‘Finding Alice’ Recap: ‘Money’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Four of ‘Finding Alice’.
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It is definitely safe to say that the Acorn TV series, Finding Alice, is one of the finest shows about loss and grief to ever hit the airwaves. Because this particular show has presented how devastating the loss of a loved can be in a frank and earnest manner. One that is painfully relatable at times and full of heart as well and what’s genuinely wondrous about this series, is that it is showing no signs that it plans to deviate from this detailed examination in the slightest. As though it genuinely wants to be the authority series on such matters by showing us every painful aspect that comes with the death of someone we love and for proof that this is the case, then look no further than its next episode.
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For ‘Money’ is a tale that takes the time to look at something that we absolutely don’t discuss enough when it comes to this painful process, in that, there are financial repercussions to when someone we love dies, especially if they were the breadwinner. Because Alice is simply struggling in this tale, to the point where she cannot even put gas in her car and well… that really does hammer home the hard reality of what happens when the breadwinner is gone and sadly, being in this kind of pickle has quite the ugly impact on Alice’s psyche. Because being broke forces her to lose sleep, it drives her to beg others for money, including  Harry’s old business partner, Tanvi, and it was just painful to see Alice in this state since we know she is capable of more and deserves better.

But alas, what we often forget, is that sometimes desperation is indeed the best motivator to get us off of our duff so we can do something about our future and that’s exactly what happened here. Because Alice buckled down and tried to figure out a financial way forward and that allowed for her to discover that Harry had excess land, that might net her a small fortune, if she can get a straight answer on its health and it also helped her to discover… she had assets after all. For Harry listed her as the co-owner of the family business. Which in turn sent her over the moon with hope since she could use that title to leverage the sale of the now finished apartments and get her life back. In fact, she was so excited about that prospect, she found herself empowered to take more action in regard to some of the other problems in her life.

Which is why she sold the kitchen, to one of her friends at the recovery group, to get some immediate cash. An act that absolutely gave her some semblance of peace, and she even went so far as to scare off prospective buyers of the house to earn more time to get the money she needed to buy it. Plus, she even made a deal with the realtor to give him exclusivity with the apartments in exchange for delaying any future buyers of her home. All of which were lovely moments to see since they finally showed us the Alice we’ve been waiting for, the one that wants to live instead of grieve, and what’s wild… is that her actions might give her exactly what she wants. Since her power play with the family business… encouraged Tanvi to offer up quite the buy-out to reassert control. One that would get Alice the house and provide her with a nest egg for the future.

In the end however, this was simply another magnificent chapter in this powerful journey. One that really did a wonderful job of presenting us with the harsh reality of the financial struggles some go through when a loved one dies, and how scary that can be. But what matters more, is that this story reminds us of how resilient we can be and how necessity is indeed the mother of innovation since it inspired Alice to do so much and well, now that we’ve reached the end of this particular leg of the journey through grief and loss, it would seem that we might be getting close to a happy ending. Because Alice has quite the powerful decision to make, one that would solve all of her problems and that means there is a fair chance the next two episodes could focus on how we finally heal from loss and what comes next when we do and the only way to find out for certain, is to continue the journey and see what Alice decides. Until next time.

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