The Big C - season three

Season three continued season two’s trend of being way less depressing than the first season. We approve. When the season started, we were like, “What?!! Paul’s not dead? Ugh.” We never really liked him and we always love when Kathy flirts with someone new. Cathy is looking gooood this season. Please, God, let us look like Laura Linney when we are 48. Or Ern’s 48-year-old mom. That’d be good too. Lucky bitches. We liked when Paul shocked his heart for the first time though, and we guess it would have been too much of a bummer if Cathy and Adam spent the season dealing with major grief over to Paul’s death. The third season started out happily. We teared up in the first episode when Cathy got the news that her tumors were shrinking and some were gone.

We’ve always dreamed of finding a bar with cool strangers who just want to hang out (as opposed to the creepers who want to hit on us and the people who just keep to themselves). We loved the black Jesus picture on Andrea's wall. We like that she is still on the show, but we figured she had to stop with the Ababu stuff right away.  We completely forgot about the affairs Paul and Cathy had. This show is entertaining, but it’s not easy to remember what happens on it year-to-year. We’d like to see Paul’s blog to recap.

We love that Adam was acting like a real human in the first episode, but he was soon back to his angry, cold self. We were only on his side when his mom got drunk and confessed all her secrets in front of Adam’s classmates. At first, we enjoyed that Adam’s Bible group was down-to-Earth and not the usual cliché attack on religious teens. We kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and the kids to end up crazy, because most TV Christians do, and of course it happened. The Big C stole the Christian anal sex bit from Awkward. As far as we know, that’s not what Christian girls do when they are saving their hymens. If they were going to be that technical, they’d just stick with oral. But it’s actually possible to not have sex and just turn a guy down. Blue balls don’t kill them.

And the implication that religion beliefs aren’t smart? Ugh, tell that to every intelligent religious person who ever lived. There are a lot. If you require a list, we’ll give it to you, but wow, you shouldn’t require one. What, does TV think that it can make religion seem deeply uncool and then everyone will stop believing in God? Whatever. If it were any other religion, group, or culture, it wouldn’t be attacked like this. You know that we’re not just defending Christianity because that’s closest to our own beliefs. We’ve defended other groups on here. You get unfairly attacked, you get defended on this blog. That’s the way it is.

This is the season where Cathy acted super crazy. We loved it, but we were irritated with her at the same time. Her alter ego, Alexis, was great, down to the tattoo (hating tattoos is "provincial" haha). Cathy also tagged the living room, decided to adopt a kid, posed as a stewardess, pretended to take pilot lessons, and stole stationary from her doctor. Shawn is always a show highlight, and this season is no exception. He gets two jobs, one as a gay phone sex operator and the other as a school janitor. We ship him and Andrea. Does anyone else?

Seeing Susan Sarandon as a guru was a real treat, even if she overstayed her welcome a little with her gross, judgmental, flaky character. Why on Earth would she ever want to have sex with Paul? GROSS. We also liked Victor Garber as the gay phone sex operator Shawn supplanted. Why is he always gay on Showtime? Hahaha. Shawn is the superior operator. It’s all about being shameless.

The adoption storyline came out of left field for us. Yeah, they need another baby. /sarcasm. Because Adam turned out to be such a GEM. It’s a bad idea, and it’s not about a baby. Cathy feels like if she has a baby, she has to be alive to raise it. A tad selfish, but understandable. At least it brought us Meryl Streep’s daughter who we loved on Off the Map. We liked it a lot better than the plotline where Paul rubbed noses with famous people. Paul’s foray into motivational speaking was painful to watch. He’s good when he’s real though. That whole plotline just made this feel like a different, quirkier show, and we liked the show’s tone the way it was.

Another good guest star was Brian D’Arcy James from Broadway and Smash as the gay guy who comes to meet Shawn. We still haven’t gotten to hear him sing on TV though and WHY ELSE would you have him? It’s not like he’s hot. It’s the voice that makes him, not the Devil’s threesome abilities. Throuples are going to be the new thing. That was hilarious.

We can’t believe Adam pissed all over the storage locker gifts. That was the best part of season one and it made us cry hard. Adam has TAINTED it. Despite hating him, we were embarrassed for Adam when his mother stole the car. We loved when she stole the car though. So many mixed feelings! We started suspecting baby-daddy Dave was trying to leech money from Cathy in the seventh episode, but we had no idea that Maxine wasn’t actually pregnant. So wrong! Someone should have told them, like Andrea said, “You don’t want to get on the wrong side of Mrs. J.” The Big C ripped off more teen entertainment by having Susan Sarandon get hit by a bus, like Regina George before her. Thank God though. It was time.

We didn’t feel bad for Paul at all when he discovered the bar. We get it. Cathy needs it. Hell, WE need something like that, and we aren’t even dying of cancer. We usually hate when TV shows have their finales set on vacation, because it feels lazy and hardly ever drives the plot. But this wasn’t lazy at all. We liked that Andrea realized her name and new identity were stupid. We loved when Cathy realized that she was unhappy. We hope she ditches Paul and her son completely and finds some peace before she dies. The Angel boat stuff was cute. We were shocked when she swam back to him. What does she think she’s going to do? We guess we’ll see next year.

Season grade: B+