What I’m Watching: The Big C (Season Premiere)

The Big C: Season 2, Episode 1 “Losing Patients” (B+)

This show begins its second season in more ways than one, picking up where last year left off and also starting into the fall of Cathy’s prescribed year to live. Because hardly any time at all has passed since we last left these characters, it’s easy to pick up with them. A few things have certainly changed, of course, and they’re very relevant to how the show operates at this point. Paul and Adam are now both fully aware of Cathy’s cancer, and, thanks to a drugged dog and some pent-up frustration on Cathy’s part, so does Rebecca, and, by extension, Sean. It’s somewhat of a shame that we don’t get to see Sean’s initial reaction to the news, though we did actually get the opportunity to do that back in season one when he got really sad and then she told him that she was only kidding. It’s much more productive for the show’s purposes to have Sean hate Cathy because she didn’t share her condition with him. Cathy may have told people, but she’s still just as lonely as she ever was, haunted by Marlene’s very obnoxious ghost. I enjoyed seeing Paul confront Todd about kissing Cathy, and it’s good that Todd called to get Cathy an appointment, though you have to admire the way that she stormed into that office posing as a pharmaceutical rep, ready to get that appointment all on her own. This should be a good season, different from the first but hopeful and individualistic in its own way.