This week in the world of network dramas saw a penultimate episode, a season finale, and a series finale – very exciting stuff! And of course, this wouldn’t be a drama series review if these shows didn’t bring some drama. Which they did.
Let’s get to it with 911 Lone Star! Talk about a gut-wrenching cliffhanger from last week! And then the sneak preview led me to believe that Tommy’s husband Charles was going to come out of that scare basically unscathed. I am a fool! The show opened with Tommy making a 911 call and performing CPR on her husband, although while still on the call she determines that it’s too late, as rigor was already setting into his limbs. Despite how terrible it was for Tommy to come home from the dramas of last week’s episode to find her husband dead should have wrecked her, but she remained extremely composed. I imagine she was using the skills from her job to handle this awful situation. Either way, she holds off on telling her kids until she can get more concrete answers from the medical examiner, which she goes to visit at the hospital the next morning. While at the hospital, she runs into a distraught father (Heroes’ Greg Grunberg!) who is trying to get enough courage to say goodbye to his unresponsive son. Tommy gets him up there, but then gets thrown into a fake hostage situation so George has more time with his son. In a coincidence that can only occur on television, Owen is also at the hospital for a follow-up on his surgery. He manages to be the communicator between Tommy and the SWAT team outside. By the episodes end, Tommy learns that Charles died of an aneurysm and there is ultimately nothing that could have been done to prevent it. A very heartbreaking episode full of young Tommy and Charles flashbacks because this show knows how to pack an emotional punch.
Next up was the season finale of Big Sky, which saw the actual end of the Kleinsasser storyline. I was mistaken in saying that Horst got arrested last week, but Sheriff Wagy definitely did this week. Instead, Horst meets his maker at the hands of his wife, who has finally had enough. All in all, the ending of that saga was a little lame to me. It seems like so many people were killed in such a short amount of time that the characters didn’t feel all that fleshed out to me. Speaking of characters not really fleshed out, we got to see Jenny’s son Justin for a brief moment once she gets back home. That rest and relaxation is short-lived however when her and Cassie get summoned to interrogate Ronald! That’s right, Mark and Jerrie corner Ronald in Scarlett’s sister’s house, but not before he gives her some very specific instructions. Apparently, Rick Legarski was just one small part of a very large and messed up trafficking ring run by law enforcement! Anyway, Scarlett is instructed to contact them and that group would handle the rest. Ronald manages to be evasive and even convinces Mark, Cassie, and Jenny to head to his first victim’s burial shed. As they head back, the dirty law enforcement crews show up and gun a lot of people down before they get Ronald and move out. One of those casualties (but probably not) is Jenny. As she’s struggling with a gut-shot, she tells Cassie to go get him. And that is where the season leaves off, with Cassie in a technically stolen police cruiser and a rifle headed out to get Ronald. There were so few parts from this second half of the season that were reminiscent of passages from the first three books, so I am very interested to see what the second season does. Maybe they’ll backtrack and use the source material after all?
Finally, the much anticipated (for me anyway) series finale of Prodigal Son. Malcolm wakes up in a cabin where Martin shows up with one of the worst dye-job I may have ever seen. Before Malcolm gets the chance to call Gil, Martin convinces him to first, get pancakes, and then try and find another serial killer who is in the area, the Woodsman. It doesn’t appear to take long for Malcolm to zero in on the suspect, a local cop who was at four previous Woodsman victim crime scenes. Only, they’re not quite right. In the middle of a stakeout, Malcolm and Martin get taken by the real Woodsman, who just so happens to be the sheriff’s husband. Back in New York, Capshaw manages to convince the FBI that Malcolm is actually Martin’s accomplice and that she was victim in all the chaos from last week. Luckily, Gil and finally Jessica aren’t buying it, so they set her up into confessing. Now, back to the good part! Martin and Malcolm manage to get themselves freed and then Malcolm pressures his dad into torturing/killing the Woodsman to get the location of a girl he had taken and was getting ready to kill. It took Martin some convincing because after all this time locked up he swears he’s a different man, but we all know a zebra can’t change his stripes. This old saying is probably the exact reason why we see Malcolm betray his father and call the authorities. Martin looses his composure then and goes to kill Malcolm, but he gets the upper hand and ends up stabbing Martin in the gut! Sure, some could argue self defense, but it’s the calm way in which Malcolm turns the knife around that’s got me agreeing with Martin that they are the same. But, that’s all we’ll ever know I guess! All in all, for that series finale only just getting announced a week ago, it was a pretty solid one. I’m satisfied, and I can’t say that I want to see some other network or service pick it back up. Just let it lie.