I don’t know of anything better than a certain self-deprecating humor, the likes of which Marc Maron has mastered in his podcast and further on his TV show, Maron. I binge-watched all four seasons in two days (could not stop), and read just as I slid into season 4 that the episodes shown this week would be the last ever. It did feel fitting and perfect, ending on his terms, well before some ho-hum inertia, repetition or dullness set in.
I think what gripped me about Maron is how the somewhat unusual parts, which appear in every episode, are still relatable. I was shocked to find how many times the plot points mirrored things that happened in my friends’ and acquaintances’ lives.
Cases in point:
- A colleague forced an elderly, dying hamster on another colleague and then dodged her phone calls when she was trying to call and ask him about this sickly hamster. In the end she took the hamster to a veterinarian and had to spend about 200 USD to put the hamster down humanely.
- A man I used to know was secretly living in his storage unit/garage. He built a loft inside. I did not know for a long time that he lived in a storage space, so was surprised when he drunkenly phoned me one night and reported that he had somehow fallen out of bed… onto the hood of his truck?! It sounded logistically impossible until I later learned he was sleeping in a loft above his vehicles.
I could continue this list but it’s useless. I only want to illustrate that there is something both real but unreal about Maron, and this is its perfect imperfection … and why it was utterly addictive.
(And, my god, who doesn’t love the cats?)