hello baby girl

I've completed another series for my "return to things I read/watched in the early/mid-2000s and never finished" bingo! This time it's USA's Monk, which I was never fannish about, per se, but feels iconic of the era as a San Francisco-based cop procedural that my dad never understood why we wanted to watch, because he considered it an "old person show." I watched the first few seasons and then a smattering of odd episodes from the seasons thereafter. Having now watched all 8 seasons this summer:

1) I feel completely correct in my decision to have not kept up with the series, because the point I stopped genuinely enjoying it was the point at which I stopped the first go-round; but

2) I also feel good about having seen it through. It feels complete to me, and it was a very pleasant companion to have while housecleaning, cooking, etc.

It's so funny, though, because in the last episode the main character meets the long-lost daughter of his deceased wife (that is, her daughter from a previous relationship), and he understandably has a big emotional reaction, because it's like seeing a part of his wife he'd never known while she was alive.

I had a similar feeling, not because I was emotionally invested in the actual context but because OH NO THAT'S MY BABY GIRL ALONA TAL, JO HARVELL. <33333 😭

So Monk and I were in a very similar emotional place, even though it was for different reasons, which honestly is an experience I recommend and that alone makes me glad I saw it through to the end. FOR MY METATEXTUAL JO HARVELL MOMENT. AAH.