'Deadliest Catch': Bracing for tonight's episode

Image Credit: Blair Bunting/Getty ImagesI woke up this morning and had a hard time getting out of bed. I couldn’t figure out why I wanted the clock to stop where it was until I remembered that it was Tuesday, and at 9 p.m. tonight, Discovery will begin airing Capt. Phil Harris’ final days on Deadliest Catch. I just made the mistake of searching for preview clips of the episode on YouTube. I thought I was easing into it when I watched the one titled “Jake’s disturbing call” first, but really, knowing that on top of Capt. Phil’s stroke we’ll be seeing Northwestern deckhand Jake Anderson struggling to hear an update about his missing father on a phone line that keeps cutting out (“Mom?… Mom?”) literally had me pounding my desk and shouting, “This is too much.” Then I watched the clip “Rescue Mission,” which shows Capt. Phil’s crew trying to get him off the docked Cornelia Marie to an ambulance. I don’t know if there’s a lonelier-looking image than an injured man strapped into a stretcher being lifted by a crane (or, as with the heart attack victim rescued at sea in last week’s episode, a Coast Guard helicopter).

Watch the clips below.

More Deadliest Catch: Descriptions of this season’s remaining episodes