‘Good Grief’ Recap: ‘Tragedy Plus Time’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 203 of ‘Good Grief’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
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Sometimes life… is just unbearable. It could be due to just external stresses or internal ones, or something as simple as money woes. But one way or another, life brings us to our breaking point. Where we are ready to just run away and escape the first chance we get, and now and again, we do just that. Because when the situation is that bad, a moment of clarity and some follow-up objectivity, really does provide us calm and enough peace to figure out a way forward. Where we can return to our everyday habits and solve our problems and weather this crisis and move on. But what’s wild about this particular moment, is that sometimes… getting away from it all, doesn’t give us what we hope.

Because sometimes, the problem is so complex and so overwhelming, that all time away does is give us a moment to breathe. Where we can find enough calm to return to the problem at hand just wing it regarding how we solve it. Which can lead to messy attempts at resolution and struggles galore as we try to find clarity and direction or something to give us outright peace, and well… that particularly chaotic path to salvation is top of mind today, simply because that’s what Gwen experienced in great detail in the next episode of Good Grief on Sundance Now. For when we catch up with her in ‘Tragedy Plus Time’, she is heading to work at the Funeral Home and struggling.

After all, everything she’s ever wanted in life goal wise, hasn’t come to fruition and she hasn’t figured out a plan B or if she’s on the right path. So instead, she just plunged herself back into work at the Funeral Home and hoped for clarity, and that was no easy task either. Because she was under a ton of scrutiny from Ellie and her best efforts to stay out of trouble… didn’t quite go as planned either. Because a particularly difficult burial for a family, one that was made tough by a teenage daughter that loved drugs and wanted to be a real-life fairy, and also wanted to cause trouble for her family, ensnared Gwen in her special brand of mess, under the guise of needing kindness and guidance.

Something that Gwen genuinely wanted to provide her with. But instead, this wild and free fairy… made the place go viral courtesy of a buried alive prank that Gwen inadvertently helped to set up. A move that oddly brought no repercussions to the business, but that sure didn’t take any heat off of Gwen. She just took more lumps from her sister and that prompted her to act out further against Stu in some hilariously weird and twisted ways. Such as leaving a backside biscuit in a box for him to claim and by trying to get him fired with the most ridiculous crank call ever. But this all happened because, Gwen is just a hot mess right now, and she’s lost and unsure of how to solve her problems and she didn’t find resolution here and that’s brilliant.

Because all too often, stories such as these, work to fix these problems as quick as possible for the character or lead them in the right direction to be fixed. But sometimes, we just stay in that funk for a while and it was refreshing to see a series allow for that happen and remind us that healing and finding direction isn’t an overnight or thirty-minute solve. It takes a lot of stumbling about to get there, and you also cannot go wrong with the fact that this story hammered home that point by way of some hilarious moments. Because the Bluetooth speaker prank was just amazing, as was Beau’s artistic adventures and well, all this episode does is push us to check out the next one. So, we can see if Gwen finally finds her direction after all. Until next time.  

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