode to it THAT CRUSHES MY HEART OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
- I am loving how Dead Like Me explores the nuances of what it means to be a parent and what it means to be a child. For the most part, the writers have spent most of the time with Joy, Reggie, and George, and we’ve seen how these women clash with one another and how they’ve grown close. In “Sunday Mornings,” we finally get an explanation for why Clancy is so hands-off with his daughters. In a series of flashbacks, we learn that George and her father would spend Sunday mornings together at a local diner, enjoying breakfast and their own silliness. Like Joy, Clancy has his own unique view of how his daughters should be raised, and in his case, he wanted to avoid being invasive. It was about letting George and Reggie come into who they want to be as opposed to being forced into some narrative or life. I definitely grew up with a mother who was far more like Joy, so I’m a bit biased about what parenting style I preferred.
- Anyway, we’ve seen time and time again that George has had great difficulty in maintaining any sort of emotional relationship. I wouldn’t say that her experience with that stray cat was the defining moment in her life, but this episode suggests it’s the first in many things that drew her away from her father and helped make her such an introvert. So it’s fitting to me that through a burgeoning friendship with Charlette, George is able to finally understand her father. That just makes me wonder, though: Why has Clancy never shown his true self to his family? Why is he only comfortable in an academic setting? Did something happen in his life that caused him to close off to his own family? And is it fair that his family never gets to see who he really is?
- I know that Mason has a one-track mind, and perhaps he really did have an ulterior motive regarding his initial interaction with Charlette, but I just need to say this. Mason recognized that Charlette was uncomfortable with that guy, that he wasn’t interested in her reading sonnets, and that she had very plainly insisted that he keep the door to her dorm open. Mason read those signs, saw the closed door, and acted to prevent Charlette from getting raped. Bravo, Mason. More people should do that.
- However, that does not create an obligation for Charlette to hang out with you and like you. Daisy serves a lovely purpose in “Sunday Mornings”: She consistently tells Mason to get over himself.
- So, it’s really weird that Roxy disappears for three episodes, returns in this one, and not one character acknowledges that she’s been gone. That’s… weird. Right? How does she know Daisy??? I wish this show had done something because that was distracting.
- That being said, WOW, ROXY’S STORY IN “SUNDAY MORNINGS” IS GREAT. I guess I never thought about the fact that the reapers could remove a soul at any time they wanted. Have there been murderous reapers in the past? You know, reapers who just go remove souls just for the hell of it?
- OH GOD, IT’S KEAMY FROM LOST NOOOOOOOOO KILL HIM, ROXY. HE WILL DO NO GOOD.
- Roxy’s rage-induced soul reaping creates an interesting predicament: She also pulls the anger out of Chuck. So much so that he begins to start a new religion around her. Oh my god, THOSE MADE UP WORDS. Because of this, Rube tasks her with setting the world back in order. You know what this makes me do? DEEPLY REQUIRE AN EPISODE EXPLAINING WHAT HAPPENS WHEN HUMANS FIND OUT ABOUT REAPERS. Rube made mention of a chaos of “biblical proportions,” and I’d like to know what that is.
- This episode ends on a rather unsettling note. George has learned more about her father, but the writers suggest that just as the Lass family is getting it together, things are going to be torn apart. Oh god, Clancy’s going to cheat on Joy with Charlette, isn’t he? Goddamn it, Reggie was just getting past George’s death, and now this is going to happen?
- DAMN IT.
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Mark Links Stuff
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