Nothing but the Dark

 

I've written about this episode in the past, but watching it yet again, I remembered the effect of it as a teenager in the 90s when it would come on in marathons. Some day I need to pull out my VHS recordings and find them. It would be cool to see if they still play, perhaps even taking some of the footage for posterity. But I think the message remains very potent. That most of us fear death. There is the romantic view of some peaceful afterlife, some ease of passing that allows us something less scary, less frightening that awaits...some cherubic Redford as Mr. Death instead of business suit, Murray Hamilton, with his notebook, leading us towards anything but the agonies of this life. I just lost an aunt who was in abject misery, having endured fractured back issues, oxygen failing, stomach paralysis, and heart out of rhythm. My mother had to be there for her since last November, because she was a widow without any children. And seeing Cooper's fear-quivering Wanda living in some basement of a condemned building, afraid of what waits her, it sure sinks in that our time here isn't long really. We all face the possibility that Death might not take his time with us as it does with Wanda. RG Armstrong who has always looked the same, no matter the age, as the building contractor set to demolish all the tenements in Wanda's district, tells her of his job, how the old must go so the new can replace them is obviously on the nose but written in a way to specify Wanda's new digs won't be in some new building built by whoever has hired Armstrong to "clear the way".