A Name Written in Water (The Conclusion of afterlife)

There will be spoilers herein, I mean come on! We are talking about possibly the final episode of afterlife ever!

Well the final episode came and went; and boy did it go with a (predictable but also) unexpected bang!
We all knew from finding out of Robert’s tumour in Lullaby that there was no way about it; he had to die, but strangely enough, no one really believed that it would actually happen.

I was particularly shocked to find that the beginning of the episode was exactly as to how I had imagined it in my head –which most certainly means too much drama- though I expect that with the specific subject matter it would have been impossible to deny the focus on Robert. Unfortunately that meant that the storyline of the night nurse was greatly underdeveloped; though granted, without the night nurse the episode would have probably been short of one fantastic scene with Lesley, as well as lacking the resolution that occurred close to the end.

As much as I hate Jude –sorry Anna, its not personal I swear!- she had a great deal of limelight in the episode, and her character seemed to have been healthily fleshed out compared to how she had been in the past. The same can be said for Barbara who –albeit like Jude acted extremely bitchy towards Alison- gave a great performance for the couple of minutes that she was on-screen.
It would be a crime to not mention Lesley’s heart-breaking performance, she was absolutely mesmerising throughout the whole episode! It’s difficult to mention Andrew Lincoln, who spent much of the duration lying down, but he did indeed give a heart-wrenching send off for his character, and as much as the episode left me feeling slightly numb, the acting makes it my second favourite episode, only to Mind the Bugs Bite –of course.
     
I am not entirely sure what to make of the final episode, as much as the series has had me completely enthralled, and feeling great sympathy towards the characters, I was unable to cry for them…
Which to me, makes absolutely no sense as I find myself unable to ‘get over’ the conclusion to the series, Lesley and Andrew’s acting was superb, the music amazing, and the script fantastic, but I couldn’t even shed a tear… perhaps I am broken.
Although I did not feel complete and utter –breakdown- sadness like some people… perhaps in situations where fans of the show cried, I was sitting there; my mouth agape… episode seven was really sad, but at the most I was just really shocked at all that was happening.

I must say it is a bit silly; looking on afterlife communities everyone appears to be denying Robert’s death, with the most plausible answer to the episode’s conclusion being that it was in fact a vision of Robert’s death, other possibilities including that Alison is also dead; which I must say I was under the belief that this may have been the case when I was watching it, but I prefer to be far more rational, Robert died! No way out of it.

I believe that it is safe to say I was no where near as distraught as some people; granted it bummed me out a bit and I was a little shocked that he did indeed die, but if there was one thing I was really horrified about, it was that we never got to hear what Robert had written on the manuscript for his book, I almost felt cheated when the credits rolled! Another part of the episode that I found particularly unsettling would have to be Alison’s rant at Robert, telling him that he must wake up so they can have more arguments; that just broke my heart… no tears though…

Regardless of the loss of crying on my part, I did find it a very sad finale of the series indeed. Robert was perhaps the one person to actually give a damn about Alison, and now with his departure she is pretty much alone, and if Mr Volk is going to leave it at that, then he is an awful, awful man!

I feel good that the series has come to an end, though I am not sure what to make of the prospect of a third series, I am just glad that I can now carry on leading  my life normally; waiting for Saturdays to roll around was absolute torture, especially in anticipation for this particular episode.

This whole article/rant/entry whatever you wish to call it was pretty pointless, I just wanted to tell all you guys what I thought… Not that I have ever met anyone that watches the show let alone heard of it –though saying that I was in the British Heart Foundation charity shop in Newport and two old ladies were talking, and one of them was saying how they had watched afterlife the night before; which was cute ^_^

So, um… thank you everyone that made the show possible, it was one of the best supernatural-y programmes that I have ever seen on British Television, let alone ITV!

I am absolutely dying to watch it again; I should have taped it really, at any rate I wont get to see it again for a good couple of days, which is awful; because my television caused me to miss a couple of lines every now and again; especially when Robert had woken up; he was speaking so softly I couldn’t hear a thing. Regardless of that fact; I always seem to need to view afterlife a couple of times once I have seen it, its just that good!