Can we please talk about S15 finale of IASIP?
I am dying to talk about the S15 finale.
Because I sobbed my fucking eyes out. Charlie, the literal wretch, was lost. But he’s found a part of himself and that’s incredible.
Charlie spent his whole life being neglected; abandoned by his dad, sidelined by his mum, molested by Uncle Jack and generally kicked about as the dirt grub everyone sees him as including his best friends. But yet, he is the heart of the gang, and it would not work without him. We know he is the only one with sincere — if misguided — compassion. He’s the only one not always motivated by self interest. And when he is, he’s a fucking genius.
Charlie still dutifully watches for his mum, accepts his friends weird abuse with good humour (mostly) and patiently guides Frank through the squalor and chaos they have decided to nest in. There is a tragedy to Charlie and his ever loving attitude that means when we finally learn that he has a relatively normal relative in his Irish father Shelly Kelly, there’s a tiny kernel of hope that Charlie may achieve some sort of salvation and escape the hellpit of Paddy’s Pub and let his wounds heal.
But alas his father dies off screen, of course typically the gang deal with it as they deal with anything, in a fabulously callous and self interested way. Charlie on the other hand, bears a burden that has befallen him without any wrongdoing on his part. And as always, he patiently attempts to fulfil someone else’s wish — someone who Charlie should have said a big old fuck you to much sooner. He has no obligation to the burial wishes of his dead dad but still he tries.
And this is where I break down. Charlie, alone on a fucking mountain, Amazing Grace playing, and we feel everything he feels. All that neglect, misery, pain — it’s etched across his rain slicked, dirt covered face.
“I’m sorry dad. I can’t do it.” He apologises to the person who has arguably hurt Charlie the most by not being there to protect him from all the hurt. But then he realises something very important.
“You weren’t there! And I needed you there…”
“I’m glad your dead.”
“Now I don’t have to spend the rest of my life waiting for you to pick me up.”
Charlie has found part of himself, all on his own. He has saved himself, the wretch he is. His realisations in this moment set him free. They set him free of this horrible task of carrying the corpse but it also relieves him of the symbolic chains he’s been wrapped in. In this moment Charlie Kelly is the most real and grounded and human as any of us, and can maybe begin to heal some of the deep sadness within him.
And to top it off, to prove he’s the only one who can solicit these emotions, the gang come for him. Frank is his real father, the gang are his real family, and only for Charlie would they hold such love — the heart of the gang.
There is something so cathartic in this scene and I just fall apart every time I watch it.
Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see
