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GETTING ON Series Finale: “Reduced To Eating Boiled Magazines and Book Paste”

by Jef Dinsmore
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GettingOnLogo_S3-300x86One of my first posts ever for this site talked about ‘the little shows’ and how I was going to pay attention to them because I knew everyone else would focus of the bigger series that HBO has aired over the years. GETTING ON was certainly one of those ‘little shows.’ It was acclaimed content but not high profile content. My reviews of the entire series in some small way helped promote the series as one that was just as good as GIRLS or VEEP. I was glad of being the sole reviewer and a loyal follower of this series. So, with that, let’s get on with the final review.

One of my first posts ever for this site talked about ‘the little shows’ and how I was going to pay attention to them because I knew everyone else would focus of the bigger sGettingOn_cast-300x300eries that HBO has aired over the years. GETTING ON was certainly one of those ‘little shows.’ It was acclaimed content but not high profile content. My reviews of the entire series in some small way helped promote the series as one that was just as good as GIRLS or VEEP. I was glad of being the sole reviewer and a loyal follower of this series. (Catch up with last week’s here & all the reviews here.) So, with that, let’s get on with the final review.

This episode finds our cast just as we’d expect them to be. We aren’t being thrown for a loop with some unexpected turn-around for our characters; well there is one exception. Our leads are all true to form. A breakdown follows:

— Dr. Jenna James still puts her foot in her forever babbling mouth (this finale’s title is found in the middle of one of those rants) and then scrambles to get out of the mess she put herself in.

— Nurse Forchette is still up to her antics, no matter how detrimental they are to her, as she continues to obtain attention, validation and sympathy from everyone but her husband.

— Nurse Ortley is still fighting for what is best. She fights the hardest for her job, her care unit and her patients. She will not relent on the good fight even when she is begged to do so.

— Supervisor De La Serda is still his wishy-washy & ineffective self. I never could tell if that was the intent of the writers to make him that way or that was just my impression of him. Even when the Billy Barnes unit is on fire he ineffectively tries to abate the flames and suffers a panic attack. I mean picture Dawn, DiDi and Marguerite trying to drag a hyperventilating Patsy to safety on a blanket. Oh, brother.

It was all pathetic, funny and truly characteristic of them as they carried this story to its conclusion. One missed opportunity here was with Marguerite they did drop some character development for her in this last one, when they had the chance to have fleshed it out much earlier. There is a lot of downtime on the ward as it closes down with only a few patients remaining. Part of the downtime includes a sharing circle where the staff and let off steam and talk about their lives. Dawn runs with that of course, but Marguerite surprises them all by confessing that she is a Transgender. Again, they could have put more meat into the character if that had been revealed long ago. That serves as my only complaint to the episode.

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So we have the unit in the midst of shutting down, but DiDi is still fighting her best as Union representative. She organizes a picket line, defies everyone’s wishes to give it up and even calls out Dr. Strickland for his role in Billy Barnes’ demise. Dr. James is the one who finally with heartfelt emotions finally convinces to cease. Oh, but the fire that breaks out helps to stop her too.

Dawn is responsible for accidently starting a fire when the microwave blows up and the crazy emergency evacuation ensues. That definitely ends any chances of the Unit continuing. By episode’s end we also learn that Patsy is attracted to Dr. Rudd who, in his sexual addiction, leads Patsy on. Are we to think something is to become of that? We also find out that a Sister Lilly Claire is offering jobs at a Catholic hospital for anyone interested and it turns out they all are so they will still be working together elsewhere. The cool thing for me about that scene was the guest actress as the Sister. It was Rita Moreno, who also played Sister Peter Marie on HBO’s OZ years ago. Right in the middle of this episode I had flashbacks to OZ because Rita was wearing the same type of clothes and roles in both!   

But we are still left with one dilemma to solve.  Jenna has promised Dawn one of her kidneys and the compatibility is confirmed. Jenna tries to get out of it, but cannot. Even after it is learned that Dawn was faking her bad results and binge eating to crash her numbers intentionally we find that Jenna will still donate. At least we know they are all GETTING ON and we thank them!

 

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1 comment

billy December 19, 2015 - 6:54 am

one of the top shows on tv; sad to see it go

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