Finale Roundup - Part 1

A quick look at the season finales of Justified, 30 Rock, Fringe, and Community.

Justified - "Bloody Harlan"
The second season of Justified has just been spectacular all around.  The characters of Raylan, Winona, Art, Boyd, and even Ava to some degree have really come alive.  And that's just the main cast.  Tim and Natalie still have little to do, hopefully we'll eventually get to them.  You can't really fault the writers for wanting to focus on Margo Martindale's Mags Bennet, though.  Mags and her boys (all of whom were also great, Jeremy Davies in particular) were the main antagonists for this season, and a hell of an antagonists they were.  This is all without commenting on the actual finale, which was a great piece of art.  In particular, the final showdown with Loretta, Mags, and Raylan was played wonderfully by all parties involved.  I really hope we get to see Loretta again down the line.  Mags final glass of Apple Pie was also played spectacularly, echoing the words she told Loretta's dad in the season premiere.  Margo Martindale deserves an Emmy, seriously.

30 Rock - "Respawn" 
30 Rock was on an upswing this season, but they should have stopped at "100."  This last episode certainly left the season with a sour taste.  Kenneth has been a strange character.  In the beginning he was beloved, but it's gotten to a point where I don't really care for his stories.  He works still, but most of the time in small doses.  His and Jack's story was the definite highlight of the episode, especially his Avery impression, and then his Avery impression of Avery doing an impression of him made it even better.  I also enjoyed Victor Garber saying things were "wool" and the funny/creepy sheep puppet.  The whole Tracy and Liz story, along with the video game playing writers (which gave the episode its name) were just blah (or blerg).  However, any visit to Dr. Spaceman is good.

Fringe - "The Day We Died"
Another disappointing finale.  I would argue that this season of Fringe has been its best, but, geez, that finale.  Going into the future would at least make sense if Peter could be a proxy character, leading us through this strange and unknown place, but he immediately becomes the older Peter.  I spent the whole episode just wondering how they were going to undue this, because you knew they would.  There were no stakes in the future, the only really interesting part was once we finaly got back to the present and Peter disappeared.  That seemed like an asspull, but it will at least have repercussions next season.  Man, if they hadn't been picked up that would have extra sucked as a series finale.  Also, I love a good time paradox, but Walter telling Peter about sending the Machine back in time and pulling his conscience forward made no sense, at all.

Community - "A Fistful of Paintballs" & "For a Few Paintballs More"
Now this is a finale!  Last year's paintball episode, "Modern Warfare," was heralded as the best half hour of comedy all year, and rightfully so.  Going back to that well could have been disastrous, but while not as good, it was still excellent.  The first episode played well as a full on spaghetti western homage with Josh Holloway swaggering in as an interloper.  Then the second episode pulled out a Star Wars and wisely didn't take that as far, Star Wars has been done to death.  Abed as Han was great, though.  These episodes also dealt well with "The Pierce Problem" that has been boiling all season.  The study group came very close to kicking him out only for Pierce to leave at the very end.  His speech, while not redemptive, does make you sort of feel for the guy.  Will Pierce stay out of the group forever?  Doubtful.  Will Pierce and Chang switch roles next year?  That could be interesting.  The finale also had Troy crying, never not funny.  I'll just leave this here: