Orange Is the New Black, Mad Men, Grey’s Anatomy, and, of course, Parenthood — so much crying! Many spoilers within, and they start right away!
Don and Peggy's reconciliation on Mad Men
There were a few times I cried during Mad Men's seven-episode half-season, the beginning of the final run for this Matthew Weiner show I have loved. I cried watching the Sally and Don diner scene; I cried when Bert Cooper died, and I cried some more during his farewell musical number.
But Mad Men is, of course, the story of Don Draper (Jon Hamm); and it is also the story of Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss). The show's first day was Peggy's first day, after all. So when Don and Peggy fell out over Ted's decision to move to Los Angeles at the end of Season 6, it was hard to watch them divided. But their reconciliation in the sixth episode of Season 7, "The Strategy" — as they brainstormed for the Burger Chef account — was so meaningful that the pain was worth it. These two actors bring out the best in each other. And at this point in late-stage Mad Men, every scene is layered with more meaning than are my own personal interactions — which is both a compliment to the depths of Mad Men, and an insult to my shallow life!
Where was I? Ah, yes. In that scene, when Don says to Peggy that he "worries about a lot of things," but never about her — well, I just got choked up typing that. And then she asks him what he has to worry about, and he very honestly, and so sadly, says: "That I never did anything. And that I don't have anyone." Just like Peggy, she takes it in, and doesn't really react — because it's OK for these two to go back and forth, being honest, and then cap it off with 1) a great idea for the Burger Chef pitch and 2) a lovely coming together as they danced to, of all the deliberately on-the-nose things, "My Way." Just perfect. If the show had ended at that scene, I would have been fine with it.
Cristina's departure on Grey's Anatomy
It should go without saying that the character of Cristina Yang, played by Sandra Oh, was crucial to Grey's Anatomy. More than any of Shonda Rhimes' other Grey's creations, she embodied the group's surgical ambitions, which are so important to the show's story. Cristina was Grey's most gifted and most aggressive character — but she also learned how to be a friend. As anyone who watches Grey's, or ever watched Grey's, knows, the Cristina/Meredith relationship was the show's central one, and it demonstrated Rhimes' radical (for television and film) insistence that female friendship is a thing women need in order to live.
There has also never been an Asian-American character in pop culture like Cristina. As portrayed by Oh, she was sarcastic, highly skilled, introverted, loving, thoughtful, cold, sexual, and funny — sometimes in a single scene! She knew she didn't want to have children, had an abortion, and never wavered. In Grey's parlance, she was Meredith's person: But more importantly, she was a person, which Asian-American actors so rarely (though increasingly, I pray) get to enact.
Oh announced at the beginning of Grey's Anatomy's 10th season that it would be her last. And the show said good-bye to her over the course of the season, culminating in a wonderful finale in May in which Cristina served as the episode's narrator, and which ended with her move to Zurich. I got choked up throughout that hour, but fully and unashamedly wept during her and Meredith's (literal) last dance together (to Tegan and Sara's "Where Does the Good Go"). In dialogue, the scene invokes a number of references to insane Grey's plots — plane crashes, bombs, gunmen, etc. But Cristina leaves Meredith with some advice about her marriage, and the beauty of what she says to her friend coupled with how Oh delivers it is something that now runs through my head often: "You are a gifted surgeon with an extraordinary mind. Don't let what he wants eclipse what you need. He's very dreamy. But he is not the sun. You are."
Also, they don't hug. Love that.
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