Today: Mar 28, 2024

‘Everything’s Gonna Be Okay’ tackles grief and disabilities

Sofia Rositani – Reporter

“Everything’s GonnBe Okay” is a new show on Freeform and Hulu about an Australian man who must take care of his half-sisters after their father passes away from pancreatic cancer.

Both sisters are high school students: one of them autistic and the other very emotional. The show started out a little rough with cringy moments, areas of silence that felt very awkward, and a very Carrie-like scene where one of the main characters was being pelted with tampons in the middle of a history class.

The show itself does show autism in a very real way with the actress Kayla Cromer being autistic in real life. While watching one episode, the viewer gets a real idea of how a student in high school goes through their day. Cromer also does a great job of showing how a teenage girl with autism goes through normal teenage girl problems like having a crush, going out with friends, and going to school.

The show itself tackles grief in a way that is realistic. Genevieve, played by Maeve Press goes through all the stages of grief in the first episode from finding out her father is passing away, to the funeral when she is angry with the world, to finally accepting his death at the end with her siblings.

At the funeral, Cromer’s character, Matilda, showed what death is like for someone with autism. It is hard for her to go through the stages of grief and Cromer shows it well in her acting how hard it is for her to feel the grief of losing her father.

Matilda does not understand social cues so it was hard for her to be able to talk to anyone during the funeral. She seemed almost alienated away from everyone as she listened to opera. She did end up doing the eulogy because her father asked her to, and instead of it being sad, it was funny, and made the funeral less awkward and uncomfortable.

Scenes with the eldest brother Nicholas, played by Josh Thomas, who is now the guardian of Genevieve and Matilda, were very goofy. The first scene we see him in is when he is on a date with Alex, played by Adam Faison, his soon to be boyfriend. The characters are unsure about it, and Nicholas talks about his family and how his dad has had multiple girlfriends and got three different women pregnant which kind of makes Alex feel awkward. Nicholas is the first of his family to find out his father is dying and helps his father with his final work to prepare for his funeral, guardianship and making up for lost time.

The first episode was sad to me because the scenes all have a dark undertone to it as the characters are being introduced. Before watching this, the viewers know the show was about the death of their father and how it will affect them going on in their life and how they have this goofy, crazy neurotic Australian man for their guardian.

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