This may be part one, as I’m only halfway through season 4, so I’ll try to make this short and sweet. I have to eat my words in regards to Justin, I completely forgot that I quite enjoyed him this season. Though Justin bothered me a lot as a character in the first half of the series, and even though I felt Ethan and Justin were more compatible, I really enjoy Brian and Justin together.
Despite Brian being over ten years Justin’s senior, Justin is clearly the more mature one, especially when it comes to expressing emotions. Once upon a time, I had a friend who told me I was like Brian. We definitely share methods of communication and emotional expression, which is quite little. Though I relate to the way he interacts with people, I was never a big fan of his until the final two seasons. I loved when he went through cancer because he had a vulnerability we hadn’t really seen before.
There are two scenes that really hit me in regards to this two. The first is when Justin doesn’t know about Brian’s cancer. In typical Brian fashion, he pretends he is going on an impulse vacation. When Justin confronts him about not being invited, Brian yells at him, and walks away, partly in pain from being sick, but also because he is hurting Justin in hopes of driving him away. He walks back and Justin tells him if he did or said something to upset him, he didn’t mean to (as Brian has been pushing him away for at least a few days at this point.) It was really touching.
The other is after Brian kicks Justin out (upon discovering Justin knows of his cancer.) Justin comes back to fight for his relationship. This time he yells at Brian, telling him he has been a piece of shit for not telling him and for thinking he would leave. I found that touching too.
I think it was this season when I really started to relate to Brian. I have a tendency to push people away too. The closer someone tries to get, the harder I push. Also, like Brian, I have my idea of what it means to be perfect, and I don’t like to stray from it.
Also, I want to touch on the death of Uncle Vic. It is interesting to watch something years later and have it affect you differently. I watched the episode where Uncle Vic dies on Tuesday, the day after the second anniversary of my mother’s death, and it hit me harder than expected. I related so much to Debbie, as she had concerns of how her brother felt about her, as he died after a fight. My mother and I didn’t have a fight before she passed away, but I also thought later in life we would reconnect and life didn’t work that way for me. Sometimes it makes me sad if I think about that too much.
Nothing else really stood out to me so far, other than I hated that Michael told Brian he and Justin knew about the cancer, despite him telling Justin they couldn’t say anything. Though he said it was an accident, I feel he purposefully did it so Justin couldn’t say something first.
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