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I see the start of the series as the dissolution of the family, and over the course of the run, the Fishers try to stick together, even as on some level each of them resents it, most notably Nate, who some level blames Ruth's desire to keep him home after Nathaniel died for all the problems he experiences over the course of the show.
It's only in the last season that we start to see family getting reconstructed, not in the old style patriarchal sense, but in a new more fluid family unit. David and Keith don't have their own kid, instead they adopt and find a way to make it fit. By the end, Ruth finds a new relationship with George, where they both are independent, but still connected, and Claire gets together with someone who's supportive of her.
But as all these families are coming together, we see Nate unable to fit into the new paradigm. Much like in season three with Lisa, he finds domestic life suffocating and struggles to find an out. This comes to a head when he and Brenda find out that their child could have a mental disorder. Caring for that child would rob him of all his freedom and make it impossible for him to leave the family life.
So, when he rejects the family and goes to Maggie, even as Brenda ultimately stands by him and goes to the Quaker church. After his stroke, he's given one last chance to apologize and commit to Brenda, but he can't. As he's dying, he rejects her and that life, he cannot be tied down to family, and the last season is all about the creation of family, so he has to go.
And without him, Brenda raises a child who's not hers, and may not even be Nate's. I love the shot in the final montage of Brenda, Willa, Maya, Olivier, Margaret and Billy all gathered around the cake, they're such an odd family, but we get the feeling that things are going to work out for them. Brenda was able to change and grow into the role of mother, while Nate was never able to stop looking for what's next.
A lot of people hated Nate after what he did, and I'll admit that the scene where he rejects Brenda is brutal, but I think it's also his first really honest moment. He's tried and cannot make that kind of life work, much like his father, it's not who he is. So, at least he is true to himself.
But, for the rest of the characters, it's in the families that they've built that they find strength, and after all the loss over the course of the show, it ends with a record of the full lives that the characters have led. |
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