We can all agree that, right now, Station Eleven’s core premise is a tough sell: a fast-acting virus ravages the planet, kills untold millions and changes life on Earth irrevocably for the survivors. The series has even tried to distance itself from its own premise ("The show isn’t about a pandemic," star Mackenzie Davis told Collider). Yet Station Eleven’s pandemic, and subsequent exploration of grief, is the best COVID series to hit television yet.

Fictional television (once it went back into production, after early pandemic lockdowns) has largely chosen to ignore COVID-19, many series continuing on in parallel universes untouched by the disease. Shows that did incorporate COVID into their storylines often dropped them quickly (like Grey’s Anatomy); others, like Superstore, depicted the practical realities of living in a pandemic but fell short of exploring the emotional reality - the grief and loss in particular.

In the US, nonfiction TV rarely offered an outlet for grief, either. An early major event, Lady Gaga’s WHO benefit concert was a celebration of frontline workers, not a memorial to those we lost to the virus. Early in Joe Biden’s presidency, he held a moment of silence to commemorate the 500,000 Americans who had died from COVID-19. According to NPR, the president stopped publicly mentioning the death toll altogether in July 2021, as the number continues to rise over 850,000. At a time when a sense of loss permeates everyday American culture, we’ve had few avenues to explore our collective grief.

Enter Station Eleven. While early scenes (eerie coughing, supermarket raids, warnings about standing six feet apart) might trigger COVID fatigue, when the show diverges from the literal reality of our pandemic, it captures the emotional reality of living in a life-altering, mass death event like no other show has. One cannot look away from grief on Station Eleven - and that’s a good thing.

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Image via HBOMax

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Every character has experienced loss not only on a personal level but on a collective level, as well. In the wake of a still-fresh apocalypse, the survivors aren’t just grieving their loved ones, but a loss of a way of life. "We need new words" one survivor observes to Jeevan (Himesh Patel) in Year One. And they do: as time goes on, they build a language out of their shared loss ("The First Hundred" signifies the early days; "Post Pans" are kids who can’t remember the Before). They create myths, like that of Saint Deborah (seemingly named for the doctor who delivered all of those babies in the episode "Dr. Chaudhary"). They perform rituals: Alex (Philippine Velge) freely offers to perform a dirge for a stranger’s dead wife, and later, we see the Traveling Symphony perform "Midnight Train to Georgia" in honor of their deceased conductor (Lori Petty).

The new world is built up, around, and inextricably entwined with loss because the survivors have no choice but to learn to live with the mourning. Ignoring it leads to dangerous consequences. Kirsten (Davis) becomes sharp, controlling, and abrasive when suppressing her grief. Tyler, the Prophet (Daniel Zovatto), who preaches that "there is no Before" corrupts his mission and leads his child followers down a path of violence when he avoids looking his own grief in the eye.

The two characters find solace and understanding in storytelling. As kids, it’s the "Station Eleven" comic book given to them both by Tyler’s father, Arthur (Gael García Bernal); as adults, it’s the Symphony’s latest Shakespeare production, Hamlet. Kirsten recognizes the parallel experiences she and Tyler had, the death of people they cared about, the violent way they were ripped from their childhoods, the loss of innocence, and the future they were promised. She offers him a chance to perform Hamlet with the family he left behind long ago as a way to unlock the grief they all share. This is the purpose of the Traveling Symphony - the play is a ritual of grief and healing experienced by the audience and the actors.

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Image Via HBO Max

The optimism of the show is that this grief can be shared with a community that understands. The characters tell stories about life pre-pandemic, explaining extinct technology to new generations. They share remembrances of people they loved, like Kirsten telling her Symphony family about her time with Jeevan. They perform, they sing, they create. Loss here has tangible power. It bonds an eclectic population of survivors, forcing them to evolve into new roles (like Jeevan’s post-pandemic medical career) and unexpected communities. Loss is generative. It shapes the new world.

In Station Eleven, loss - like art, love, and community - is above all a connective tissue. Loss, after all, is one of the few truly universal experiences in life, and when you live through a pandemic (either in fiction or in reality) it is impossible to go untouched by it. Life has changed, people are gone, and it only makes sense to stop and acknowledge this fact, however painful, however terribly final.

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Image Via HBO Max

If, as the series suggests, art and storytelling have the power to shoulder some of the burdens of collective grief, then Station Eleven will be a welcome respite for those of us struggling with the "new normal" of the COVID-19 pandemic. The relief comes not from escaping the oppressive shadow of grief, but from finally having it acknowledged in a shared forum we can all access. The show encourages us to stop and make space for our grief, to sing the names of our lost ones and tell their stories.

It encourages us to remember the old world while building the new. Tyler wants to erase the Before, but only by facing his grief and sharing it with his mother (Caitlin FitzGerald) and Clark (David Wilmot) was he able to escape the cycle of violence and destruction that tainted his leadership. He may create a better future, but not without acknowledging everything and everyone that was lost to make that future possible.

At its best, the experience of watching Station Eleven is the same one the characters have with Hamlet: a collective catharsis. We may not identify with the literal reality of the Traveling Symphony, but we recognize an emotional truth. We’ve lost people, time, and ways of life to COVID-19. The grief is potent, ongoing, and universal. Station Eleven may be the first show to acknowledge that, but hopefully not the last.