In its first season, Catastrophe kicks off with, quite literally, a bang. Rob , an American in London on business, has a one-night stand with Sharon , an Irishwoman, which results in a pregnancy she decides to keep. He then decides to stay, the pair marry and attempt to make it work.
It may not seem like a novel premise, but Catastrophe’s acute ability to tap into the emotional nuances of being an adult responsible for tiny humans all the while growing alongside your partner feels like an exposé of the soul. At the worst times, it makes the viewer feel naked; at the best, it makes you feel understood.
The show wrapped its short-lived run just weeks ago in the U.K. with a finale that could be considered its defining moment. Rob and Sharon spend much of it fighting just after his mother’s funeral. A wedge has been driven between them since the car accident, and only now are they acknowledging it. Rob tells Sharon she’s selfish and has never been there for him emotionally, especially now when he needs her the most.
That isn’t a spoiler by the way; there is no magical twist here, as the meat of the series lives not in what happens, but how these two make each other feel. It is, instead, a stunning bow on four seasons of poetry. Despite its impressive reel of humour ranging from the laugh-out-loud crude to the dark and cutting, in its very final scene, Catastrophe becomes an elegy, for how and what we sacrifice in order to survive as a family.