Top Unwatchable Parts Unknown Episodes (Part 1)

As with millions of others, the death of Anthony Bourdian is still a painful subject for me.

While we may never know the true reasons why he took his life on that tragic day, from the accounts of numerous others close to him we have a rough idea of what happened.
Anthony always had an obsessive personality and seemed to become fixated on Italian actress Asia Argento. As he became more and more obsessed with her, she started to pull away and distance herself from him. This culminated in photos of her with another man being taken by the papparazzi.

These photos reached Bourdain while on location in France, and in what was most likely a severe depressive episode that evening, he ended up committing suicide.

In the aftermath of his death, numerous details began to emerge about his manic-depressive personality. On multiple occasions within his show "Parts Unknown", he joked about depression and taking his own life.

And while at the time, we simply took these statements as over the top ... we know now that he was, in most cases, not joking.

So with that, here are my top (5) episodes of "Parts Unknown" which I now find almost unwatchable following Bourdain's suicide...

5. Episode S2E5 - Sicily

When this episode was originally aired, it seemed really funny. Bourdain traveled to Sicily, then met up with a local chef Turin, who then took him on a boatride/octopus tour. There were basically no fish, so while Bourdain and his crew were in the water, Turin's crew dumps dead octopus from the boats in hopes that they will be mistaken for live ones.

Bourdain realizes the facade and mentions the incident on-air. He later says this sank him into a deep depression during this episode .. while led him to film several subsequent scenes drunk.

At the time, I, like so many other simply thought he played up this situation for comedic value. But now, looking back I wonder how much this really possibily affected him.

A subsequent interview with him on this episode had to mention how he wanted to "end things" after filming. Again, most people probably thought he was just "playing up" the situation. Unfortunately, we now know he probably was not.