parallel irresolutions

Today though I was too ill to work, I was healthy enough to watch the final episode of Freaks and Geeks. My feelings are now most uncomfortably mixed. Part of me is still exhilarated: I have, after all, been following a great adventure. At the same, though, there is loss: my new character friends are forever gone--I will never hear from them again--I will never know what became of them.

There is almost too much to praise in Freaks and Geeks: the writing is excellent, the acting superb; and to my private satisfaction the show evokes both the same 80s suburban Michigan I grew up in, and the same two cliques I mostly then moved with. (To complete the regression, while writing this post I am wearing sweats and consuming my third successive bowl of Corn Chex.)

Most impressive to me is how well, even how ingeniously, the Lindsay and Sam plotlines intertwine. In some episodes the points of contact are subtle and thematic, in others they're brash and literal; but in each the Weir stories contrast, compliment, or unexpectedly complete one another, and often they manage to do all three at the same time.

The combined effect of these interactions is tremendous. Emotions are blended, resolutions few and pointedly unconvincing; and so the series delves increasingly into the feelings between feelings, which to my mind is a mark of great art.

In the final scenes Lindsay says goodbye to her family and boards a bus. She calls out to her mother, as if she has something important to say, but then manages only another goodbye. Sometime later she sneaks off into a hippie wagon, and so we understand that she's lied to her parents, presumably after having taken their money, and will now follow the Grateful Dead for nine days...Part thrilling escape, part conscious betrayal, Lindsay's decision leaves the viewer at once amused and uncomfortable. The emotions are strong and contradictory here, and while part of me wishes that Freaks and Geeks had a thousand more episodes, I couldn't imagine a more suitable ending.