Uncle Julius suffered a terrible injury at the hands of a car crash to leave season 2 of Survivor’s Remorse on an excruciating cliffhanger. Fans wondered about his fate as they eagerly anticipated the season 3 premiere.
SPOILERS AHEAD
We get our answers and unfortunately the worst has occurred. For Cam Calloway and his family, they prepare for an emotional goodbye in episodes 301 “The Night Of The Crash” and 302 “The Ritual”
The five stages of grief illustrate the steps we encounter following a death of a loved one, and for the Calloways, these stages are on full display.
Denial
Denial presented itself in new ways this episode. No one wants to believe that Uncle J died. Cam implored him to get up when he sees Julius laying on the table motionless. They were also in denial about the cause of the accident. Knowing that Julius was a wild boy, they couldn’t consider that he had any fault in the accident. M-Chuck and Missy beg Reggie to scrutinize the truck driver for possible sleep deprivation or drunk driving. When Reggie finds out that Julius ran the red light, was smoking weed and didn’t wear a seatbelt, the harsh reality that Julius died in part due to his own negligence becomes a tough, but realistic pill to swallow.
Bargaining
The family debates whether the outwardly secular Uncle Julius had latent beliefs in a high power. They recover a St. Francis prayer card and argue over how to properly memorialize him. Reggie says Julius believed in practical things like Women, Weed and Weather, while Cam and Cassie think that he did believe but didn’t speak on it much. They even debate whether his last words “I wish I believed in God”, meant that he repented for denying religion on wished he could find comfort in a higher power, that he didn’t have faith existed. They decide to have a Church funeral and bury Julius in Atlanta.
Anger
You can’t tell anyone how they should feel, but anger commences the grieving process. The anger expressed can be warranted, as in the case of the nurse who asked Cam for a picture after he just got finished identifying his uncle, or misplaced like Jim Flaherty excoriating Dr. Harcourt and Dr. Lang for delivering the tragic news in a blunt, inhumane manner. We can reflect on those moments later on, as Flaherty did when realizing that Dr. Lang was a student who didn’t want to give that news and tried the best she could. Shout out to the True Blood reunion onscreen between Flaherty (Chris Bauer “Andy Bellefleur”) and Dr. Harcourt (Sam “Sam Merlotte” Trammell)! Cam tried to calm Reggie down, as even in his shocked state he could tell that the nurses just made a mistake, but that didn’t help. Cassie needed to be her extra blunt self in order to cope, but even her durable exterior crumbled when it continuously hit her that her brother perished.
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Photo: Starz
