Northern Exposure : What happened to Fleischman

Cafe Society
1

In the last episode of Northern Exposure with Rob Morrow as Dr. Fleischman (which truth be told, I don’t remember many details of) we see the doctor, who previously had abandoned his practice to live with the eskimos, heading further north to find a fabled jeweled city of the north. The episode (if I recall correctly) was more of a fantasy, but then a lot of the episodes seemed that way. Fleischman’s one main dream throughout the series was to be able to return to New York City and, in the end, the fabled jeweled city turned out to be NYC.

But … since NYC is nowhere near north of Alaska … is this just a device to show that he really did get back to NYC? Or can we just as easily think that he’s gone completely nuts and is just deluding himself.

2

It was a wormhole!

3

Since mystical things happened on the show, I think that Snooooopy is pretty close. In the end, Joel returns to the Jeweled City – New York.

4

The ‘fabled, jeweled city’ often is a dual metaphor for where you are, i.e. home.

Epilogue: Joel returns, and he and Maggie marry. fade to an Alaskan Sunset for a nice, cozy long winter