I know that I am a bit late in writing about this since the sixth season finale of Castle aired in May, but I haven’t gotten anything written before now because the episode was such a disappoint to me. Since the season seven premiere is now less than twenty four hours away, I decided to go ahead and write about the episode.
I will be mentioning things that will be spoilers for the sixth season finale for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet. Read at your own risk.
I really enjoyed season six overall and I was happy with almost everything. In previous years, there were little things here and there I wasn’t as fond of, or even entire episodes I didn’t like much. I didn’t like what went on with Alexis early in season six, but there weren’t any episodes that I completely didn’t like. I was happy that Rick and Kate were engaged and I liked the little moments here and there when they were discussing wedding plans or are just together. Then I watched the finale. I still haven’t watched the episode again, something that is not usual for me. I watch the show as it airs and also have my DVR set to record it. I usually watch the episodes again within the first week, sometimes a few times. I still have no desire to watch this particular episode again and I’m not sure when or if I will.
When Rick and Kate got engaged, I wasn’t expecting a wedding right away. I thought it was a real possibility that the wedding wouldn’t happen until sometime in season seven, and that was fine with me. Then later in season six, more and more about the wedding was coming up. In the last week before the finale aired, ABC put out this video thing that was basically a montage of wonderful moments between Rick and Kate. It also said something about how everything for six years has been leading to this or something like that. Seeing that is what fully convinced me that the wedding was happening in the finale. I never should have watched it. I still would have been irked, but it wouldn’t have been as bad.
The episode starts off good, with Rick and Kate happily heading off to get their marriage license. Things go wrong in just minutes though when the records show that Kate is already married as been for fifteen years. Evidently she went to Vegas with her boyfriend and they went to a drive through wedding chapel as a joke. They broke up a few weeks later, and Kate never once, in the years since, thought that it was a legal marriage, but she did remember doing it. If she hadn’t remembered because she was drunk, that would have been more believable, never mind the fact that all the background checks that Kate has had to go through for her law enforcement career never found it. That just doesn’t make sense, especially when the guy has a record that includes impersonating an FBI agent.
Most of the episode is focused on Kate trying to track down her long lost husband to get him to sign the paperwork to end the marriage. Most of the episode was just ridiculous, though there were a few good moments here and there. As it got later, it became clear that the wedding wasn’t happening - or if it did, the most would we see would be the very beginning of the ceremony. I would have been annoyed if that happened, but again, it wouldn’t have been as bad as what did happen. Kate is in her dress and Rick is just twenty minutes away and it gets massively screwed up. An SUV closes in on Rick on his way to the wedding and the next we see the car, it is in a ditch on fire as Kate runs up, still in her wedding dress.
That ending was too much like what is done on soap operas, and Castle is generally better than that in my opinion. The other season finales have been better and even when I wasn’t thrilled - like at the end of season two - it wasn’t as annoying, irritating, and disappointing as this. My issue isn’t that I thought there was a chance that Rick would have been killed. I never for one second thought that, just like I never for one second thought that Kate would die at the end of season three. My main issue is that things were set up to make it look like the wedding was happening and we got to within minutes of it, only to have it ripped away. I wouldn’t have been as irritated with Rick disappearing if they hadn’t been so close to the wedding when it happened. I think it also added to my disappointment because the episode before, Veritas, was so good in so many ways. I read interviews with Andrew Marlowe, the creator of the show who also co-wrote the episode, and he talked about how this was being used as an opportunity to introduce new things connected to Rick. They could have still done that without messing up the wedding.
I’m not saying that I’m going to stop watching the show or anything like that. I was just very disappointed with this particular episode. I am ready for the story to move forward again, though I am also slightly apprehensive about it as well because I just can’t help but be a tad nervous with how they are going to deal with what they set in motion.
Showing posts with label Finale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finale. Show all posts
Monday, September 29, 2014
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
How I Met Your Mother Finale - How to Ruin a Long Running Series in One Episode
On March 31, 2014 - last night as of when I am typing this - I watched the finale of How I Met Your Mother. I started watching the show from the first episode and really enjoyed it for a while. Then I drifted away a bit as I got annoyed with there being no real progress toward meeting the mother. I got tired of Ted going from relationship to relationship and constantly bouncing back to being convinced that Robin is the one for him. I was never a die hard fan like I am of some other shows, but I kept up with what was going on for the most part. I have watched more often during this season and while I still had concerns and thought there were some issues, I was liking things overall, especially tied to the mother. Then I watched the finale that ruined everything.
There will be major spoilers in the rest of this post, and I do mean major. Anyone that hasn’t seen the last episode and doesn’t know what happened and still cares should stop reading now. I mean it. All will be revealed. You have been warned.
How I Met Your Mother was built around the premise of Ted in the future, with Bob Saget’s voice, telling his kids the story of how he met their mother. The way the first episode introduces things, it makes it seem like Robin will be the mother, up until the very end when Ted says that is how I met your Aunt Robin. Ted and Robin did have an attraction and eventually they started a relationship that ended fairly quickly before then went along bouncing back and forth together for years when between other relationships. They could never make it work, as was shown to the audience time after time. When they first got together, I was fine with that, but as the series continued, I liked that idea less and less. They did not work together for any length of time. The way things were done for the show, it made it clear that Ted had much, much stronger feelings than Robin did. She turned him down time after time after time, yet he kept going back, like some lost little puppy. That got old fast for me, and is one of the things I didn’t care for.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to think when the writers first put Robin and Barney together, but it seemed to work. Then the writers threw in other nonsense and they broke up. Each of them said at times that they were over the relationship and moving on, but they kept coming back to each other as well with other nonsense going on. That back and forth stuff also annoyed me. I was fine with Robin and Barney got engaged and thought they were working. Both of them showed growth and development. Even being fine with the two of them getting married, I wasn’t sure about the idea of the final season being devoted to the weekend of their wedding. That seemed like they would be stretching things a bit too much, though I was looking forward to finally being able to see the mother.
I didn’t see all the episodes this season, but I did see many of them. I came to really like the mother from the limited time she was featured in the last season. She popped up here and there, sometimes during the wedding weekend, and sometimes during one of the flash forwards that showed a moment between her and Ted - like when they got engaged. She wasn’t around anywhere near enough, but the scenes between her and Ted were wonderful. It was really seeming like the writers managed to create the perfect character for Ted to end up with and finally be happy. I was really looking forward to the final episode to see exactly how they first met finally and maybe see more bits of their future together. I technically did get to see that, but it is in no way shape or form the ending I wanted to see.
Ted and the mother still haven’t met in the story when the episode begins, but Ted does see her at the train station and is encouraged to go talk to her by a woman waiting next to him. The rest of the episode shows little glimpses of moments over the next seventeen years or so with the group or with Ted and the mother. That could have been fine, but I absolutely hated a lot of what ends up happening to the characters. After spending the entire season on Robin and Barney’s wedding, it is undone with a divorce after three years about fifteen minutes into the episode because yet again, Robin is putting work ahead of everything, traveling all around the world, with Barney left home alone or to tag after her. When their discussion about getting divorced is shown, he at least says he loves her. I don’t remember her saying that. Just that they are fighting and she offers him an out.
In other moments after that, Barney is shown to have reverted to his old ways, chasing after every attractive woman in a five-mile radius, even trying to have a perfect month - having sex with thirty-one different women in thirty-one days. When Robin does bother to turn up, she acts disgusted that Barney isn’t sitting around pining over her and whines about how she should have been with Ted. I didn’t particularly like that, though I should have seen that as a massive warning. Barney gets 31 - the only way any of them ever refer to her - pregnant and Barney kind of freaks, only to change once he holds his daughter for the first time. That moment was decent, though I don’t like how it came about at all. Lily and Marshall are fine, with them having a third child and Marshall finally becoming a judge.
The audience gets to see when Ted finds out he is going to be a father and other moments between him and the mother that are wonderful. The two of them are great together and they had the potential to end with something beautiful. The wedding is shown and even Robin, who has been traveling the world reporting the news, shows up. If it had ended there I would have been a bit annoyed about Robin and Barney ending up divorced, but I would have been fine overall with what happened. The writers didn’t stop there though. Oh no. They kept going, taking the sweet, fun, happy, beautiful moments the audience have waited years for and ripped them away.
While the wedding is still being seen, Ted’s voice over starts, talking about the journey they had taken to get that point and things like that, along with how he knew he would love her for as long as he was able. As soon as he uttered that, I thought they went and killed her. Ted kept talking, and low and behold, probably within a minute of seeing them happily getting married, he talks about her getting sick, and there she is in a hospital bed with him by her side. It is only after we know she gets sick that their first actual meeting is shared. They have a connection immediately that is wonderful to see as they joke about the yellow umbrella - this is when her name is finally shared as Tracey - and then realize how many times they have come so close to each other in the past. It was sweet and cute, and touching, and beautiful and perfect and absolutely RUINED by it not being shown until after we know she dies - in fact she has been dead the entire time Ted is telling the story. She died six years before Ted tells the story to their kids.
I don’t like it when shows kill of characters, especially characters that I like. Yes Tracey hadn’t been around for long, but I guess I kind of felt like she had been there longer because of how the show was done with the little references to her here and there. I came to really like her during this last season when she was around and I was disappointed that she wasn’t in more of the episodes. I didn’t think it could get worse, but it did. Ted ends the story with his kids, and they, especially his daughter, declare that the story wasn’t about Tracey at all but about how he still wanted to be with Aunt Robin. They push him into going after Robin yet again and that is how things end, with Ted once again chasing after Robin, blue french horn in hand.
It was bad enough that Robin and Barney end up divorced after three years when the entire last season was set during the weekend of their wedding. It was really, really, really bad when it is shared that Tracey gets sick and dies, so she and Ted don’t get the happy ending that I had expected. I hate that she dies and that was enough to make up annoyed and upset with the show, but I think Ted going after Robin again is the worst part for me. Years were spent building up the mother - Tracey - and how perfect she is for Ted, only to rip it all away in a matter of minutes. Ted ending up with Robin in the end diminishes Tracey and makes it feel like he was just passing time until he could be with Robin. I don’t think that Ted and Robin work as a couple and them ending up together with Tracey dead basically craps all over everything that has happened during the series.
I know this is just a television show. I happen to be a person who gets attached to shows and characters and I get annoyed, really annoyed, when crap like this happens. I don’t like it when writers decide to kill off a character or break up a couple to shake things up. That sort of nonsense just ticks me off and gets me to stop watching shows. I kind of feel like the audience had lost a slap bet with the writers, only we didn’t know it until the slap in the face landed. I have mostly enjoyed the series for nine years. I have watched the reruns and I have several seasons on DVD. The finale has caused me to lose all interest in ever, and I do mean ever, watching any episode of the show again. I will not buy the rest of the seasons on DVD. Frankly, right now, I regret that I even started watching the show. I sort of hoped that this was some sort of cruel early April Fool’s Day joke on the audience, but I have not seen any indication of that being the case. I am so very annoyed and irritated right now. I have been let down or annoyed by the final episodes of other series before, but I think this is the worst ever.
There will be major spoilers in the rest of this post, and I do mean major. Anyone that hasn’t seen the last episode and doesn’t know what happened and still cares should stop reading now. I mean it. All will be revealed. You have been warned.
How I Met Your Mother was built around the premise of Ted in the future, with Bob Saget’s voice, telling his kids the story of how he met their mother. The way the first episode introduces things, it makes it seem like Robin will be the mother, up until the very end when Ted says that is how I met your Aunt Robin. Ted and Robin did have an attraction and eventually they started a relationship that ended fairly quickly before then went along bouncing back and forth together for years when between other relationships. They could never make it work, as was shown to the audience time after time. When they first got together, I was fine with that, but as the series continued, I liked that idea less and less. They did not work together for any length of time. The way things were done for the show, it made it clear that Ted had much, much stronger feelings than Robin did. She turned him down time after time after time, yet he kept going back, like some lost little puppy. That got old fast for me, and is one of the things I didn’t care for.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to think when the writers first put Robin and Barney together, but it seemed to work. Then the writers threw in other nonsense and they broke up. Each of them said at times that they were over the relationship and moving on, but they kept coming back to each other as well with other nonsense going on. That back and forth stuff also annoyed me. I was fine with Robin and Barney got engaged and thought they were working. Both of them showed growth and development. Even being fine with the two of them getting married, I wasn’t sure about the idea of the final season being devoted to the weekend of their wedding. That seemed like they would be stretching things a bit too much, though I was looking forward to finally being able to see the mother.
I didn’t see all the episodes this season, but I did see many of them. I came to really like the mother from the limited time she was featured in the last season. She popped up here and there, sometimes during the wedding weekend, and sometimes during one of the flash forwards that showed a moment between her and Ted - like when they got engaged. She wasn’t around anywhere near enough, but the scenes between her and Ted were wonderful. It was really seeming like the writers managed to create the perfect character for Ted to end up with and finally be happy. I was really looking forward to the final episode to see exactly how they first met finally and maybe see more bits of their future together. I technically did get to see that, but it is in no way shape or form the ending I wanted to see.
Ted and the mother still haven’t met in the story when the episode begins, but Ted does see her at the train station and is encouraged to go talk to her by a woman waiting next to him. The rest of the episode shows little glimpses of moments over the next seventeen years or so with the group or with Ted and the mother. That could have been fine, but I absolutely hated a lot of what ends up happening to the characters. After spending the entire season on Robin and Barney’s wedding, it is undone with a divorce after three years about fifteen minutes into the episode because yet again, Robin is putting work ahead of everything, traveling all around the world, with Barney left home alone or to tag after her. When their discussion about getting divorced is shown, he at least says he loves her. I don’t remember her saying that. Just that they are fighting and she offers him an out.
In other moments after that, Barney is shown to have reverted to his old ways, chasing after every attractive woman in a five-mile radius, even trying to have a perfect month - having sex with thirty-one different women in thirty-one days. When Robin does bother to turn up, she acts disgusted that Barney isn’t sitting around pining over her and whines about how she should have been with Ted. I didn’t particularly like that, though I should have seen that as a massive warning. Barney gets 31 - the only way any of them ever refer to her - pregnant and Barney kind of freaks, only to change once he holds his daughter for the first time. That moment was decent, though I don’t like how it came about at all. Lily and Marshall are fine, with them having a third child and Marshall finally becoming a judge.
The audience gets to see when Ted finds out he is going to be a father and other moments between him and the mother that are wonderful. The two of them are great together and they had the potential to end with something beautiful. The wedding is shown and even Robin, who has been traveling the world reporting the news, shows up. If it had ended there I would have been a bit annoyed about Robin and Barney ending up divorced, but I would have been fine overall with what happened. The writers didn’t stop there though. Oh no. They kept going, taking the sweet, fun, happy, beautiful moments the audience have waited years for and ripped them away.
While the wedding is still being seen, Ted’s voice over starts, talking about the journey they had taken to get that point and things like that, along with how he knew he would love her for as long as he was able. As soon as he uttered that, I thought they went and killed her. Ted kept talking, and low and behold, probably within a minute of seeing them happily getting married, he talks about her getting sick, and there she is in a hospital bed with him by her side. It is only after we know she gets sick that their first actual meeting is shared. They have a connection immediately that is wonderful to see as they joke about the yellow umbrella - this is when her name is finally shared as Tracey - and then realize how many times they have come so close to each other in the past. It was sweet and cute, and touching, and beautiful and perfect and absolutely RUINED by it not being shown until after we know she dies - in fact she has been dead the entire time Ted is telling the story. She died six years before Ted tells the story to their kids.
I don’t like it when shows kill of characters, especially characters that I like. Yes Tracey hadn’t been around for long, but I guess I kind of felt like she had been there longer because of how the show was done with the little references to her here and there. I came to really like her during this last season when she was around and I was disappointed that she wasn’t in more of the episodes. I didn’t think it could get worse, but it did. Ted ends the story with his kids, and they, especially his daughter, declare that the story wasn’t about Tracey at all but about how he still wanted to be with Aunt Robin. They push him into going after Robin yet again and that is how things end, with Ted once again chasing after Robin, blue french horn in hand.
It was bad enough that Robin and Barney end up divorced after three years when the entire last season was set during the weekend of their wedding. It was really, really, really bad when it is shared that Tracey gets sick and dies, so she and Ted don’t get the happy ending that I had expected. I hate that she dies and that was enough to make up annoyed and upset with the show, but I think Ted going after Robin again is the worst part for me. Years were spent building up the mother - Tracey - and how perfect she is for Ted, only to rip it all away in a matter of minutes. Ted ending up with Robin in the end diminishes Tracey and makes it feel like he was just passing time until he could be with Robin. I don’t think that Ted and Robin work as a couple and them ending up together with Tracey dead basically craps all over everything that has happened during the series.
I know this is just a television show. I happen to be a person who gets attached to shows and characters and I get annoyed, really annoyed, when crap like this happens. I don’t like it when writers decide to kill off a character or break up a couple to shake things up. That sort of nonsense just ticks me off and gets me to stop watching shows. I kind of feel like the audience had lost a slap bet with the writers, only we didn’t know it until the slap in the face landed. I have mostly enjoyed the series for nine years. I have watched the reruns and I have several seasons on DVD. The finale has caused me to lose all interest in ever, and I do mean ever, watching any episode of the show again. I will not buy the rest of the seasons on DVD. Frankly, right now, I regret that I even started watching the show. I sort of hoped that this was some sort of cruel early April Fool’s Day joke on the audience, but I have not seen any indication of that being the case. I am so very annoyed and irritated right now. I have been let down or annoyed by the final episodes of other series before, but I think this is the worst ever.
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