the awesome/terrifying freedom

i've tried my darndest not to include any spoilers in this little diatribe..



you make me sick, you spineless, weak,'no nate, this is wr..,' slyly manipulative, all you can do is call people from cars while crying, lucky enough to be the focus of nate's destructive behavioral pattern of idolizing and idealizing anyone outside of the relationship, woman. but you don't offer anything other than being not brenda. brenda has charisma. you have none. and he wanted you for that, for being a blank slate to thrust himself into.



speaking of nate, he's no better. how did this show evolve from being so about nate's perspective, to being so far outside of it? he was the voice of the show, he entered a strange world and he was our guide through it, through brenda's crazy family, through his own crazy family, and we were with him all the way. and when we thought he might die at the end of the second season, it was harrowing. but for the past three years, the perspective has slowly shifted to david. he's now the one we relate to, who feels and thinks and speaks for the audience. brenda's been there too a bit - recognizing and calling out the insanity rather than participating in it.

and yet, feeling so alienated from nate makes last week's episode hit even harder. so much left undone. so much potential unmet.

the show deals so well with the messiness of death. my favorite opening death this year is the woman who went to all her friends and finally said all the things she'd wanted to say, that she'd kept inside for years, and then just when she'd learned to find herself, bam, dead. that three minute segment summed up the entire series. brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.