I'm writing this the evening before the Sonny Boy finale airs, surrounded by swirling fears and thoughts and hopes for how it ends. No small part of me is afraid that it will screw everything up, as so many promising shows have before it.
This fear is borne, mostly, I think, probably, of how deeply Sonny Boy's themes have resonated with me in some indefinable, profound way that I've yet to find words to express. Every episode has left me reeling – I might even say adrift, to borrow a term from the series itself.
Something in my own anxiety recognises the characters, their starting points, their struggles. I want so desperately to see them succeed, even as the definition of success and its consequences grow more vague and dangerous. I'm afraid of what it means if they can't.
I just don't want a conclusion, I think.
The profound losses the cast have experienced in the closing acts still catch in my throat when I remember them. I don't want that rawness to be tidied up and sealed with a ribbon.
In an ideal world, Sonny Boy will end with many unanswered questions about both the past and the future, but with their journey through many This Worlds having given the characters the emotional tools to deal with what they face next.