Pandemic Netflix

As we are rapidly approaching the two year marker of this never ending 

pandemic, two years of isolation, interruption, and fear, some in our family experienced a positive side effect during the pre-vaccination, stay-in-your-own-house phase: Pandemic Netflix.

All through this tense period of time, with the exception of one month when everything was closed down, my daughter continued in her job as shift supervisor at Starbucks. Armed with a face shield and double mask, Jenny had to confront customers who, through either defiance or confusion, did not comply with safety protocols. (You need a mask to enter the store! Once you have your order, you must leave!) It was a very stressful situation and although she felt relatively safe, she wasn’t going to take any chances by visiting us even though she lives just seven miles away. Both my husband and I are considered high risk (he had open heart surgery in the middle of this craziness) so Jenny stayed away for 14 months. We texted and talked often, but it was difficult to be physically apart for so long.

Our favorite shared activity pre-pandemic was watching movies and binging TV shows. She would come over to the house on her day off and we would scroll through Netflix or HBO or Amazon and choose something to watch or rewatch. “Arrested Development” again? OK. “Bad Moms” looks silly but Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn are in it. Let’s do it.  Jenny pulled me into true crime dramas, something I had no interest in previously. She grew to love the Meg Ryan movies of the 1990’s. During a trip to London a few years ago, after days spent wandering the city and exploring museums and historical sites, we spent evenings in our rental apartment engrossed in “Killing Eve.”

This mother-daughter shared passion did not always exist. She is now in her early 30’s and quite delightful, but Jenny’s teenage years were not a lot of fun. We had a particularly tumultuous year when she was a sophomore in high school; lots of door slamming, silent treatment (on both of our parts) and even a middle-of-the-night sneak out, complete with pillows lined up under the covers to simulate a sleeping body. But amidst the scowls and growls, rolled eyes and tension-filled drama, there was one little glimmer of light: Monday nights with “Gilmore Girls.” In the pre-bingeing era, this weekly TV series, which ran for seven seasons, is a comedy/drama that centers on the relationship between Lorelei, a single mother who becomes pregnant at the age of sixteen and her now teenage daughter, Rory. The show follows the day-to-day lives of the two main characters, as they tackle issues both large and small. It is quirky and funny and fast-paced. The banality of it all was soothing for us at the time.

Jenny and I drank it up.

We were cocooned for one peaceful hour per week, thanks to “Gilmore Girls.” For that one hour, she seemed just as eager to communicate with me as I was with her. Even though our conversation was limited to the episode at hand, it was enough at the time and we both knew not to bring up anything more impactful. Yes, I wished our relationship was smoother on a day-to-day basis and yes, I wished I knew how to fix it, but I was willing to take what was offered. For one hour a week Jenny and I sat in harmony, sometimes laughing, sometimes questioning the plot lines or characters’ motivations, sometimes yelling at the TV screen. 

We did it together. 

The years that followed were far more harmonious and less dramatic but we still looked forward to our Monday nights together. The series ended the year Jenny went off to college. 

This “Gilmore” experience set the groundwork for our TV watching enjoyment as adults. As well as choosing what to watch together, we became adept at warning each other off shows that we considered watching on our own. 

“Oh, but I love Ricky Gervais,” she said when I told her to stay away from “Afterlife.” “He’s really good and it’s very funny but it’s way too dark for you,” I told her.

“Dexter????” Jenny squealed. “Don’t do it, Mom. Just don’t.”

Then the pandemic hit and we had to figure some stuff out. Once we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn’t see each other in person for a while (like everyone else, we had no idea just how long that would be), we hopped on the Zoom bandwagon. After a few family chats, it hit me. We could binge watch with each other on video. We set our phones up beside us with the What’sApp video open, and pull the chosen show up on our laptop or TV.

“Are you ready, Jen? Press play!”

It wasn’t the same, but it was pretty good. We continued with our true crime dramas by watching two seasons of “Mindhunter.” Who knew tracking serial killers could be so entertaining? We loved the campy performance of a wigged and eyeliner-wearing John Travolta as Robert Shapiro in “The People vs. O.J. Simpson.” I enjoyed offering up my color commentary on the events of the trial as I remembered them in the early 1990s.

We simultaneously paused as we took bathroom breaks or needed a drinks refill.

Another favorite was “Dead to Me.”  We stayed up late at night binging many episodes of this series’ two seasons, alternating between howling with laughter and gasping in surprise. “Is James Marsden too old for me?” Jenny deadpanned. “Absolutely not,” I reassured her. “We’ll work on that post-Pandemic.”

This weekly ritual helped to keep us in contact and updated on what was happening in each other’s lives. We would sometimes have to rewind when one of us went off topic, such as Jenny telling me her Zoom Trivia team could have used me last week when one of the categories was 1970s music and some band called Chicago was a topic. “Couldn’t you phone a friend?” I asked. Blank stare. We laughed and complained and gossipped. These evenings helped make the pandemic bearable for both of us.

Fully vaccinated, Jenny came to our house for the first time in 14 months mid-July 2021. After many hugs and multiple servings of BBQ salmon, we headed to the sofa to continue our re-watch of “Schitt’s Creek.” As I handed her a glass of chardonnay, Jenny looked at me and said, “Watching this way is better.”

I couldn’t agree more.