I just want to start by saying that if you don’t know the show ‘Trailer Park Boys’, you’re best off to skip this read.

I was introduced to the franchise years back when someone married into the family smugly leaned over to me and saidhe knew of a show ‘I would just love’. When he told me the name I wasn’t sure if I should be insulted, or rather, recognize an insult or not. Months later, while combing through my satellite channels I saw the show and proceeded to watch the episode, ‘Never Trust A Man With No Shirt On’, from season 2, episode 6. I then followed the show from its run on Showcase, a Canadian tv channel, watched all the movies and then it’s later run after the they moved to Netflix.

I was hooked. I loved it. The show centred the main characters committing super petty crimes and going to jail, while they smoked, drank and fought their way between stints in prison. The engineered simplicity and idiocy were so finely tuned that everything seemed natural and you could almost believe these were real people. The good intentions expressed in bad deeds is a running theme throughout all twelve seasons and four movies and however many specials they made, as well as the animated series and live shows, one of which I got to see one winter in Montreal, high as fuck. I still give the show a watch every year or so and it’s hands down my favourite live-action tv series to date and has given me the most laughs.

What you’re about to read is a dream I had the other night, on August 26, 2020. It starts with me watching season 13, which has been hyped for some time leading up to it to be the ‘definitive conclusion’. I can’t remember the overall arch of the season, I just knew that while it kept the usual flavour, there was an untapped element brewed into the final episodes: severity. I’d been laughing but there was an overabundance of tension throughout that made me realize early on that the boys were going to face some real consequences this time.

I focused in on the final act of the final episode, where Julian and Cyrus are fighting in the park, which has been AGAIN emptied by a gunfight. Julian is shot in the shoulder and is getting the shit kicked out of him. But it’s not the usual headlock-battle that made their usual scraps so foolish and light-hearted. They were clearly hurt. Cyrus knocks Julian out and when he wakes up, he’s being dragged by wrists bound in zip ties to a picnic table between several trailers where he’s told it’s time to finish things once and for all. Their (dirty) dance had gone on long enough and the grudges had come to a head no one thought possible, having escalated so quickly by the circumstances of the final season.

Cyrus pulls his gun and doesn’t release the safety, because it’s always off, and proceeds to line it up for a kill shot. Ricky appears suddenly, houndstooth shirt and black track pants as usual, steps into the table and shoots downward between Cyrus’ shoulders, firing twice without hesitation. While there’s no exit wound, he crumbles to the seat and spits out a massive amount of blood and bits so thick it’s unmistakably not clots, but meat. He groans and slumps over, dead.

Ricky uses his lighter to melt the zip ties, burning his fingers and swearing up a storm and while Julian collects himself, opens a bag he entered the scene carrying opposite the hand holding the gun. He proceeds to take out a batch of donairs, offering one to Julian and prompting him to hurry as police sirens approach because he wants to have his last free meal, “With his good old friend.” It’s happened. The fate Jim Lahey always feared for the man he assumed was his son most of his life has come to fruition. The scene fades to black and white as a callback to the very first independent movie from the franchise. The perspective rises to where the intro for the show always begins. The park is never the same.

After this, and after I woke up too, I wasn’t sure what to think of the turn of events. Finality was definitely established and I can’t help but wonder if a good ending was too much to ask for. But what end is there for characters who are so doomed to repeat themselves? Every cycle is destined to be broken as the one absolute rule of our universe is that entropy always wins be it through violence or decay. It was just a show and out of my control, but can I be mad? Should I? The next part of the dream was me being tortured by the fact that I had binged the new season first and couldn’t talk about it to any of my friends who were fellow fans about it. Like any good entertainment, and like the seasons before it, the conclusion stuck with me well after, hell, we’ll after I realized it was all in my head when I woke up!

Of course I don’t want the series to end like that but somewhere in the multiverse (if you believe in that sort of thing), it does. What I really want is the return of Ray and other classic characters that have left the show, a perfect reunion with a 4th wall-breaking homage and acknowledgement of the life and times of both Jim Lahey and John Dunsworth. I’d like the boys to retire as ‘thousandaires” and for al the grudges to be settled as valued rivalries that end with the closest thing to whatever Sunnyvale could ever call peace.

But hey, it was just a dream of a show, layers away from anything that can affect my actual life, so the best I can do is write it down and scar as many fans of the show as possible!