The Final Word ends Opening Shot season

The Final Word is the fifth and last documentary in the Opening Shot season on ABC2.

The Final Word is a confronting yet ultimately uplifting documentary that looks at what matters most in life, through the prism of death. Focusing on a series of interviews with four terminally ill subjects of various ages, these vastly different people discuss love, loss and all things life, while death waits at their door. There is 77-year-old George Schwarz, who is dealing with diastolic heart failure and whose heart could stop beating at any minute; 54-year-old mother and wife Debra McKenzie dying of metastatic breast cancer and who has devoted her entire life to her family; Paul Kar is 51 and alone. Lastly, there is 26-year-old Kylie Polglase who has spent her entire life dealing with her own mortality after being born with cystic fibrosis.

Despite the seemingly sombre subject matter, The Final Word delivers some surprisingly joyful revelations and the answers to what truly matters to these four in the end is sometimes unexpected. As the subjects recount the struggles and triumphs of their lives while facing their imminent death, the lives explored range from seemingly blessed to troubled, but in their final days all of our subjects have made varying degrees of peace with their situation. Death brings a remarkable calmness with which to look back. The lives that Paul, George, Debra and Kylie have led remain as their legacy – and the stories they’ve shared as their final words.

9:30pm Wednesday, 18 December ABC2.