And so it is, the final episode of Jericho aired last night. The showrunners shot two endings in anticipation of cancellation, which came to fruition, so presumably the episode we saw last night was the terminal version.
So how was it?
Kind of lame actually. Fast-tracked to get to a conclusion, the episode skipped over huge parts of narrative. For example, Jake and Hawkins have to make a run to Cheyenne and elude mercenaries and soldiers, a mission that is very dangerous according to Hawkins, but we never see that and our two heroes are in the enemy’s capital city (where evil corporation Jennings and Rall are currently building their own Death Star) within the blink of an eye.
What ensues is a political cat-and-mouse game designed to pit the corrupt Cheyenne government against the rest of the fractured U.S. There’s an ambulance chase, and a standoff at the Texas embassy, and a mid-air jet-fight. The denouement? Thanks to Hawkins and Jake, Civil War’s a-comin’!
And that’s your series. Along the way Stanley and Mimi reaffirm their love for each other, Beck defies orders and prepares to trade automatic weapons fire with his superior officers, Emily digs a hole and Eric continues to display his good judgment by meeting with Constantino and nearly formulating a plan to start offing U.S. soldiers. No sign of Dale and his girlfriend though. I think it’s implied they went on to open up a chain of food and drug superstores.
So that’s it. I dug the show big time, but was somewhat disappointed with the follow-up season. Still, two jets exploded and Hawkins snapped someone’s neck, so it’s not all bad.
R.I.P. Green boys.
1 comment so far ↓
Okay.
Jericho went south the second season. I don’t think it was the near cancellation of the series that caused this. Hints at the end of the first season seemed to indicate this was the direction the creators were going to be taking.
I have always been a fan of end of the world type tales, from “The Stand” to “Malevil” (great book). The first season was a great story about small town folks trying to survive being thrown back to a somewhat agrarian society. How will they survive? How will they come together to solve the problems? What political structures will they evolve to handle isolation? I could have watched that show for 10 seasons.
By the end of the opening for season two, everyone had electicity back, lots of gas, cell phones and the internet. It was almost as if the bombs had never fallen. Sadly it went from an insular show about how folks survive after disaster to some half-assed conspiricy series. I liked the characters (though many seemed to dissappear), so I watched the whole second season.
It was almost excruciating. I don’t think I have ever seen such a great show become such a piece of crap in the blink of an eye.
Very sad, though season one will stand as a great achievment. Cancellation would have been a better fate as it would have left the memory of season one unsullied.
Dan
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