After Life & The Autonomy Of Grief

This is 'Viewing Room', a column by OTTplay's critic Rahul Desai, on the intersections of pop culture and life.

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I REMEMBER reviewing each of the three seasons of After Life, the Netflix series revolving around a bitter widower in a small English town. There was the fact that a famous comic, Ricky Gervais, was channelling his droll and caustic humour into the ‘dramatic’ role of a writer who’s mean to everyone. It was an uncanny platform for his talent. More importantly, I was drawn to the shapeless premise of a grieving man. Following the death of his wife from breast cancer, Gervais’ character, Tony, is defined by his sheer detachment from social hygiene. He spends his days lashing out at colleagues, friends, relatives and the strangers he interviews. He has no filter, no manners, no will to be; he decides to do and say whatever he wants. In a way, he’s so broken that nothing can break him further. Only his dog, Brandy, escapes his defensive apathy.

I wrote about the first two seasons in 2019 and 2020 eagerly, because I’d always been curious about grief. At that stage, I had never experienced the pain of losing someone close. In India, it’s also a disorientingly private and phantom condition. People feel it but don’t quite believe in expressing it because they think that, at some point, every person on this planet is destined to go through it. Grief, for many, is an inescapable consequence of living. So, like many complex emotions, I learnt about it through its fictional iterations on screen. The second season of After Life revealed that grief was repetitive and inert. It moved forward by refusing to move at all. It was more of Tony being a reduced, snarky version of himself. There was no “evolution”. No newness. No grand changes.

I reviewed the third season in early 2022. Most of the piece suggests that the show examined the main-character energy of grief. The lens zooms out and makes enough space for the other residents of Tambury. Tony discovers that his brother-in-law, Matt, was so busy caring for Tony that he didn’t have the time to grieve for his own sister. He also recognises that most other ‘quirky’ characters needed some help; their humour was a front for humanness. It’s as if everyone else is trying to lure Tony out of his depression by demanding his compassion. A conspiracy of kindness, if you may. His journey — if one can call it that — is rooted in how he finally sees the fragility of those around him. Their familiarity lets him mope around and partake in a shared stillness.

By early 2022, my closest friend had fought his cancer and gone into remission. He was more or less back on his feet. When I watched the third season, my fear of losing him had already been subsumed by a sense of relief. It showed in the writing. That’s not to say it’s hopeful, but there’s a measured vibe of optimism in how the thoughts and sentences flow. It can’t have come from someone still contemplating a future without a best friend. I probably spent most of 2021 expecting to become a Tony. But my friend’s cancer-free 2022 put it on hold. I locked away those black t-shirts and misanthropic gestures. I was also convinced I knew enough to write about it — having flirted with the idea of being bereaved before his heroic comeback. So perhaps the second-hand knowledge was backed by a semblance of experience.

When he died in early 2023, all those learnings were realised and unlearned at once. Ironically, I did every one of those things I had so presciently written about. I lashed out, found solace in loops of self-pity and rage, drowned in main-character energy and then called myself out for that energy. Only back then, they were words on paper. Now it felt like the practical application of those full-mark theory exams. It’s as if I had mugged up the chapters of the book for so long that the real-world symptoms felt new. I read those old reviews recently and wondered how I managed to treat grief as a fantastical and academic concept. Perhaps it was the anticipatory grief of losing my parents, or the romantic grief of multiple heartbreaks. It looks like it’s written by someone distant enough to be clear: sharp, clinical and surprisingly perceptive. I miss that someone. At the same time, I don’t envy that person.

22 months on, I’m still learning that grief is messy and diverse and non-linear and permanent. I’m starting to get why After Life was so important to me, an origin story of sorts. It promised no resolution. It resolved no promises either. By the end, Tony learns to be grateful, not better. He is not “cured”; he just comes to terms with the echoey inevitability of loss. He is more alive to the lives around him, but that’s not to say his own life is restored. It’s the rare show that lets a difficult truth emerge: everyone has a different book, even if the chapters sound similar. It allows for a character like Tony to normalise the despair and disparity of loss. People like him don’t move on — they don’t have to. Watching him today is reassuring because I’ve always worried whether I’m “weaker” to be so sensitive and crippled by grief. I’ve always wondered why I’ve struggled more than others. But I now know there’s no such thing as courage when it comes to coping. In fact, the concept of moving on — a sign of strength and selflessness in everyday life — is inextricably attached to a culture of denial. That is weakness. Not this.

I’ve bled a lot on paper, but I’ve noticed the reluctance to engage with my scars. Parents, friends, colleagues, readers. And maybe that’s okay. If society conditions us to inch forward silently, some must condition ourselves to stay put vocally. Maybe this freedom to collapse and disappear and agonise and hurt is the default state of being. The term ‘After Life’ implies that life itself is in the past: the threshold is crossed, and the end is more visible than the beginning. It’s not the inability to progress, it’s the ability to not digress. It sucks, and there’s no point pretending otherwise. Perhaps my anti-journey proves that grief is the inescapable consequence of loving. Tony misses his wife and everything else is pointless. His emptiness is unique because their companionship was unique. I miss my friend and I can’t imagine growing old without him. But I can’t pretend that I’m one of the millions who go through this every day. If birth can be afforded an individual language of joy and community, there’s no reason why death can’t be afforded an individual grammar of loneliness. I’m one in a million, as is every other person who aches. Everyone is the tragic and singular hero of their own afterlife. Earlier I’d write about and intellectualise it. Now I’m living — and dying — through it.

After Life is currently streaming on Netflix.