Cathy Swims and Runs in Episode 6, Season 2 of the Big C
I almost liked the latest installment of the Big C. Cathy swims, for starters. I could relate.
She’s wearing goggles, no less. That’s universal “code” for seriousness about swimming, or acting. She swims well and pretty fast. Within seconds she befriends the competitive girl-swimmer in the next lane and, wouldn’t you know it, the girl’s team needs a new coach.
Cathy, who is undergoing treatment for Stage IV melanoma in a clinical trial about which the audience knows 0, steps in to coach the team. She meets some resistance from parents who worry about her condition and associated unreliability. She alludes, vaguely, to her rights as a cancer patient and firmly vows to lead the team.
“I can do it” is this episode’s message.
After some ups and downs, and after the viewer suffers from the director’s crude decision to mix the patient’s possibly having a pelvic rash as a side effect with her learning that she has crabs, aka pubic lice, Cathy goes running with the swim team members.
How often can a metastatic cancer patient in the midst of serious systemic (meaning non-surgical, not focused radiation or minor) and non-hormonal cancer treatment run with athletes 25 years younger? Only on TV, or in very, very exceptional cases.
Some basics, please: How about feeling tired? Or a relevant rash?
A dose of reality might help this TV program that’s said to be about cancer, or life with cancer.
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