Totally Completely Fine is the story of Vivian, who inherits her grandfather’s house overlooking a cliff and finds that the job he has left for her is to prevent the people who come to the cliff to commit suicide, from jumping to their deaths. We want to say that this is a well-made show and that it really captures people’s unhappiness and their relationship with the act of living itself in a nuanced way. Yet this show misses the mark somewhere. It is just one of those things that seem to have done everything right but just don’t land because there is a really weak emotional connection. We don’t understand why that is so, except that it just is. But if we had to speculate, we would say that it is an extremely cliche storyline. Here is another woman who doesn’t take responsibility for her actions because, literally, nobody holds her accountable. The one person who does is the “unlikeable” one in the series. There are also too many cheery people, whom the sulky characters take time to appreciate. What about Totally Completely Fine was new, unexplored territory? Absolutely nothing!
We find our patience decreasing with every new bottle that comes with old wine, but nobody is even trying to stray from it. It looks like every ounce of creativity in this world is being used up for “adaptations,” and the desire to create something new has been entirely lost. But here we are, with the recap of Totally Completely Fine.
Spoilers Alert
Why Does Vivian’s Grandfather Leave Her The House?
Maybe being an only child is the best thing if siblings are going to be like this. Vivian, John, and Hendrix are siblings who don’t get along with each other; at least John and Vivian don’t since she accidentally burned down his food truck with her modified vape. Now that their grandfather has passed away and left his house to Vivian, John is even more furious since he believes that she just gets things handed to her even though she can’t take responsibility for them. But there is nothing he can do about it, and Vivian moves into the house. That night, she saves a woman named Amy from jumping off the cliff.
Amy has run away from her wedding and has no idea what to do anymore. Vivian lets her stay in her house for the time being, though Amy makes herself a little too comfortable in it. But that is not the least of Vivian’s problems. She figures out that her grandfather left her the house with the intention that she start rescuing people who come there to commit suicide. When he lived in the house, he was the one who took on this job, and he passed it on to Vivian. She hates that she has to do it but eventually accepts it as a responsibility. Their neighbor, Dane, tries to help Vivian and Amy by giving them some training in suicide prevention, but Vivian is just not interested. Therefore, an exasperated Dane just asks her to call for him in case she finds anyone near the cliff. This arrangement suits Vivian, but she puts up barbed wire just in case. The wire catches an old lady who happened to be a friend of her grandfather and talking to her makes Vivian open up enough to stop seeing the emotional burden of the task left behind by her grandfather and commit to it.
What Sends Vivian Down A Spiral?
Vivian meets Amy’s fiance and finally understands why she ran away from her wedding. He is a controlling man who doesn’t let Amy be herself. With that knowledge, Vivian finally warms up to Amy staying with her in her house. The two of them save fifteen people from jumping off the mountain, but on one particular day, they are unable to protect a friend of theirs, Louis. This failure sends Vivian reeling down a self-destructive path. The truth is that Vivian had tried to commit suicide a while back, and it was her grandfather who had rescued her. She had since avoided him because she blamed herself for his heartbreak due to her actions. Her successful rescue attempts had made her feel good again, but Louis’ death sort of undid all the work. To get herself to stop thinking about it, she tries to sleep with Dane but stops in the middle when he tells her that he likes her. Vivian is on a self-hating trip, and she wants to escape from it instead of dealing with it. She goes out to party, and when she comes back home, she says some really hurtful things to Amy about her “misplaced” optimism. Knowing that everyone in the world seems to think of her as too much, Amy goes back to George, who has been waiting for her this whole time.
When Vivian wakes up the next morning, she remembers what she said to Amy and calls her to apologize, but Amy doesn’t pick up. Meanwhile, Vivian goes to the birthday party of Hendrix’s daughters, where she discovers that he and his wife, Laura, are separating. Laura says that she loves Hendrix, but she is not happy with a life with children. It was only after having them that she discovered that she did not want them, and that is why she is leaving this life behind and going away. In his grief, Hendrix blames Vivian for this since he saw her talking to Laura. When Vivian hears this, she returns to a spiral of her own.
‘Totally Completely Fine’ Ending Explained: Why Does Vivian Not Jump From The Cliff?
Vivian was with their parents when they died in a car accident, and all her life, she has believed that John and Hendrix blame her for their deaths. In a daze, she walks to the edge of the cliff, and it is clear that she wants to jump. But this time, her instincts kick in, and she tries to save herself. As she thinks of all the bad times, she also reminds herself of all the good times. She thinks of Amy, her repaired relationship with John, and the ever-present happiness on Hendrix’s face. Everyone led complicated lives, but they brought their good parts into Vivian’s life, and that was more than what most people got. Remembering this, she steps back from the edge, but at that time, John comes running and completely pulls her back. She reassures him that she isn’t going to jump, and the brother and sister finally have a heart-to-heart. John admits that he was always angry with Vivian because her carefree attitude meant that he had to pick up the pieces from behind. In fact, in their upbringing, she took away so much of the attention that he never got the chance to become their grandfather’s priority. This is why John has always been hard on Vivian. It had nothing to do with their parent’s deaths, and John reassures her that he would never care about that, and neither would Hendrix.
With this resolved, Vivian and John rush to stop Amy from marrying George, and Vivian apologizes to her friend and asks her to come back to her. Amy refuses to leave the altar for Vivian but elopes regardless. Amy says that she is running away for herself and wants to make herself a priority. She is not doing it for Vivian, and if she is to live with her, she wants proper roommate rights. Vivian agrees to it all, and they move back into the house.
At the end of Totally Completely Fine, Amy and Vivian are living a good life in the house; Dane moves on with someone else; and John agrees to marry his boyfriend, Alejandro while learning to be more in touch with his emotions. As for Hendrix and Laura, they part ways, but it is clear that while the former got the independence she wanted, Hendrix still has his two children to keep him happy. It is a decently happy ending to another average show that we insist you watch at two times the speed to save time and energy, or completely skip it altogether if you can.
Final Thoughts
We don’t have any thoughts anymore, to be honest. We suppose it was sweet how Vivian was told how to grieve the ones she could not save by keeping rocks with their names written on them. The part about the bird (Brolga) being Vivian’s grandfather needed a better explanation other than it being the characters’ hunch. But again, what other explanation can there be? Totally Completely Fine had an interesting premise, but the same old, tired execution ruined it for us, which is why we would term this a serious skip.
