Farewell V... Please Don’t Write

Just a short post today, but I figured I’d get it out of the way before tonight’s barrage of shows.

Spoilers.

Off the Map – “I’m Home” (B)

Mateo’s back. I can’t say I’m surprised, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy watching Brenner and him interact as she went about treating his mother – who by the way is an extremely interesting character in her own right. I think my favourite scene in this storyline was the scene where she rationalized why she started growing cocaine to Lily. It was a kind of complexity I honestly didn’t expect from this show. Brenner put it best – “I’ll probably never agree with it, but I get it.”

They also followed up on the Tommy and Mina hook up again this week. It was really funny watching all their awkward sexual tension with each other. Both Zach Gilford and Mamie Gummer had some great facial expression, and a few killer lines. I loved Tommy’s discussion with Brenner about how he can’t stop picturing her naked. It led to a great exchange between Mina and Brenner later on.

MINA: He keeps staring at me. What is he staring at?
LILY: Not your boobs.

In the end the two of the decided to try and go back to being friends. It was a good bonding experience and I like that our original 3 jungle newbies are starting to become good friends.

Keeton and Clark returned from New York this week as well. I was a little surprised that they decided to skip over New York altogether. I mean they shoot in Hawaii so it’s probably the cheaper alternative, but I figured they would use Keeton’s absence from the clinic as a story premise for this episode. Well either way, they didn’t do that, but we were left with wasn’t bad either.

It was really a story about Clark learning her limitations. She kept pushing her limitations throughout the episode (I liked it when she tripped up the huge prisoner), eventually collapsing in the middle of an operation. The ending was fine, but I didn’t particularly like it when Keeton freaked out on her. I’ve been quite happy with the way they’ve written his character so far. He doesn’t have a huge ego like many of the attendings on other medical dramas, but his explosion in this episode wasn’t a good moment for his character. He quickly apologised after, but I could have done without that one particular scene.

And last but not least we had this week’s patients. The story of the two prisoners talking between cells was sweet, but there were moments where it felt a bit slow. I did enjoy their final sunset together however, and Cole and Zee, who were the doctors involved in this particular storyline, had a good week with each other – there wasn’t any nauseating dialogue to be heard of. I also really liked Cole’s line to the American girl as she thought about escaping:

COLE: Don’t mix up running with being free.

I’m sure that works on a few levels with this show.

V – “Mother’s Day” (B-)

Wow, they really let the bodies fly in this one. It was probably too little too late, but they did not hold back. It’s odd that this will probably be the last episode of the series because the way the writers have set it up they’re clearly looking to retool the show and try again next season.

And you can tell because they’ve attempted to eliminate as much dead weight in this episode as they could. Both Ryan and Tyler seemed to drag the show down this season, and both of them got eliminated in this finale. The funny thing is though, usually when a show has a major character death you... hmmm, what’s the word I’m looking for here... care. But none of these deaths felt all that meaningful. There were no heroic sacrifices – everyone’s death came as they fell victim to Anna’s wrath. Even for characters that weren’t all that liked it felt very anti-climatic.

The other thing I find interesting, is that despite repeated criticism that this show never lets its main characters win, they allowed them to fail again in this episode with yet another attempt on Anna’s life. I thought for sure in the finale they would give the Fifth Column some sort of win, but it was all Anna in this one.

I think that’s one of the fundamental reasons this show has never been able to truly get its footing. The writers really can’t ever allow the Fifth Column to succeed because they’re goals are always quite high. They’ve had at least two attempts on Anna’s life this season alone, which of course failed. They were given such close access to Anna so early on in the series that they’ve never given the organization any room to grow. There are no incremental accomplishments. Since the start of the second season it’s been all or nothing, and because all means the show is over, it’s always ended up nothing.

I will hand the writers this though – Anna’s revenge on Lisa was quite well done. It was chilling the way she made her watch new Lisa have sex with Tyler and then kill him. It’s only too bad that came after she foolishly allowed Anna to live in a very poorly executed standoff in an abandoned warehouse.

They certainly did their best to end the show on an exciting note but I wasn’t buying the whole project Ares thing. It seems kind of foolish that we’re only finding out about this huge governmental task force now, and from the brief glimpse we got of the organization its already looking supremely stupid. Case in point, and I’m paraphrasing:

“Hey everyone, gather round. This computer’s telling me something’s happening to people.”

No, I think I’ll be alright with this one getting cancelled. They gave it shot. They had a few promising plot developments that never really paid off. But now I guess it’s time for this show to make its exit. So long V.