Tiny Beautiful Things spoilers follow – including its ending.
Every now and again, a show comes into your life that you didn't realise you needed. It enters your heart, moves you in an unexpected way and leaves you a slightly altered person than you were before it.
Tiny Beautiful Things might not be that for everyone, but the Disney+ show's visceral depiction of grief and the way it explores trauma through its interconnecting past/present timeline will undoubtedly speak deeply to many.
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And really, this mirrors the work of Sugar: an online life coach and agony aunt for the anonymous.
It's a role that WandaVision's Kathryn Hahn's character Clare has fall into her lap, right at the perfect time. She had been kicked out by her husband Danny and was sleeping in one of the resident's rooms at the care home she worked at. Her relationship with her teenage daughter Rae had become fraught to say the least, and there was a sense that Clare didn't recognise herself any more.
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There was also an emptiness beneath all of this mess: Clare is still haunted by the sudden loss of her mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer when Clare was in her 20s and who died just weeks later.
Sugar's raw and philosophical essays – helping anyone from a new mother whose six month old had been rushed for brain surgery to a divorced man about to embark on a new relationship – provided connection, reflection and ultimately a way for her to work through her own pain while giving comfort to others behind a screen.
As the series unfolded we got to see into Clare and Danny's backstory – childhood sweethearts, they had reconnected after a breakup, conceived their daughter and realised their love for one another – as well as their attempts to repair their marriage through couples therapy.
But by the final frames, the fate of Danny and Clare's relationship hung in the air. We'd watched him tell her that he wanted to leave – unknowingly quoting Sugar's latest words back at her – but we also knew that Clare was on a completely different page, hoping for forgiveness and to move forward as a family.
Having confronted her formerly abusive father and allowing herself to let go of any regret that she'd been carrying about the last night of her mother's life, Clare seemed to have reached a point of acceptance within herself.
This also made way for repairing her relationship with her daughter. In the final episode, Clare orchestrated a night under the stars with Rae in a field of horses, mirroring a cherished one spent with her own mother once upon a time.
There was also one final dream sequence. Clare reimagined the night that her mother passed away, only this time she was at her bedside and she got to say a proper goodbye. We also hear the echos of Clare's mother's final word: "love".
This is the message that she now brings forward as her lasting closing memory, the one she spreads as Sugar to those most in need of hearing it, and the one that she recognises as being the most important to live by.
Watch Tiny Beautiful Things on Disney+
We know too that Clare still has love for Danny; she couldn't quite bring herself to confirm to her daughter that their marriage had ended. There was also a heavily hinted subtext surrounding Danny's relationship with the therapist that was never thoroughly explored.
In this, many watching might have been left unsatisfied by one of the central plot threads. But it was actually a fitting end for Tiny Beautiful Things.
If we are to take anything from Clare, it's that life is unpredictable, can be unjustly cruel and has a habit of changing in an instant. No matter where we departed Danny and Clare, who is to say whether that would have remained a constant?
The lack of closure speaks to Clare's journey in life and everything she has faced. And if a season two were to come along, who knows where we might pick back up with our wonderfully flawed protagonist. Although we bet she'll be making something beautiful.
Tiny Beautiful Things is available on Disney+.
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TV Editor, Digital Spy Laura has been watching television for over 30 years and professionally writing about entertainment for almost 10 of those. Previously at LOOK and now heading up the TV desk at the UK's biggest TV and movies site Digital Spy, Laura has helped steer conversations around some of the most popular shows on the box. Laura has appeared on Channel 5 News and radio to talk viewing habits and TV recommendations. As well as putting her nerd-level Buffy knowledge to good use during an IRL meet with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laura also once had afternoon tea with One Direction, has sat around the fire pit of the Love Island villa, spoken to Sir David Attenborough about the world's oceans and even interviewed Rylan from inside the Big Brother house (housemate status, forever pending).
