End of show

Behind the scenes from the oppening credits. Photo: Nickelodeon

I'm used to be surrounded by noise and energy. I love to close myself up on a bubble of my own thoughts, my own world. Is it a generation thing? To be alone in the center of everything? Writing with background sounds have become my thing. Of course it's also a way of procrastination, but mostly, it's a way to not feel alone. Right as I was writing my third, and most important book, I got my cable TV back. I didn't have cable for a year and a half, and I had no idea of what was waiting for me on my favorite channels. I resumed to my habits of kids' networks all day. 16 year olds normally do and my 17 year old college girl self shamelessly did too. The shows were different. It would be so easy to retort to the "back in my day" narrative. I couldn't do it, thought. Everything was so good. So pure. I turned Nickelodeon into my safe network — when nothing good was on TV, I could count on them to give me the laughs and rest I needed. After that, it was easy to fall in love with the network's current best and most popular sitcom.

It began with randomly turning on the TV and celebrating the coincidence "YAY! The Thundermans is on!" and it slowly turned into "Okay, everyone, Thundermans is on at 8, the TV is mine then.". And sure, it was for the simple humor, but the thing is, the closer you get to kids' tv shows the less simple they seem. Like that 10 year old dirty joke on your favorite cartoon that you didn't get as a kid and comes back to "ruin your childhood" when you're an adult. With The Thundermans I came across comentary I didn't have as a child and I so wish I got to grow up with Phoebe (or even with Nora).

But even if I didn't, it's safe to say that I got the show at the right time. The Thundermans were with me during the worst years of college, during the time I started to have insomnia, during the writing and rewriting of my novels, during freaking 2016 (that poopshow of a year, in which also happened to turn into an adult). As I grew skeptical of the world around me, The Thundermans was right there for all the laughs and safety. Phoebe's crazy optmism about being a hero helped me not giving up. Also, her honestly obvious goal-oriented selfish needs. Even the greatest of the superheroes still sometimes do it just for herself.

I didn't have Phoebe as my hero, or the family as some representation of my own family. As I was far away from high school, didn't have her early boy crazy energy or her late goal centred/adult life naiveté. The Thundermans, came as the type of pure content I wanted to protect. Sure, I could point out every single flaw you're thinking about right now, but what's the point?Through and through the show kept its authenticity while giving characters and actors - and even writers - time to grow up. (I've said this many times but MAX THUNDERMAN'S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT FROM VILLAIN TO HERO WAS WAY BETTER THAN DAMON SALVATORE'S JOURNEY. DON'T @ ME.)

Kids' TV changed a lot since I was a kid, but it also stayed the same. With its similarities it reminds me that kids nowadays also deserves a chance to experience what I have experienced, and with its differences it reminds me that we're doing so much better now, and this generation will be better than ours. Kids are good and their presence is a good reminder that there's still something to fight for. And fighting for good kids' entertainment isn't fighting that things stay the same, but that things never stop to improve.

Besides hope, renewed faith and the rewakening of my simpler, silly sense of humor, The Thundermans also gave me one of my biggest blessings, miss Kira Kosarin. If you're a mom and you're about to see your kids' hero change with her growth, please take my advice: Let your children still get inspired by her. Sure, pay attention to what she's doing to make sure it's age appropriate, but let them still watch her. My generation was forced to watch our heroes completely change in front of our eyes because while they were on TV they were forced to work on a image that weren't actually them. Kira is about to go through a similar change, except she's trying to be unapollogetically her for such a long time now. It's empowering and inspiring. Let your kids watch show the full blown adult woman she is. Let them watch she stay honest to what she believes. Let them watch she share the parts of herself she didn't feel like showing before. There's nothing more beautiful than watching people be themselves.

At the end (of the show), saying goodbye to Thundermans doesn't feel the same way as saying goodbye to Hannah Montana felt 7 years ago. It's bittersweet — I won't have new jokes to laugh at, I won't have new episodes to watch on sunday mornings, and I ask myself if I'll ever get tired of watching the same episodes over and over again. I'm saying goodbye to characters I watched grow up and I will never be able to make up a theory about the show's canon. The online fandom will slowly die and not talk about the show all of the time. But we'll still have a long legacy that will last forever. I met so many great people because of this show, I have so many great memories. The Thundermans is this generation iCarly (it is, Nick, and I don't care about ratings here. I care about every kid I know who knows the show, I care about Kira having two hours of kids waiting for her in a con on the UK, I care about every homemade merch made by parents who couldn't find official merch). In 10 years, teenagers and adults will be talking about their childhoods and how this show made it so much better. And tonight, we'll say goodbye, ready for the new things, but heartbroken from the things we'll left behind. #ThunderfamForever