I did the worst thing I’ve ever done as a husband the other day.
Em has been watching The Newsroom recently and got to the end of Season 1 last week. I had bought Season 2 on Quickflix a few years ago and was excited to show it to her. I got it up on my computer, hooked it in with the TV and pressed play.
The episode began and I started thinking back to all the storylines that happens throughout the season. As I watched the episode with Em I was remembering the unconventional way the season is written with a lot of flashbacks and slow-dripped reveals. Quite often a character or incident would be mentioned in the episode and Em would say, “Am I supposed to know what that is?” And I would say “No. It’ll get explained, it’s just setting up the rest of the season.”
This went on throughout the whole episode. As the episode started nearing the end, all these loose ends started getting tied up. I was thinking “This is so odd, we haven’t had one flashback, we’ve had all these unexplained references, and now everything is getting tied up.” Characters were declaring their love for each other, solving problems, and healing differences. I was thinking “If they keep going like this they’re not going to have anything left to show in the rest of the season.” Then about 2 minutes from the end of the episode, as everything is getting wrapped up and the biggest of all the storylines in the show drawing to a close I realised “I haven’t shown her the first episode in the series, I’ve shown the last!”
When I pressed play on the season, it played the last watched episode, not the first in the season. I was so used the the unconventional way that season 2 is structured, and had obviously forgotten many of the episodes, I hadn’t noticed we were in the season finale till the very end! I spoiled the whole season in one go!
Needless to say, I felt terrible. I let down my wife, I let down my country, I let down Aaron Sorkin, I let down humanity. How I can unwittingly spoil an entire season, and not notice I’m doing it, is beyond me.
I have a apologised to my wife, and she has forgiven me because she is wonderful. But she may never allow me to operate VOD streaming services on her behalf ever again. And who could blame her. Our marriage is mostly built on streaming TV shows, I have done a terrible thing.
Trust is built slowly and lost quickly.
That is tragically excellent.