What works: "The Big C" is one of those rare comedies where not a scene is wasted or the dialogue doesn't feel canned. It all begins with the insert-can't-do-it-justice-flattering-adjective-here Laura Linney who infuses Cathy with a distinct pathos that's part desperate housewife, part scared little girl. She's obviously handling the news of her impending death horribly but the way her struggle manifests itself is both hysterically funny and painfully touching. She wants to go out on her terms but it's not going to happen that way.
So whether it's telling off Andrea about her bad attitude ("You can't be fat and mean Andrea... fat people are jolly for a reason, fat repels people but joy attracts them. Now I know everyone's laughing at your cruel jokes but nobody's inviting you to the prom. So you can either be fat and jolly or a skinny bitch, it's up to you.") or revealing herself too vain to go through chemotherapy ("I've always really loved my hair. I cry every time I get it cut... My nose is another story, if you told me I was going to lose my nose..."); firing back at her widowed, hoping-the-next-day-is-the-last neighbor ("Well if you think you're going to be waiting at least one more day, do your neighbors a favor and mow your fucking grass.") or being crushed that her husband and son don't want to grow up, Cathy's journey is a wonderfully rocky one, ripe with the landmarks of all our fears about dying and a life unlived.
The rest of the cast is uniformly suburb - Hickey's unabashedly uncensored is Sean is a treat, as is Basso's Adam, who's picked up all his father's bad habits and then some (the most amusing being his flair for faking life-and-death situations to scare the crap out of Cathy). It's rare when a show can trot out a half-dozen characters - some of them with only a few lines of dialogue - and make them feel so complete and real. Darlene Hunt's script, even with the aforementioned ripe-for-promos quotes, isn't showy or over the top as it manages to earn all of its moments. The same applies to Bill Condon's direction, which is refreshingly subtle and natural.
What doesn't: Not one beat.
The bottom line: Showtime is swinging for the fences once again.
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