COMMENTARY
Pergament: Season finales left questions, had few surprises
Now that the May sweeps have ended, it is time to rate several season finales.
“24”: The Kiefer Sutherland series had a terrific season with the considerable help of the really bad guy played by Jon Voight. But the finale didn’t live up to the season’s high standard. It was primarily ruined because Jack’s troublesome daughter, Kim (Elisha Cuthbert), was involved in some more unbelievable lunacy that resulted in her being a hero on two fronts.
First, she ridiculously helped catch a bad guy after a shootout. That eventually enabled the FBI to find her daddy, Jack Bauer (Sutherland), who was in a comaand unable to stop Kim from participating in a medical procedure to save his life. How sweet. And how predictable.
Jack didn’t go into a coma until after he and Agent Renee Walker (Annie Wersching) had one final reasonable discussion about torture that was a show highlight.
The finale also preposterously revealed that a crazed Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) was working both sides and killing innocent people all season in an attempt to get the leader of the conspiracy who was behind the death of his pregnant wife and unborn son years ago.
If I ever get the DVD of the series, I’ll count all the unlikely events that Tony had to get through to find the guy. Tony had to be more Machiavellian than Ben (Michael Emerson) on “Lost” to achieve his goal.
The other subplot found an emotionally tortured President Taylor (Cherry Jones) having to have her deceitful daughter, Olivia (Sprague Grayden), arrested rather than cover up a murder that Olivia commissioned as the acting chief of staff. That was the one plot that seemed to be reasonably resolved.
It was a decent, perfunctory finale that had few surprises or moving moments no matter how hard it tried. Rating: ★★★
“Desperate Housewives”: In Sunday’s bloated two-hour finale, Dave Williams’ (Neal McDonough) seasonlong plan to avenge the death of his wife and daughter by killing the son of Susan (Teri Hatcher) and Mike (James Denton) was averted as expected. Killing a little kid would have been a disaster for this series.
Not much of anything else of consequence happened, except for the revelation that Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) is pregnant. She is assuredly thinking what the audience is thinking: Not again.
The final cliffhanger at a church—whether Mike is marrying the ex-wife he still loves, Susan, or Katherine Mayfair (Dana Delany), who has been manipulating and lying to him to get to the altar—was pretty lame. Rating: ★★½
“Bones”: We’ve become accustomed to the cases on this Fox show meaning next to nothing, but this fantasy episode in which a recovering Booth (David Boreanaz) imagined he was married to Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and they were running a nightclub really made the case a joke. There was no suspense, either, since, a week earlier Booth was hallucinating and heading for brain surgery. This was an idea that probably sounded a lot better in the writers’ room than it played. Rating: 2 stars
“Lost”: This is the one finale that almost demands a second look to understand as much as you can about this complicated series. I liked it better the second time. It had a good mix of sweet, romantic, absurdly violent and perplexing moments but ended predictably with an explosion that may or may not affect past and future events of all the airline passengers who have crashed on the mysterious island.
The big reveal was that John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) really was dead and his look-alike was the guy who, in the finale’s opening scene, told the previously unseen island leader Jacob that he was looking for a “loophole” to kill him. Then the look-alike persuaded Ben (Michael Emerson) to kill Jacob.
Of course, this being “Lost,” there is no assurance that Jacob doesn’t come back from the dead. And this being “Lost,” the finale had more questions than answers. We first met Jacob sitting near what appeared to be a large Egyptian Sphinx, which was a great visual. I don’t know if this means anything, but Ben was upset at Jacob for allowing the Locke look-alike special handling as if he was Moses.
It makes you wonder if the writers were dropping in a biblical clue about the connection between Jacob and Moses. We still don’t have a clue how much, if anything, religion plays in this series’ game plan. In any event, the “Lost” finale lived up to its reputation as the most, exasperating and interesting show on television. Rating: ★★★½
“The Office”: The finale was highlighted by the desperate attempt of clueless Michael (Steve Carell) to reconnect with a former flame, Holly (Amy Ryan), who is otherwise engaged. They planned an act together at the company picnic that played off the movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” Unfortunately, they prematurely announced the Buffalo office of Dunder Mifflin was closing. It ruined the party for the Buffalo workers but made the episode a lot of fun, especially for Buffalo viewers. The episode also had a wordless, sweet moment that suggested that lovebirds Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) are about to have a baby. Rating: ★★★½
“One Tree Hill”: I haven’t watched this show in years but was curious to see how Chad Michael Murray of Clarence would exit as Lucas Scott. For the most part, it was an incredibly melancholy episode that focused on how Lucas’ father had destroyed his life. But there were also some upbeat moments, notably when Lucas’ brother, Nathan (James Lafferty), made it to the NBA with the Charlotte Bobcats.
As for Lucas, he, his wife Peyton (Hilarie Burton, who also is leaving the show), and baby literally rode off in the sunset in a convertible and looked as if they were going to have the kind of life that young married couples only dream about. In other words, they were so happy that there wasn’t going to be enough drama to keep their characters interesting on a TV show for another season. Rating: ★★½
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