If you’re like me, you know that all good things must come to an end. Hell, even bad things must come to an end. Let’s keep it positive for now, though. Anyway, as you could have probably guessed, this is the last thing I’ll ever write for The Wooster Voice. I don’t know if anyone actually ever reads the things I write. I know some people read the Voice front to back and I know some people who just read the security briefs. Sometimes it feels like I’m screaming into an abyss, an abyss that doesn’t really ever answer back except to say something mean on YikYak. Anyway, this is my series finale for the Voice. So let’s talk about the best series finales there have ever been (no spoilers, I promise).
The Wire – While it’s somewhat clichéd for a straight white cisgender male to talk endlessly about how The Wire is one of the best shows to ever exist, I am unashamedly (okay, a little ashamedly) still convinced of this fact. Its legacy was cemented by its incredible series finale, simply titled “-30-” (which is a journalistic term that has been used to signify the end of a story). It’s one of the best episodes of the entire show and accomplishes the rare feat of tying up every loose end possible. This feat is mostly achieved by the outstanding montage at the end of the episode that shows the viewer the whereabouts of every major character left standing. Sticking to the message of the show, some characters are rewarded and redeemed while some are left hopeless and desolate. It’s a shot that causes complex emotions, but like the show itself, ultimately serves to remind us of our own humanity.
Freaks & Geeks – I have a few friends that don’t like the finale of NBC’s gone-too-soon high school comedy and while I think that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, these friends are tragically misinformed. Their opinion stems from a pretty big plot point involving the main character and while I won’t give it away, I will say that it’s the perfect summary of what Freaks & Geeks is all about, which is being true to yourself. It’s funny, we’re told when we’re younger that we should be ourselves and then we sort of laugh it off as a dumb after-school special message that doesn’t really mean anything. But the older you get, the more you realize that so much of society is based around telling people not to be themselves, to buy this, to act like that, to not do this and then you sort of understand the value of that dumb little message.
Breaking Bad – Breaking Bad holds a very special place in my heart because it was the last time I remember getting nervously giddy about a TV show. I watched the final season with my friends Adam and Ryan. We would sprint to Stadium House after our Don’t Throw Shoes practice in order to make sure we didn’t miss anything. We would go to Mom’s after and dissect the episode, hypothesizing about our favorite characters and what’ll happen to them. That kind of joy and excitement is something I haven’t felt for a TV show in a while. I know I’ll feel it again one day but I also know that it represents something special coming to an end. I’m drawing some pretty obvious parallels that don’t need explanation, so all I’ll say is thank you.