Death Goes Prime Time: How Pop Culture Is Changing Everything

Shoshana Ungerleider: For so long, death was the storyline we skipped, the episode we turned off, the dinner-table topic that made everyone suddenly change the subject. But I think something is shifting. From From Scratch to Dying for Sex to The Pitt, stories about illness, loss, care, and connection are showing up with humor, heart, and real humanity. They are meeting people where life actually happens.

At End Well, we have always believed that the stories we take in shape how we live and how we die. Now we have the data to back that up. In a study we did with the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, people who watched or listened to thoughtful portrayals of serious illness or end-of-life care were far more likely to have real conversations with the people they love about advance directives, what matters most, and how they want to be supported.

These storylines are not just entertainment. They move us into action, reflection, and connection.

Katherine LaNasa, my goodness, The Pitt is extraordinary. We are so honored to have you. Nikki Boyer, Dying for Sex, the podcast and the show. And Tembi, my dear, From Scratch. It is gorgeous, truly.

I am so honored to have this conversation with you all. Let’s talk about how storytelling is changing not only how and what we think about death, but how we live through it.

I want to start with what lit the match. You have all told stories that most people would run from: the intimate, the messy, the real. Katherine, The Pitt brings illness, family, and caregiving into primetime in a way we rarely see. What pulled you toward a story like this? Was there a moment when you realized this was going to touch people’s real lives?

Katherine LaNasa: I think one of the things, particularly as it pertains to death and dying, is that when we see these stories on television, we get to see the full picture. So often, when we are experiencing something in our own lives, we may have an agenda or a way we want something to happen, and someone else in our family has another idea. Things get overlooked.

I think it is healthy for people to see all sides of the story. With Mr. Spencer’s children, one of them wanted to intubate him against his own wishes because she wanted to keep him alive. I have had experiences in my own life like that. I think the older the children are when their parent dies, the more they can be in denial that the parent is dying. I have had two experiences like that.

In the very first audition scene I did for Dr. Langdon, before I even got the job, he was saying something like, “Why doesn’t he just get the person out of the room so he can actually help somebody?” It was a young college student who had died from a drug overdose. I said, “He is helping somebody. He is helping these two parents who cannot admit that their child is dead. They are standing there praying over their own child because they cannot admit that he is gone.”

The fact that was in the audition scene, before I even had the job, was so interesting to me. I also appreciated that they allowed Dr. Robby to take these parents through all the testing and procedures, even though he knew their child was brain-dead. He allowed them that process. It was compassionate and interesting.

Shoshana: End Well advised on The Pitt, so I know we all appreciate that. You all did an incredible job showing that full view of it. It is very realistic.

Tembi, From Scratch asked you to bring your own love, loss, and grief to the screen. What helped you say yes to sharing something so deeply personal? How did you find the courage to trust that your private story could hold space for millions of others?

Tembi Locke: Thank you for that question. My “why” for saying yes to it being more than the book I had already written was that I knew the book was my story in the way only I could tell it. When you adapt something for the screen, it is going to change. It is a different medium, a larger canvas, and it reaches in a different way.

I asked myself why, but I also knew I had an opportunity to tell a very universal story from the point of view of the caregiver and the family. I felt that was worth whatever it might bring up for me, because in doing that, I might be able to create a show that could do the very thing I did not get to have in real life.

It would be healing. A nurse helped me get palliative care, not a physician. I had to Google it on my phone. I did not know what palliative care was. A nurse said, “I think you might need this.”

As much as it was my personal story, and I was serving up my love, my life, and my family, I also knew it was kind of everybody’s story. By the time you get to do something on screen, you are reaching for the universal in hopes that you can make change.

We have all seen Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment, when she is in the hospital pleading, “Give her the shot.” That was what I thought it all had to look like in a hospital: a parent clenching and screaming for help. I thought, what if we had something on screen that showed something different?

Shoshana: You did that.

Nikki, Dying for Sex is raw, intimate, wildly honest, funny, and heartbreaking all at once. What was the moment you knew that Molly’s story, your best friend’s story, needed to be shared, even knowing how vulnerable it would make you?

Nikki Boyer: I do not think anything told me the world was ready. I did not really give a shit if the world was ready, to be honest.

I was in the car with Molly, and she was telling me what was going on. She had her terminal diagnosis. She was dating and exploring with her body. We were outside a Trader Joe’s on Hazeltine in the Valley, trying to find parking, and I said, “I think there is a show here, and I think it is called Dying for Sex.”

She put her hands on the seat and said, “Yes, yes.”

I could feel her with me right then. I felt like something else gave me permission, obviously her, but something else too. I was like a dog with a bone from that moment on. It is easier to tell somebody else’s story than it is to tell your own, so I could kind of hide. But the more I dove into her story, the more I had to crack myself open.

I think what gave me permission was that I could not really find a job doing anything else either.

Shoshana: I love hearing how these stories came into the world. Even in the hardest moments, each of your projects makes space for light. They feel grounded and alive. They are honest, human, funny, and messy. They remind us that even in loss, people still reach for connection, laughter, and something that feels like taking a deep breath.

Katherine, The Pitt walks a wonderful line between heartbreak and humor, especially in the way the care team, including the nurses, is portrayed. How did you and the creative team think about bringing in those lighter moments without losing the seriousness of the story? What have you heard from nurses or families who see themselves on screen?

Katherine: I think The Pitt tries to go for reality. When I asked John Wells if he wanted it to be like a documentary, he said, “No. A documentary identifies the subject. I want it to feel like you are inside it.”

These things exist in life. I have been part of two deaths where I was with the person for a while while they were dying. When my grandmother was dying, I said, “Minnie, you have just been the best grandmother.” She gave me this look and said, “Where’s Jean?” Those things are funny.

She really wanted to go home, and her adult children were so afraid to let her go because she was not back to walking after being hospitalized for a couple of weeks. She had to drink this pomegranate juice, and I knew my dad was afraid to have her go home. I looked at her one day. My grandmother was really tough. I never told her what to do. But I said, “Minnie, you listen to me. You better drink this pomegranate juice if you want to go home. They say you need it, so get this pomegranate juice down.” She said, “Katherine, it’s POM Wonderful. Look it up.”

This is real life. Having been through enough deaths, my own cancer journey, and being in the hospital, I know this is how it is. Why not take those breaths? Otherwise, I think the show would have been too heavy.

I cannot tell you how many doctors and nurses have come up to me in real life, friends and neighbors who work in the community, as well as people online, and said they feel seen. Sometimes, when grief or trauma comes up, you get to have a little cry, and tears heal the soul. I think they get to revisit something, like the death of a patient. Someone was telling me that when a child dies in the hospital, it is just a terrible day. They bear this regularly. I think it is healing for them to feel seen, and I think they get to process a little more of their grief when they view the show.

Shoshana: You have all shown how humor and honesty can live alongside grief, and how important that is when you are showing it on screen.

At End Well, we see the real-life ripple effects of storytelling every year. Our latest research with the Norman Lear Center found that after seeing stories about serious illness, people were more likely to talk about their own wishes or reach out for support.

Tembi, what responses from viewers have stayed with you? Has someone shared that your work changed how they think about dying or living?

Tembi: Absolutely. It is a gift. You know you have reached someone when they take time out of their day to send a message that says, “You helped me have a conversation with my dad about what is happening with my mom. You taught me how to help my daughter. I now know what to tell my niece.”

This is why we do it, and why storytelling matters. Storytelling on screens matters in such a profound way because, with dialogue in an actual scene, you can literally give language. You can spoon-feed language to people that they can then take to their doctors, their neighbors, or their children.

When we were writing From Scratch, especially episodes seven and eight, which are right in the throes of all the meaty stuff, I was thinking: What would I have wanted to hear? What did I not hear, and what did I need to hear? This was our opportunity to say it.

When I hear back in the DMs and emails, it is a reminder that we are all in this shared human experience together. Storytelling, this stage, what you are doing here, Shoshana, it is medicine work.

Shoshana: Nikki, your listeners and viewers formed this incredible community around Dying for Sex. What goes through your mind when you realize your storytelling might literally shape how people prepare for their own end of life?

Nikki: I can only explain it because I felt it when I watched From Scratch. Your show changed me. There is a moment where the palliative care representative comes in and sits down to have a conversation. I remember thinking, “I do not think I have ever seen this on television.”

When people reach out to me about the podcast, I cannot take credit for all of it. I had a team of producers, writers, and people in the writers’ room who were going through cancer and chronic illness. So many people came around to help tell this story in a way where it did not always match the literal truth, but we knew it was what needed to happen in order to land with people and crack everyone open at the same time.

I do not think I ever thought about what the ripple effect would be. But I am so proud of carrying the torch of giving people an example of what things can look like, because I did not know what it looked like until I went through it.

In order for people to give themselves permission, sometimes they have to see a sliver of it somewhere, whether it is in a poem, a painting, or a movie. From Scratch did that for me. Katherine’s performance does that for me. I want to do more of that because if we see it, we give ourselves permission to feel it and think about it. Then it subconsciously becomes one of our tools, and when we are thrown into it, we think, “I know what to say here.”

Shoshana: None of this impact happens unless someone, or many someones, says yes to telling these stories in the first place. The courage is not just in the storytelling. It is in getting it made.

Katherine, The Pitt could have easily been seen as too heavy or too real for primetime. Who championed the show early on? What conversations did you have about authenticity, especially around portraying nurses, family caregivers, and the emotional realities of illness?

Katherine: I do not exactly know who championed the show because it lit a fire and got going pretty quickly. I think HBO or Warner wanted to do another show with John, and John and Noah had gotten so much feedback from doctors and nurses after COVID. There was so much unaddressed stress that doctors and nurses had gone through. They were never really given care or pause. They just kept going. The toll that has taken on them, the constant pressure, and the growing issues they face, I think they wanted to shine a light on all of that and tell it in a new way.

As for portraying nurses, I studied with real nurses. I went down to County and shadowed a woman named Kathy Garvin. She was available to answer questions. I have also done work with the Rape Treatment Center. Anytime I can spend time with a nurse, particularly in their workplace, I will.

You never know what you are going to see when you go into an emergency department. You get to see how they actually react to things. Portraying a nurse accurately on television is so much about the tone, the vibe, and the way they are.

About 15 years ago, hospice nurses were with my ex-husband, my son’s dad, while he was dying. I spent months with him and learned so much from them. It is a kind of compassionate detachment. It was that steadiness, along with deep compassion, that I tried to put into Dana.

They were not freaking out. They could bear a lot. It feels like a calling. I did not know it at the time, but I was sort of an inadvertent death doula. When my ex-husband was dying, I realized I was able to be present for it. I was not afraid, and I wanted to be there. I considered it an honor.

I learned so much about what that looks like when people are dying that when my grandmother was dying, I felt of greater use. I could say, “You can leave. Go take a nap. I’ve got this.” Even when they are hallucinating and scary things are going on, people can look frightening when they are dying. But the calm the hospice nurses had gave me a lot of confidence.

I definitely used the calm I learned from palliative care nurses, along with the compassion and the way they brought in the family. Good nurses bring in the family member, explain what is going on, and help them understand how useful and important their presence is. I wanted to show a nurse like that.

Shoshana: I want to talk about something that sits underneath all of this: vulnerability. Sharing these stories comes with a cost and also a gift. There is something radical about turning personal pain into public conversation. Tembi, what did that vulnerability cost you, and what did it give you?

Tembi: I have a hard time answering the question because, at this stage, looking at the timeline, I see it as having expanded me.

What it cost me was the idea that maybe my grief was solo, or that I was alone in it. When I started writing the book, I thought, “I have been here.” I did not know enough people in my life intimately who had walked quite the same path.

Being vulnerable was scary. I was trembling in my boots, thinking, “Oh my gosh, I am telling all this stuff.” But I had to let go of the idea that any of us is ever really alone in this, even if we have not yet met the person who can help us feel less alone.

Ultimately, vulnerability has given me knowledge of the strength of my own heart and its capacity. I really know the power of community. There is no way I could have done any of it, not lived it, not written about it, not rewritten about it, not filmed it, not shared it, without community.

And talking about nurses, shout out to Cassie Winteringham, wherever you are. She was our home nurse at the end. Her steadiness and fortitude to be present made me step up. I thought, “She is there. I do not know how I am going to get there, but I am going to try to meet her where she is,” because she was holding space at a higher vibration than I knew I was capable of. That allowed me to do that for my daughter.

Vulnerability is the core ingredient to do the big, beautiful stuff.

Shoshana: Nikki, when somebody reaches out and says, “Your story made me feel less alone,” which I am sure you have heard over and over, what does that mean to you? How do you hold that responsibility?

Nikki: It means everything. I think Molly felt very alone. At times, she wanted to share so that she felt less alone. To know that after she passed, I got to continue sharing that story with other people, and that they would express to me via DM what it meant to them, is huge.

You learn so much about what people are going through when you realize how universal this is. There was a gay couple who were experiencing hospice together. One of the men was passing away, and they were watching Dying for Sex together in their hospital bed while he was dying. They took a picture of themselves and sent it to me, saying, “We’re with you and Molly.”

I thought, I cannot believe he let me into that beautiful moment in his and his husband’s life. She is now part of that, and somehow I am part of that, and we are all part of that. It reminded me of how beautiful and big this all is, even though it feels so personal at the time and so tiny. You think, “This is my little life.”

Another man reached out and said, “I’m a truck driver, and I went to listen to Dying for Sex. Not what I expected.” Then he said, “I haven’t spoken to my mother in 10 years. I pulled over the truck and called her today.”

The story of Molly and her mother mending fences meant something to him. It means everything to me, and I will never tire of hearing those stories. I will be on my deathbed saying, “Tell me more. Tell me more.”

Shoshana: I want to look forward for a moment. You have all shown that pop culture is not just a mirror. It is a map. It shows us who we can be.

Katherine, you have helped bring nurses and families into the spotlight in such a grounded way. When you think about stories set in hospitals or around caregiving, what feels important to get right moving forward? Where do you see room for television to deepen this conversation?

Katherine: I love that people have told me patients are being kinder to nurses in the emergency department after seeing The Pitt. They are saying, “It’s okay. We know what you are under,” as opposed to, “When am I going to get seen?” There is an understanding that what is happening is not necessarily even the fault of the emergency department.

As it pertains to death, when my grandmother was dying, she spent 30 hours hallucinating. She had finally stopped hallucinating, but then, because it was time to take her blood pressure or whatever, they flipped on all the lights and came into the room. She was 100 and a half.

We have plans for births now: how we want our birth to go, whether we want an epidural, whether we do not. It would be really nice if we could start bringing some of that thoughtfulness into the conversation around death.

That same morning, they were going to make my grandmother get up and exercise. She had been hallucinating for 30 hours. It is really intense on the body. There was almost zero thoughtfulness. We just followed a protocol. The dying process in the hospital I was in did not seem all that patient-centered. I think expanding some of those conversations is important.

Shoshana: I am being told that we have to wrap this conversation, even though I want to keep talking to you all.

As we look ahead, I am reminded that culture change happens one conversation, one story, one brave person at a time. If there is one thing our research keeps showing, it is that stories do what data alone cannot. They open us. They move us. They help us live more honestly.

Katherine, Nikki, Tembi, thank you for the thought and care you bring to your work, and for using your craft to make the unspeakable speakable.