Cue the pulse to begin
As I watched the final episode of Queer As Folk, all I could think of was Zyn's comments on her blog when she saw it. "How could it end like that? I feel cheated!!" was the sentiment, if I recall correctly.
I thought the ending was okay, even if it was an abrupt pullback from equally abrupt plot changes that happened throughout the season. I never really took Brian Kinney's complete turnabout seriously and the mess of broken relationships and fresh new relationship cycles that was the finale is probably closer to what gay life really is.
Watching the characters reminisce about what far they have come, and how they really haven't changed, made me think of the long friendship that K. L. and I have had. And that last scene of Brian and Michael dancing together in the bombed-out Babylon -- that was K.L. and I in Crash in Vauxhall this summer. It's been a weird and wonderful 20 years and I have a feeling there's still plenty of drama left to be played out in our lives.
Of course, the end of any long-running series is like the end of a long journey itself and you look back on all the plot twists and developments with a kind of nostalgic wonder about how your own life changed in parallel with the story. I was still a banking reporter when I watched the graphic love scene between Brian and Justin, slightly shocked, in the very first episode. I was still 65kg when Lindsey and Melanie got married and Melanie had curly shoulder length hair. Somewhere in the midst of Ted's addiction to drugs, I think I moved into my current house. And I have fond memories of Sunday afternoons spent with C. watching one episode after another, so that we would exhaust the entire season within a couple of weeks of the DVD boxed set arriving from Amazon.
I don't care if critics called it cheesy and that the writing went to pot in the middle seasons. I don't care if people say the characters were cardboard and reduced complex issues to overly simplistic this-or-that dilemmas . And I sure as hell don't agree that the original British version was better (it was really boring, to be honest). For me, QAF was definitive in so many ways. And I will miss it. Really.
I thought the ending was okay, even if it was an abrupt pullback from equally abrupt plot changes that happened throughout the season. I never really took Brian Kinney's complete turnabout seriously and the mess of broken relationships and fresh new relationship cycles that was the finale is probably closer to what gay life really is.
Watching the characters reminisce about what far they have come, and how they really haven't changed, made me think of the long friendship that K. L. and I have had. And that last scene of Brian and Michael dancing together in the bombed-out Babylon -- that was K.L. and I in Crash in Vauxhall this summer. It's been a weird and wonderful 20 years and I have a feeling there's still plenty of drama left to be played out in our lives.
Of course, the end of any long-running series is like the end of a long journey itself and you look back on all the plot twists and developments with a kind of nostalgic wonder about how your own life changed in parallel with the story. I was still a banking reporter when I watched the graphic love scene between Brian and Justin, slightly shocked, in the very first episode. I was still 65kg when Lindsey and Melanie got married and Melanie had curly shoulder length hair. Somewhere in the midst of Ted's addiction to drugs, I think I moved into my current house. And I have fond memories of Sunday afternoons spent with C. watching one episode after another, so that we would exhaust the entire season within a couple of weeks of the DVD boxed set arriving from Amazon.
I don't care if critics called it cheesy and that the writing went to pot in the middle seasons. I don't care if people say the characters were cardboard and reduced complex issues to overly simplistic this-or-that dilemmas . And I sure as hell don't agree that the original British version was better (it was really boring, to be honest). For me, QAF was definitive in so many ways. And I will miss it. Really.
posted by rookcub at
7:17 PM
2 Comments:
you made me go back and watch it again. see lah, waste my time.
i think the season should have stopped at episode 10, after the babylon bombing, when brian says "i love you". you're right that the turnaround is unrealistic; but like all things too good to be true, it gives you hope only to snatch it back, and i hated that. i'd much rather have had no hope and no promises and always be able to imagine than to have the inevitable ending played out so starkly and unnecessarily.
but this is too much analysis for what is essentially gay porn, so.
OMG I can't believe I so innocently clicked on your "The Big Hairy Deal" link. that thing needs to come with a warning.
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