anomynous

Don't know what to think of the finale, other than I was distracted the entire time because Charter must have broadcast it in the wrong framerate.

mwbmis

Just FF through most of the finale stopping at certain points. I quit watching about 10 minutes into episode three this season, but it looked to be a pretty effective hour of TV. Too bad they couldn't have done this all in one season. A one season show with a finale like that would have been great TV. 13 hours should have been enough to tell that story. Instead it got sidetracked by red herrings and nonsense. A real missed opportunity.

Jeremy517

The Terry twist was horrible. Terry would have known all throughout both seasons that she killed Rosie, but instead of being wrought with guilt, she's was completely fine the whole time, up until the last half of the last episode. Her actions throughout the series are completely inconsistent with someone that just killed her own niece.

You can't blame the actress, since no one told her that her character killed Rosie. That one falls on the producers. They never told any of the actors who killed Rosie. I get that the producers wanted the killers to be kept secret, but it made it impossible for Terry to be portrayed properly throughout the show.

Shannon Nutt

I liked the finale in the sense that we didn't get all these "soap opera" twists and (thankfully) no more red herrings...sure, the sister actually doing the deed was an additional twist, but it was a logical one. A great final episode to an often uneven series.

I don't think a third season would work...but you know what would work? Bringing these characters back for a 2-hour movie (or maybe two or three-part mini-series) once a year. I actually think the last two seasons could have probably been done in a short mini-series anyway.

Derrich

If they had done that finale last season, this show would be a runaway hit.

D

Dr_Evil

This is spot on. She never even seemed that torn up about Rosie throughout the series. Yet when Holder and Linden show up and tell her "we got him" she suddenly can't keep it together anymore. Even though this is the third time they've "got him" and they were wrong yet again. Perhaps she couldn't take the fact that the police were going to keep ruining the lives of innocent people until she finally confessed.

blairwitchfan

Isn't Stan going to prison for a long time? I mean he beat that teacher nearly to death. I assume he'll also be sued by the guy for every penny he's got. I wouldn't get too comfortable in that new house. They make it seem like it's a happy ending, new beginning for the Larsons.

warbird

I though his reaction was normal. He was surprised to see her at his secret meeting and just ask her who she was. Rosie was scared and upset, he grabbed her and said calm down. They struggled and she fell and hit her head. It was an accident. What he did after that was criminal.


I though the finale had twists that were similar to all the other episodes.
I think the multiple red herrings is what made many people hate the series. I remember thinking near the end: are they really sure they got the killer this time? Then, sure as shit, Jamie wasn’t the killer he was just another red herring.

T-bone22

Yeah and the fact that she had a video camera with her didn't help.

kidindy

When will AMC make a call on season 3?

I liked the ending with the call about the body being found. Part of me wished it was Jack. LOL

birdseye

I agree, they should have had this finale last season and cut out all of the red herrings and compressed the story into one season and it would have been great. Instead they felt the need to keep heading off into different directions, only to piss off everybody. I assume they wanted to show the different twists and turns that a murder investigation can take, but that doesn't necessarily make for a good tv show.

slop101

Well, it ain't no Mad Men (or Deadwood), but it's about a billion times better than Killing and Walking Dead, give or take a few million...

dwells

You really think Terry has been "just fine" the whole series? Don't agree with that at all- to me, she has been an emotional wreck for most of the series- and she had issues even before the Rosie incident.

I suspected a long time ago that something might be up with her. I just think she was trying desperately to somehow go on with her truly depressing, horrible life, despite what she has done.

And, it's easy to forget that for us, it's been two long tv seasons, but in reality it's been less than one month in real time.

Dr_Evil

The only way her actions in the series make sense is if she is a psychopath. She had zero problems being around the family of the girl she murdered. She took care of the kids, and pretty much took on a motherly role for the boys. Even when she found the photos of Rosie in Stan's drawer, and was confronted with the visual proof of what she had done to Rosie in the car, she didn't break down or anything. If they had kept her reaction consistant in the finale, you could at least assume she had some psych condition that prevented her from dealing properly with emotional trauma. Having her break down like she did shows that they just didn't want to give it away any earlier, so they made her act like she wasn't really impacted at all by it.

andicus

Why couldn't she have had a mental condition (resulting from the stress of realizing she'd killed her sister's child) preventing her from dealing with it, until they realized what was going on and confronted her with it?

I think it's plausible, and was a pretty good ending to a series that was far too long.

Shannon Nutt

I'm pretty sure Stan is going away for a while. I remember an episode where they said he wasn't getting cut a deal...so I'm guessing 10-plus years?

Groucho

I don't have a problem with Ames's mistress being the killer -- that works. But she's coincidentally Rosie's aunt? It's not like Seattle is a small town or something.

Also, I'm not sure why Ames is walking around free and hanging with the Mayor-elect. He's definitely an accessory to the murder. Even the Chief was an accessory after the fact, and she's living it up like nothing happened as well.

RoadToPerdition

The wide shot of the lake with the car going in and then you hear Rosie screaming in the trunk as the car sinks sent chills through my body. How horrific.

Really good finale, I thought. I'm glad the killer was revealed early on and gave time to satisfactorily wrap up the season/series and give closure to all of the characters.

TimeandTide

Made the same points to my gf during the ep.

I was frustrated with the final scene with Ames, Darren and the Chief because it conveyed that Darren wasn't above sleeping with the devil as mayor as he knew both were involved in Rosie's murder. Unnecessarily ambiguous and I even thought for a second that perhaps Darren was in the know all along.

Loved the Terry reveal as it elicited the most compelling/dramatic scene in the two seasons.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed the last few eps. Was able to overlook some of the crappy writing due to the performances. It's the only show I've IMDB'd each of the actors to follow their careers. Easily one of the best-acted shows on TV.

auto

Agree with a lot of what was posted here including the fact that this would have made an awesome one season show with little filler. I'd watch another season if they tighten it up.

wirefan

Linden and Holder's boss telling them good job when they got Jamie? Other than:
- having a wrongly accused suspect nearly beat to death because you inappropriately leaked details of the case to the victim's family
- the fiasco with the Feds in the mosque
- wrongly accusing (arresting?) a mayoral candidate which led to him being shot and crippled
- illegally continuing the investigation after being suspended
So pretty much - good job! Oh and here's your badge back for all that great work, we won't bother with an actual review or anything. Wait weren't you moving and leaving the department anyway and this is just the last case?

And why was it important for Linden to get the badge back quickly? So the writers could set up the scene where she walks away. That summarized the show in a nutshell - the scene itself was very good, well acted and solid, but getting to that scene made no sense - but the writers don't seem to care how they get there as long as they do (how in the hell does she get her badge back, without even a review of the fiasco that was the Rosie Larson case?) This was my major problem with the show... the setup to get to some of the well produced and well acted scenes was sloppy, nonsensical at times and almost an afterthought.

Another example is one of the coments above... the scene with Terry confessing in front of Stan and Mitch was a really good scene and well acted, but getting to that situation made no sense. It was like in season 1 with the exchange between Stan and the girlfriend of the teacher that he kicked the snot out of... a phenomenal scene but how does she not know who he is at that point?

If they had taken the time to get the details right and get to these scenes in a well conceived manner, the show could have been phenomenal.

Coral

Well the finale wound up being better than I thought it would be, but that's only because I had such low expectations.

I liked that we finally got to "meet" Rosey. We don't have to have experience the victim a show to be effective, but in this case we got very personal with the Larson family and what they're going through - and it always felt that we were missing an important piece by not getting to know Rosey first hand (so to speak). Even though it only happened in the finale, I'm glad they did it.

It was obvious Terry did have some issues, it just seemed that her actions/reactions weren't aligned well enough with what she accidentally did.

I didn't buy Jamie's reaction to Rosey being there. He panicked way too quickly.

Why IS Ames walking around free?

I think they said the one Casino chick got thrown under the bus (like it was mentioned would happen in a previous episode) but how could there be no other arrests there? A few people at the Casino knew about the incident on the 10th floor and covered it up.

I'm glad it's over. The show should be done with now, but if it isn't - I sure as hell ain't gonna sit through another season of terrible writing. I've got my closure.

slop101

I didn't quite get what was going on with that final scene between Gwen and Richmond.

Rex Fenestrarum

Gwen thought Richmond would be an idealistic mayor (doing the "right thing", helping the poor, etc). But then Richmond invites Ames and all the scummy businessmen the previous mayor had dealt with over for a meeting. She expected a change in the way the mayor's office would be run, but he's now "business as usual" after listening to Jamie's rant.

slop101

^ That's kinda what I figured at first, but I over-thought it, thinking how that would be pretty lame. Oh well...