The web series, focusing on a grief support group, is back for a second series
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE BY OUTFLIX
It is a sad fact of life that everyone experiences grief. We all lose someone we love and have to find a way to continue existing without them. For characters of Good Grief, a web series on Outflix, this is made a little easier by a grief support group. Abigail (Mary-Colin Chisholm) has lost her wife, Quinn (Katerina Bakolias) has lost her husband and the two, despite the different ways they handle grief, form an unlikely friendship.
The show is back for a second series, with Lyndie Greenwood joining as the daughter of Abigail’s late wife. The new season sees all three continue to cope with their grief, while the bar Abigail runs comes under attack by far-right groups, protesting the drag performances that take place there.
The wonderful cast spoke to DIVA about the show…
Mary-Colin and Lyndie, why did you want to be in Good Grief season two?
Mary-Colin: I was in season one and it was probably the best filming experience I’ve ever had. The most comfortable, the most supportive and just the best, warm-hearted, cheerful place to be. And then I just love the storylines and I love my character. They are like Coronation Street or Cheers, but it’s queer. Queer Cheers! You could live with these characters forever. You just want to see them through their lives.
Lyndie: I met Amy Treffery, the co-creator, on a Hallmark movie and we just clicked. I just fell in love with them immediately. And I think maybe they felt the same.
Katerina: They did! They told me that. They called me during the filming of that movie.
Lyndie: Yeah, it was just kind of this spark. I want to be in their life forever. And there was also just a creative pull for us. And they asked me if I would do this little tiny show, really self-deprecatingly, and sent me all the season one. And I watched it and was like, “Absolutely”.
I think you could watch these characters forever because they’re so relatable. Unfortunately, everyone is going to experience grief, and yet, we don’t always see that in the media. Why is that?
Katerina: It’s uncomfortable. Grief is a scary thing to think about and society tells us that when we experience grief, you have a finite amount of time when you’re allowed to grieve. And then you have to get over it and you have to get back to your life and move on.
But anybody that’s actually experienced grief, and there’s all different kinds of grief that you can experience, that it’s not a thing that really goes away. It’s just a thing that kind of walks beside you and you get used to its presence. And it becomes maybe not as prevalent in your day-to-day. But it’s always there.
How important was it to you all that Abigail’s grief, which focuses on her late wife, wasn’t portrayed as anything different to heterosexual grief?
Katerina: Amy and I always say, we naturally write queer characters because we’re queer. But the fact is that the characters being queer is genuinely the least interesting thing about them. It’s just one small facet.
Mary-Colin: It’s funny, I was speaking of this earlier. At my age, I’m 68 now, I feel like the world is going backwards. It’s becoming meaner and more hateful, and it’s wanting to push people into categories so they can become scapegoats. In my 20s, I was sort of the hippie going into the punk generation. And we just lived by “All love is love”. That seems to have slid backwards. So it’s really nice to do a show where love is love. People are people. And Abigail’s grief is never judged by anyone as less than. Even though that may be in the macro world or in the majority opinion, it’s certainly not in this show.
This season also dives a lot more into the protests outside of the bar and how that is affecting the drag performers inside. What was it like tackling this topic?
Mary-Colin: This is a good story because it is funny, but oh, it comes out of some intensity. So there’s kind of one of the culminations when the very uptight right, basically a Christian anti-queer group, anti-drag group, is protesting repeatedly in front of the bar and we can’t get rid of them. The drag queens rally their world and this incredible, beautiful human bouquet of drag blossoming creatures forms and overwhelms the hate.
Anyway, to film that, all the amazing drag performers in Halifax came out on a grey day and they were all in full regalia. They were gorgeous and there were a lot of them. And as they were passing on the sidewalk, cars were slowing down. And then one guy in a truck was so mad that he was yelling. And he was so distracted that he rammed his truck into a parked car and crumpled his fender. The goddess of drag has her own instant karma, you know.
What do you hope people take away from season two?
Katerina: I hope it brings people hope. I hope people watch it and feel seen and know that there is a community out there that loves them and is so happy that they are here and that they exist.
Mary-Colin: Well, I hope they think I’m beautiful and, you know, probably get some dates out of it! But, I just hope that people realise everybody’s life is full and rich.
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