Years and Years Season One (spoilers!!!!!!)

Argh, there be spoilers ahead, matey!

Yesterday was a lazy afternoon at my house. In the morning I did my workout then cleaned out closets in preparation for the upcoming school year. Then we played outdoors for awhile, running through the sprinkler and jumping in the sandbox, then back to the sprinkler at Mom's insistence. The day started off nice but then became cloudy and humid, so we retreated indoors and lazed around. I haven’t binge watched anything for a long time; I’ve been spending most of my hours lately engaging with kids, in this Marie Kondo process throughout my house (at my own speed, hence the reason it’s still ongoing) and focusing on some personal goals, so the TV has been off.  Feeling slovenly, I decided I’d allow myself this afternoon everyone was feeling pretty chill to relax some myself.  I saw a pop up ad for Year and Years and it looked somewhat entertaining so I thought I’d give it a go. Fast forward to 1:00 am as I’ve finished the last episode, mouth gaping, wondering at the future of our world.

It starts out in the premise with one day that brings everyone together, then impacts in future years. I wasn’t immediately clear that first day... how the birth of Lincoln pulled them together, but the nuclear bomb later in the episode seemed to have more fallout ramifications that tied the family together. When the sirens started going off, I felt my heart racing as if it was in real time, the panic they felt I was feeling, and then related to the return to life as we know it, as it seems more and more there is some terrible disaster in the news that gives us all pause before our feeds are full once again with political debating, racy memes and puppy dog videos.  Speaking of, the puppy dog digital face implants of five or so years from now seem so nuts, but I’m sure 5-7 years ago we didn’t expect our Facebook feeds to be filled with grown woman filtered over with rolled out tongues and floppy ears so.....

The refuge piece of the show was an eye opener, as we see this playing out in real day news now, but to pair the critical scene where disaster strikes with the character who is NOT trying to escape anything, but to free a loved one was something I didn’t see coming and made me pause. And then I felt guilt at that pause, because was I feeling worse that it was a upper middle class man that had no reason to be there other than love rather than someone who truly was escaping torture or trying to find a better life for their child that drowned? Still mulling that one over, and making me see things a little differently.

There’s transgenders and transhumans, there’s affairs and deaths and a judgy grandma, there’s love and hope in the face of corrupt politics.

In the end, Grandma tells her remaining grandchildren who are now shackled in prisons of gated, governed neighborhoods and jobs that require to sacrifice integrity and loss of personal identity as the government now owns part of one of them, the man that lost a million pounds ... there’s so much going on and Grandma says you did this. All of you are to blame. When you’d rather self-checkout than meet the cashier in the eye because her station is below you, you did this. Every choice you made led to this point, when we take the easier, more convenient route or the one that requires less human interaction, here we are, prisoners in our own homes as anyone with 2 extra bedrooms is required to let others left homeless stay with them. You did this.

And in the next scenes, her remaining grandchildren rise. Each one plays their own part in unchaining themselves and overturning the corrupt government, doing Gran proud.

The last scene is bizarre and I’m still not sure what to take of it, so I’ll leave that one to you. It started to have a 6 feet under vibe mixed with... maybe Black Mirror? I’m not sure. It’s been compared to Black Mirror in a lot of what I’ve read, but the extra episodes devoted to one family over decades gives it much more, the saga of a family through loss and gain, love and hate and betrayal and the ability, through it all, to stick together as a family. I recommend this hidden gem if you haven’t seen it, and welcome any additional thoughts, especially on that last episode.