Musings: What I Learned Watching CASUAL

I have a habit of discovering shows after they’ve run their course or after they’ve been cancelled. Amazon Prime and Netflix has too many of these cancelled shows on their streaming services. One of the miserable nights when I wanted to watch something but nothing too intense, and certainly not something that would take up an hour per episode, I stumbled across Casual.

It’s a half hour dramedy show. (Is that even a word? Drama and comedy?) Anyway, the show is about a newly divorced mom, Valerie, and her teenaged daughter, Laura, who move in with Valerie’s brother, Alex. The show is called Casual because none of them seem to be looking for serious, long term relationships. All of them are exploring the dating world. Even when they have what is real within their grasp all three of them enter it with one foot out of the door.

Which of course is a terrible way of looking at things but that is how the world works. We no longer live in a world where relationships can be defined. We are part of this new normal where hooking up is expected and easy. Serious and long-term can only happen when you’ve run out of enough options and finally decide to stick with what is in front of you. I know that’s a very cynical outlook on life. But what can you do? That’s how life is!

I watched the series finale for Casual last night. What I loved is the fact that the writers of the show didn’t go overboard giving everyone this unrealistic fairy tale ending. They left the story where the thought we needed to say goodbye to the characters. If they learned anything from their previous encounters – it is hard to tell. One thing is for sure though, they were moving onto the next chapter of their lives. That I think is beautiful.

What I genuinely loved about Casual was that they never tried to preach anything. They tried their best to keep it as true to life as possible. It is nice to know that it is okay not to be okay. That life doesn’t have to be this perfect little puzzle that fits together in the end. Maybe everything falls apart at forty. Or maybe everything comes together when you’re eighteen. The point is, no one is holding a gun to your head, forcing you to commit to a timeline. Often times, we are the ones who keep thinking that we are running out of time. Truth is, we are not. Life is what is happening to us. We can either suck it up and start enjoying whatever fleeting moments of happiness it has to offer us – or we can wallow in self-pity, and shake our fist at the Gods.

In the end, the choice is completely ours.