Everwood is ending

Certainly this has been the most important television show to my life. Tonight, they aired the season finale, and next week will be a two-hour series finale, and I am sitting here crying about it and then laughing at myself for crying about it.

The show started not long before Becky was diagnosed with cancer, and we were watching it from the very first night. The first season remains the best, I think. Certainly it is the season that affects me the most watching Andy deal with the pain of widowhood and grow into being a parent.

My guess is that in the finale, all of the couples will get together. The episode tonight certainly sets the table for a reconciliation for Bright and Hannah, and Amy admitting that Ephraim is her soul mate. But the story for me has never been mostly about the teenagers. For me, this whole series is a story about Andy first and foremost, and the question is whether he and Nina will get together. They have certainly hinted at it from the beginning, and I am torn as to whether I want it to happen or not. I know that it hit me like a ton of bricks when Irv finished his novel with Andy ending up alone. The thought of the series ending that way too would be far worse. And yet, and yet, ......

I know that the series can't continue without Irv. Short of Andy and Ephraim, he was the most indispensible character to the story. As the narrator, he provided such context and conscience to the story. I expect the final episode next week to be as stunningly brilliant as the first one that opened this series up in 2002. And I know that when it is over, I will have a feeling of emptiness inside of me that is ridiculous to be attributed to a television show, and yet I will.