First things first: my thyroid ultrasound came back clear! Or, to use the hard-boiled detective language of my doctors, there were no “suspicious nodules” to be found. [INSERT FUNNY CELEBRATION GIF HERE, because I don’t know how to yet].
In other news, my husband and I finished watching the final season of Catastrophe last night. It’s a beloved show in our household, but season 4 (and, in particular, the last episode) left me fuming. [Note: spoilers ahead.] WHERE WERE THE CHILDREN?!? Admittedly, Rob & Sharon’s two kids have long been inconspicuous additions to the cast, but this season, that was especially the case. For the first few episodes, I thought that maybe their baby daughter had died and I somehow missed it?!? There was no mention of her; no scene in which she appeared. Muireann finally shows up in a later episode, on the floor beside her parents’ bed (at which point my husband quipped, “See? She’s been under their bed this whole time.”). Then, in the penultimate scene of the last episode, Rob & Sharon take a walk together after his mother’s funeral, pushing a visibly empty stroller. They’re talking about some heavy stuff, but heavier, still, than their floundering marriage is, I would venture, their missing child. Make that children. Where the hell is Frankie?!?
Which brings us to the final scene of the final episode [Note: spoilers immanent]. Rob & Sharon are driving along a lovely, deserted coastline, with both kids asleep in the back of the car. Sharon asks him to pull over so that they can get out and talk, which he does. They share a meaningful, tender exchange, then go quasi-skinny dipping WHILST THEIR CHILDREN ARE STILL IN THE CAR ON A WARM DAY IN THE SUMMER.
I’m sorry, but you can’t be a show that traffics, refreshingly, in a kind of graphic realism (think back to the scene when Dave OD’s, Rob frantically administers CPR, and they both barf all over each other; or when Sharon’s leaking breast milk stains her blouse, or, etc.), and then LEAVE two children in a hot car on the side of the road while you take a spontaneous swim. In reality, when you stop the car, babies frequently wake up and start crying (it has been established, through various dinner scenes, that Frankie is mute). I know it’s a metaphor and all–making a marriage and family work is like swimming out into a riptide; it’s a wild gamble–but other things are not. Those kids are toast.
Well, then 