Everyone’s got trauma and everyone’s fighting secret battles no matter how successful they seem. That’s the thesis behind Boston-set melodrama A Million Little Things, which began with the suicide of successful businessman Jon Dixon (Ron Livingstone) back in 2018, and ends… well, we don’t know yet. But fans who are keen to find out will be glad to learn that the fifth and final season of A Million Little Things is now streaming on Paramount+.
Reminiscent of baby boomer classic The Big Chill, which also began with an old friend of the main characters taking an unexpected exit, A Million Little Things used Dixon’s death to introduce us to a diverse, tight-knit group of friends, who all realise that that their lives aren’t exactly what they wanted them to be.
Musician Eddie (David Giuntoli) is a recovering alcoholic and confined to a wheelchair after a car accident. Filmmaker Rome (Romany Malco) struggles with depression. His wife Regina (Christina Moses) suffered a debilitating head injury during a BLM protest. Gary (James Roday Rodriguez) and Maggie (Allison Miller) are both breast cancer survivors. Katherine (Grace Park) used to be fun but struggles to balance her career with her parenting duties. And so on.
A Million Little Things creator DJ Nash avows that the series is at least partly based on his own relationships and experiences, which frankly is a bit depressing considering the sheer amount of trauma and suffering the series’ ensemble cast have gone through over the past five seasons.
Still, “grief as drama” is rich vein to mine, as fellow tearjerker This is Us proved over six seasons. Nash has also promised us that the final season of A Million Little Things will end with another death, providing a nice bit of narrative sympathy for a series responsible for more tissue sales than any other.
