QAF is crack--how I got hooked

  One night in October 2015, I was reading a Kindle book I'd selected from my 7,000 plus titles on Amazon's cloud. I don't even remember the title but, one of the characters made a reference to the popularity of a tv show called QUEER AS FOLK.  I racked my brain and scanned my memory banks until I dredged up two snippets of info...British and gay...two categories of tv programs I wasn't drawn to. So, I googled QAF and...let me make this perfectly clear...in 2000, I was not living under a rock or off the grid. In my defense, I didn't watch a lot of tv and subscribing to Showtime was out of the question. As a result, I missed all the hype, hysteria, and hoopla centered on the American version of the show.

Mr. Google directed me to page after page of info for QAF...I began with the most reputable...#Wikipedia#, NOT!...and read everything QAF. It sounded good for a series that ended 10 years ago, but the proof of the pudding...as they always say... is in the eating. It was past midnight when I found QAF on NETFLIX. I kicked back and decided to take a bite of Season1, Episode. I promised myself that I would keep an open mind... if I didn't like it I would just spit it out...and get back to my reading my Ebook.

I didn't blink or breathe for the next 54 minutes. I was feeling that good ole thumpa thumpa in my bones and the only thought running through my head was...MORE...I WANT MORE!  I streamed and watched the following ten episodes that day. During the next 6.5 days, until I had inhaled all eighty plus episodes, I only left my computer screen for food, drink, and bathroom breaks!

The first time I watched the end of QAF...SEASON 5 EP 13... I was like: Is that it???!!!.  Did I blink and miss something? Surely there must be a 6th season tucked away somewhere? This can't be the end because it was unacceptable. That ending was just wrong on so many levels. I felt cheated and I needed closure.

I fell into a deep funk for several days until I stumbled on to a link that led me to QAF YOUTUBE videos. Those videos were like a lifeline and I grabbed it like a shipwrecked sailor surrounded by a school of great white sharks. I watched more than 25 videos that day. A few days later, I clicked on a link in Amazon that led me to QAF books and other memorabilia. I selected three and when they arrived a few days later, I devoured them in as many days.  I was finally sated. I was over my QAF addiction and took my life back.

Thirty days later...I felt the need for another fix...I guess I just missed my Folks. I decided to watch the series again. The first time, I inhaled all 5 seasons...over 80 episodes...from Sunday night to Friday afternoon. Sometimes...especially when I tried to pull an all-nighter during my FAQ bingefest...I was barely able to keep my eyes open. I would flatly refused to admit defeat...give in to the physical need for sleep...and shut NETFLIX down.  Therefore, I know I missed stuff.  But I was more in control this time...I paced myself...completed the seasons over a period of 2 weeks.

Once again I found myself at the very end of Ep. 5:13, the shot of Brian dancing alone. But unlike the first time, I sat through the way too many minutes of music and scrolling credits on the black screen. Then I saw it...I know that if I'd have blinked I would have missed it...a shot of most of the QAF gang dancing for a brief 2 seconds. I was all like YASSSS! 

Maybe the producers were trying to tell us that Brian would rebuild and reopen Babylon. I didn't see them in that brief shot but I was positive that Mel, Linds, and the kids would relocate back to the Pitts. Justin was also MIA from that brief scene, but surely he would find what he was looking for in The Big Apple. There was no doubt in my mind that after a few months of fame and fortune he would make his way back home to Brian, Britin, and the promise of golden gardenias.  I had hope that there was light at the end of the tunnel. But I still needed more...

A light bulb went on in my head that day.  For a show of such epic proportions surely there would be some fan fiction. I went to googling and found several goldmines of QAF literary genius...  MIDNIGHTWHISPERS, FANFICTION TV NET, and ARCHIVES OF OUR OWN...just to name a few.  There are far more QAF stories on those sites than I could read in a lifetime. For the first few weeks of 2016, I barely came up for air because I was living, eating, and breathing the QAF universe. I probably needed an intervention!

  I wrote all this to say that maybe the sucky way the show ended was a good thing. If we had gotten what we thought we wanted...a HEA...a perfect warm and fuzzy ending...absolute closure...a finite The End...would we really have been happy? I doubt that we would have all the wonderful fan fiction that have kept the show alive 15 years from the day it debuted.  Eventually, the memory of QAF would have just died a natural death. It would have been like...yeah, that show was great...NEXT!  

I remember a quote from an interview by the actor who played Emmett. He was commenting about the dedication of all the diehard fans of the QAF series. He said, "They came for the queer but they stayed for the folk."

So, maybe Cowslip knew what they were doing after all with that lame ending. I'm just saying...