I just realized that I should have totally given *you* credit for the clone-Carson theory -- I mean, it'd been something I'd been thinking about, but YOU were the one who really laid it out with all the details, so I've edited my post above to give you credit for that. :)
Yeah ... with me, I found out that Carson was leaving in the middle of season 3, so I went through a whole emotionally-pulling-back thing up until "Sunday" actually aired, and by that point I'd kinda managed to detach myself from the character (which was helped along by the "best friend" comment at the end, which -- on a purely irrational level -- *really* rubbed me the wrong way! Rodney's "one of the best friends I've ever had" in this episode -- which, OMG, he actually said to his face! -- is how I thought they SHOULD have phrased it back then.)
Anyway, I kinda separated myself from the character as a defense mechanism, so having him come back and getting back into the mode of emotionally connecting to him again was a lot harder than I was expecting!
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Yeah ... with me, I found out that Carson was leaving in the middle of season 3, so I went through a whole emotionally-pulling-back thing up until "Sunday" actually aired, and by that point I'd kinda managed to detach myself from the character (which was helped along by the "best friend" comment at the end, which -- on a purely irrational level -- *really* rubbed me the wrong way! Rodney's "one of the best friends I've ever had" in this episode -- which, OMG, he actually said to his face! -- is how I thought they SHOULD have phrased it back then.)
Anyway, I kinda separated myself from the character as a defense mechanism, so having him come back and getting back into the mode of emotionally connecting to him again was a lot harder than I was expecting!