Til Death: Analysis

Season 1, Episode 6: Til Death

Analysis

Am I good friend? I once heard somebody say that the definition of a good friend is to be able to risk losing one. I wonder if the same applies to being a good brother or sister though? It is the nightmare scenario which Erica has to encounter in the build-up to Sam and Josh's wedding.

Now, I've never been to a wedding. It's not like I've ever had the opportunity. I guess I will soon enough, as friends and relatives start to get a little older. However, I doubt there are few more stressful events in life than trying to plan one.

It reminds me of going on holiday - all that planning, all that preparation, the anticipation and excitement. Ultimately though, it can be such a stressful experience that leaves you feelig like you need another holiday just to recover from the one you've just had.

The thought of having to go through a wedding for myself fills me with dread, as I suppose it does for most young guys in their 20s.

Indeed, I think my perfect woman would be the one who turned to me and suggested that we eloped rather went through the whole hoopla involved with a wedding.

Unforunately for Erica, she's unable to escape being part of her sister's wedding - one she feels is a terrible mistake. It all begins of course with the dinner the night before, and her struggling to come up with anything positive to say about Josh.

Not that you can blame her, he does seem to have a malicious sense of humour and enjoys annoying Erica at every possible opportunity. As we discover later, there's a good reason for that.

I might as well get the Ryan-bashing out of the way early on. In my discussion of the last episode, I made it clear that I can't stand Ryan, so I make no apologies for my negative stance.

Seriously though, that toast - how sickly was that. Then boasting about how quickly he wrote his speech. To top it all off, wiping away a tear as Sam makes her way up the aisle? Pull yourself together man, she's not even your sister.

Mind you, he was right about one thing - it is almost impossible to accurately judge a relationship from the outside. Appearances can be deceiving and two people you just don't think are compatible do work out, and vice versa.

We did see an awkward exchange involving the new couple and Ethan and Claire though. Ethan clearly knows Erica very well, much better than Ryan could possibly ever know her. You can see how embarrassed she is when her real views on motorbikes are exposed.

Is it just me though, or does Claire come to her rescue? I thought that was good, if surprising, of her - particularly as Erica was obviously surprised, and not pleasantly so, to find her and Ethan reconciled.

The wedding takes place at Erica's mom's house which may well be traditional in Judaism, I don't know. I guess it adds a personal touch to the occasion. I don't want to go too overboard, but Erin looks incredible in her green dress throughout this episode. Maybe that's why I don't like Ryan. Pure jealousy...

I don't know what to make of Josh in the run-up to the wedding. Of course there are the usual bad qualities, but I ask myself whether he was just a guy who got too far down the road and was afraid to turn back?

He took the easy option to just keep going with Sam, even if he didn't love her. To some extent you wonder if Sam did the same. Got married because it was easier than all the heartache and pain that would have come with breaking up.

His inability to answer Erica's questions for her speech spoke volumes though. Maybe he was lying though, as we know from her time travelling that he can remember when he first met Sam and why he did so.

Erica, with dress shortened, is then given the opportunity to convey her worries to Sam, but bottles it. You can understand why, people always do get nervous before big events, particularly life-changing ones, ones where you really are jumping off a cliff, as Dr. Tom might say.

Speaking of him, another fine performance from Michael Riley once again in this episode. While he can wind Erica up at times, he also knows how to sense the tone and his words at the end, which I'll come onto later, were perfectly pitched.

Erica actually seems pleased to see him for once when he makes her enter his office. He once again demonstrates how well read is, but he also seems to be allowing Erica to go back and in time to change the future - by breaking up Sam and Josh.

Now, I guess it was a genuine action and regret of Erica's, so it's allowed. Maybe, too, he knew that her actions weren't as telling and influential as she believed and Sam and Josh would have found their way back to one another whether she intervened or not.

He sends her back though, through another clever transition involving both of them dropping something - and she watches Sam and Josh break up again.

Dr. Tom makes a brief re-appearance in the past as a painter. I can't remember whether the radiator he is painting red is still red in the present day. Certainly in Erica and Ryan's encounter with Claire and Ethan in the present day it is white. I will keep an eye out for that in future episodes.

Sam and Erica go to Josh's to pick up her stuff - with that usual strange experience of two people who used to be so close, so personal, so warm to one another now feeling the complete opposite, so distant and cold. Amazing how it can so quickly change.

Unfortunately for them, it is the day of the blackout. Now, being in the UK, I'd never heard of this happening - not only this particularly blackout which I now know really did happen, but we don't get blackouts here. Certainly not severe ones.

They find themselves at a party hosted by a guy called Jeff who, despite the blackout being minutes old, shows incredible knowledge of all the places across the US and Canada which have been affected. Writing error there methinks.

Erica is very keen for Sam to get to know Jeff - so pushes her to dance with him. She obviously wants her to get over Josh as soon as possible but, when he turns up and joins in the party ,things are complicated.

Cue the big revelation, although one I thought was quite obvious the first time I watched the episode. It's classic teenage stuff isn't it? Be nasty to the people we like if only for attention. Or sometimes just out of anger that they don't share the same feelings.

Speaks a lot about why Josh behaves how he does around both Erica and Sam. It puts Erica in a very difficult position for all sorts of reasons - a fact not helped by Sam expressing her wish for them to be more open with one another.

I have siblings, but am not particularly close to any of them. I guess that closeness and openess is what it should be like though. Sam's speech encourages Erica to be honest with her when she returns to the present day though.

However, she's surprised she even has to be when she finds herself still at the wedding and her actions of the past having not come to anything. I guess this is the first time she goes back to try and change something and finds the present day to still be the same, so she seeks Dr. Tom for some kind of explanation.

She seems to be on a race against time to try and stop the wedding - confronting Josh, who cleverly repeats the same line about being "very drunk" when Erica questions him. It's no surprise that it is to Ethan who Erica turns for advice on what to do.

He is like a rock to her and can read when something is up with her. Note the closeness of the hug, plus how he focuses on her during the wedding and again when she walks past him down the aisle. Something not lost on Claire either.

It leads to an intense and very moving scene between Erica and Sam when she pleads for her to not marry Josh. Erica can barely stop crying and Sam's response is almost inhuman in its calmness. This episode gives Joanna a great platform to show her quality.

In the end, Erica - with her heart breaking - has to watch Sam get married, before being issued with the coldest of warnings that Sam never wants to speak to her again.

Trust that fool Ryan to come in like an idiot while Erica is crying and ask her to do her speech. Sorry, but I'm totally behind Team Ethan in Season 1, and I doubt he would have been so callous.

Ultimately, it's Dr. Tom who is on hand to lend some sage advice and comforting words to Erica as he tells her that she did her job and, most importantly, she did the right thing.

You wonder if Erica could see the flaws in Sam's relationship why others couldn't. Maybe they could but chose not to speak up and took the easy way out. Not Erica though, as Dr. Tom stresses.

He backs her decision to the hilt because she did the right thing. Not the convenient thing or usually done thing, but the right thing. The brave thing. He knows too that, had she not, she would have been left feeling guilty over whether she could have done more. Erica can do without any more regrets.

It's a great scene between the two, Dr. Tom has her back and is on her side. Credit to the writers too, with the ending lingering on those last six words: "All the difference in the world" being very effective.

All of which leads me back to my original question - am I good friend? Would I risk a friendship by telling a friend the truth? Would I choose to do the right thing over the easy thing? If it makes all the difference in the world, I'd like to think, now, I would.