What to Watch: 5 Reasons #TGIT Is More Than Great TV

What to Watch: 5 Reasons #TGIT Is More Than Great TV

If you don’t know what to watch tonight, you’re doing Thursdays all wrong.

Tonight’s the season finale of “How to Get Away With Murder,” the latest smash hit from ShondaLand, so you’d better have your crash cart handy. While we patiently wait for our night of wine and popcorn to get underway, let’s take a moment to reflect on what makes #TGIT so great—besides the OMG-worthy television shows:

1. The lineup is three hours long. Three hours.

Do you remember the last time you took three minutes to do something that didn’t involve responsibility? TGIT is a night just for you. It’s become one of those guilt-free indulgences you enjoy after a week of crushing it. I never thought I’d see the day when almost-Friday turns out to be way better than actual Friday, did you? (Personally, I think they should just give Shonda ABC.)

2. It’s not just a night of TV—it’s an event.

It’s not one of those situations where you don’t know what to watch, so you flick something random on and kick back—you block the time out for TGIT. You pick up wine on the way home from work. You turn the ringer off. You send hubby off with his friends. You probably have superstitious rituals you perform before turning on the TV, and you know exactly how much food to make to see you through the night. Speaking of which…

3. You basically have to eat popcorn for dinner.

Eating popcorn for dinner because you forgot to go shopping or you don’t feel like cooking isn’t just something you do in college—it’s something you also do as a grown-ass woman, only you don’t tell anybody because well, you’re a grown-ass woman. Thanks to TGIT we can make our beloved popcorn dinner with pride while the rest of the fam fends for themselves (kidding, sort of).

4. You get to hang out with Shonda and the cast.

Shonda and company are super-invested in keeping in touch with their fans, so every Thursday you’ll find cast members from “Grey’s,” “Scandal” and “How to Get Away With Murder” live-tweeting up a storm right along with you. You get to ask them questions, comment on their characters, and all the while they have no idea you’re doing so in a Snuggie.

5. ShondaLand just gets us.

When our favorite shows drop off the planet during the Christmas holidays and summer months, there’s a hole where our fall TV schedule used to be. Most of us get through this tough time by bingeing on reruns, Googling leaks about the upcoming season and IMDBing the shit out of the show’s actors, and we usually go it alone.

During the winter break, cast members from all three shows provided support for TGIT Withdrawal (which should become an actual medical diagnosis) through videos that included remedy ideas to help us survive. The vids also contained a hilarious(ly true) warning message just like a medical commercial: “While re-watching TGIT, call your doctor if you’re prone to outbursts of OMG, have uncontrollable tweeting or persistent symptoms like breathlessness, disbelief, heart palpitations, eyes popping out of your head, hot flashes, cold sweats, dizziness, or a good ol’ fashioned fainting spell.”

The genius TGIT Withdrawal campaign was legitimately helpful… and hopefully they have one in store during the summer when we have to go like, months without Mer, Liv and Annalise. I’m cold sweating already.

What are your favorite things about #TGIT?

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Krissy Brady

Krissy Brady is a women’s health + lifestyle writer who’s so out of shape, it’s like she has the innards of an 80-year-old. Instead of learning how to crochet, she decided to turn her emotional baggage into a writing career (genius, no?). You can follow her shenanigans on Twitter (you know, if you want).