Monday, May 17, 2010

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Grey's Anatomy' Finale Teaser, Finale Death Counts and 'The Good Wife' Gets the Job

Grey’s Anatomy Finale Teaser

You so know that this preview of Thursday's season finale of Grey’s Anatomy has been placed online just to torment us. When promos for the season finale ask, “Who will fall?” (note the word "fall" not "die") and say that a shooter will be on the loose in the halls of Seattle Grace, I have to think that there's no way this whole pregnancy thing will pan out, that Meredith Grey will actually have the baby and that, by this time next year, she'll be the dark and twisty new mom. But we'll see.

The bringing danger into the hospital angle has occurred on this show before, like when there was a bomb inside a patient and Coach Eric Taylor was blown to smithereens, when an irate employee shot people including Burke. But a shooter inside the hospital? Given last year's Grey's season finale, after which I felt as though I'd been emotionally manipulated with the George-run-over-by-a-bus story, I'm skeptical.



Finale Death Counts Climb Higher

*Warning . . . spoilers from already aired finales ahead . . .*

Private Practice's finale, "The End of a Beautiful Friendship," killed off Dell, leaving his daughter an orphan, after the drama flirted with killing off Maya and her unborn baby following a car accident caused by a drunk driver. (I reviewed the finale here on CliqueClack TV.)

Brothers & Sisters finale, “On the Road Again,” also had a massive, fatal car accident in the last scene which appears to have killed Robert McAllister while his bloodied wife Kitty comforted him in the front seat of their vehicle. The bloodied Robert, with a huge gash on the side of his head, suddenly stopped talking and his eyes remained open but he was non-responsive and motionless. (See video below.) Holly Harper was bloody and severely injured while being tended to by Justin. Don't know if Patricia Wettig, who plays Harper is coming back.

Given that it’s been known for quite some time since we've known that Rob Lowe was leaving the show, plus the fact that it’s been reported that when Brothers & Sisters returns in the fall Kitty is “single,” it seems like a reasonable conclusion that Robert died from his injuries. Oh, and we also learned that Sol -- who will forever be Arvin Sloane to me -- has HIV. What a damn downer, particularly after that sweet scene where the family members had just frolicked in the shower of an aquifer that'd been discovered under what was left of the property the family owned after their business went belly-up.



The Brothers & Sisters finale was entertaining, the last scene moving (I was shocked by the Sol scene), but the finale that appeared just before it for Desperate Housewives, in a word: Sucked. And I like Desperate Housewives, or I used to. They used to make wry, dead-on commentary about life in the ‘burbs and on occasion they still do. But not with their finale, “I Guess This is Goodbye.” Gabby’s storyline was ridiculous. Bree giving up her business and Orson leaving her *yawn.* At least the only fatality was a character no one cared about, Angie’s former eco-terrorist boyfriend who’d tried to kill her and her son.

Which brings me to this question: Were the writers for Desperate Housewives talking to Shonda Rhimes? Lynette Scavo went into labor while being held hostage by a teen serial killer and her pregnancy was in peril, particularly when it was discovered that the baby's umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck and the killer had to save the baby. Given that the last two Private Practice season finales ended with pregnant women in peril, I, for one am tired of series finales pulling this kind of thing.

The Good Wife Gets the Job

Last week’s The Good Wife "Unplugged" episode provided viewers with the answer to the season-long question: Who would win the one open junior associate’s position, twentysomething Cary, who’s unmarried and has no kids and can work a bazillion hours, or Alicia, breadwinner mother of three who took a decade-plus off from the legal profession and only went back to work when her politician husband resigned and was then incarcerated? Alicia got the nod, however in my pop culture column this week I asked what would’ve happened had she not had the political connections. Answer: She would’ve been unemployed.

What do you think about finales killing off characters to boost ratings?

1 comment:

Cooley Horner said...

Desperate Housewives has gotten over the top. I watched the first two seasons and liked the satire of the burbs, but now it seems like someone's being held at gunpoint every four days. And how many sinister neighbors can move into the neighborhood before it gets stale? Answer: 2.

I stopped watching Grey's years ago, and I never got into Private Practice, but I think it's an old trick to kill someone off in the finale. You can usually see it coming, and it smells like a ratings-grab almost every time. I will say--in as unbiased a way as possible--that LOST is perhaps the best out there when it comes to killing off a character. I rarely see it coming (Ilana), and it's often very poignant and fitting (Charlie, Boone, and the other 234524444 characters who've died on the show).

C.