'The Big C' - Season 1, Episode 3 Recap (VIDEO)

('The Big C' - 'There's No C in Team')

After watching this week's episode of 'The Big C', I can't help but think of those who say that they feel the loneliest when they're standing in the middle of a crowd. Cathy's secret is starting to catch up with her, and the burden of suffering in silence is more than any one person should bear alone.

It doesn't help that the one person Cathy wants to connect to is the one person who continues to pull away from her; Adam is still clearly baffled by his mother's erratic behavior, and I've got to admit, no teenager in their right mind would relish the thought of tandem-biking with their middle-aged mother on a bicycle with a flowered basket and tassels on the handlebars.

Still, it's painful to watch Cathy making her small, plaintive grasps towards companionship only to be continually shot down -- everyone would prefer their own "people" to the company of strangers in a support group, but it seems as though Cathy is starting to realize that the reason these connections to her brother and son and students are failing her now in her hour of need, is because they were never that strong to begin with.

It would be interesting to flash back and see how pre-cancer Cathy behaved around her loved ones, because from Sean's less-than-flattering descriptions so far, it sounds as though it was Cathy's emotional unavailability that is now preventing her from opening up to her friends and family the way she craves.

I feel like the show is really starting to hit its stride this week -- the burgeoning friendship between Andrea and Adam is a joy to watch, while Sean only seems to get sharper with every episode. Andrea's reference to 'The Blind Side' had me giggling for far longer than I'll admit to.

The only one who isn't worming his way into my affections is Paul, who really needs to start developing some semblance of a soul sometime in the next two episodes, otherwise I might just give up on him completely. His trip down memory lane was undeniably romantic, but he can't seem to go two minutes without whining about his own problems. It's not that I doubt that some spouses are so doggedly self-centered, it's just that I don't want to watch them being insufferable on my screen every week.

The show continues to effortlessly convey so much with so little -- just witnessing Cathy watching her flaky brother and his girlfriend driving away on her tandem bike was so deftly poignant that I was definitely getting a little misty-eyed towards the end, but that can be our little secret, right?

As for the support group ... I'm siding with Cathy on this one. Sure, it's great to be a glass half full type of person, but when you're staring down the gun barrel of your own mortality, the last thing you want to be told to do is "squeeze out a smile," by people whose condition is far less severe than your own. Although all bets would be off if Cathy ever ran into someone who had a worse prognosis than she did -- I think it would be quite an eye-opening experience for her to see how someone in her shoes approaches the future.

Luckily, no matter how alone she feels, Cathy will always have Thomas the dog in her corner, since he was her first confidante and seems to be the least demanding person in our hapless heroine's life. What do you think of Marlene being the first one to discover Cathy's secret, did you suspect that she'd figure it out first?


'The Big C' airs Mondays at 10:30PM on Showtime