Real Life Doesn’t Come with a Nice, Tidy Bow on Top!

My family dysfunction would make great TV

Photo by on

Everyone loves a happy ending, right?

No, not that kind (can’t blame you for going there, though).

I’m talking about what we see in TV shows and movies, especially regarding family strife. Sometimes, it’s between siblings; other times, it’s between parent and child. Either way, it almost always defaults to some kind of resolution, usually with a “happy ending” for all concerned. Yay.

Here’s an example (among many) from “The Good Doctor,” which my wife and I are partway through watching. A woman arrives at the hospital with breathing issues and finds that one of her lungs is so damaged that it needs to be replaced — she’ll die if they can’t find a donor. She figures she should tell her son, whom she abandoned 17 years ago at age 12.

Ultimately, he somehow shows up at the hospital, they calmly exchange feelings about what happened, and he decides to donate one of his lobes to her in a live transplant, even though it’ll impact his health for the rest of his life. “I love you, Mom.” “I love you, too, son — I promise I’ll do better.”

There, that put a nice bow on 17 years of abandonment. I think I threw up a little in my mouth.