Deadliest Catch

Short post before I head out for a(nother) weekend of paddling, this time at the Lower Youghigany River.

I will have a more detailed post about this later, but I want to get the secondary stuff out of the way now. Especially because this deserves more than one post.

What is that, you ask?

Deadliest Catch.

Now, I don’t watch TV. In fact, the only show I watch is Deadliest Catch. But this season and more specifically these last few episodes deserve some mention, because they have been incredibly touching/moving/heartbreaking/brilliant.

For those who don’t know, one of the main characters, Captain Phil Harris of the fishing boat Cornelia Marie, died this February of a pulmonary embolism. He had had one a few years earlier, and then suffered a massive stroke a week before his death. What was especially heartbreaking, however, was that it had looked to all involved in the days leading up to his death that Captain Phil would survive, and possibly recover.

I just want to write that the show did an amazing job of dealing with this sensitive and taboo subject. Never before had a television character actually died on screen. Sure we had the sitcom characters die, and sometime, when an actor passed, the on screen death of his character could be very emotional. And sometimes a real person would die in the middle of a production, forcing the show to deal with that person’s passing.

But never before had someone so real, so like us, died in front of all of us. And that was difficult to watch. Also difficult was how the older son, Josh, dealt with his father’s death, his younger brother’s drug addiction, and the completion of the fishing season. Maybe it’s because I’m an older brother that I felt so connected to Josh.

Anyways, this isn’t some stupid recrap, and the next post, which deals with something I noticed in the show won’t be so superficial. There’s a reason I’m bringing up the show, and its more meaningful, unique, etc. But I have to go paddle, so those thoughts will have to wait.

Cheers