A few days back I mused on the topic of ending a story (you can read about this here), especially a prolonged story, one which may be comprised of several books or which features recurring protagonist(s), not unlike my Corrosive Knights series.

I brought up the topic because I’m rapidly approaching the end of the Corrosive Knights series.  Book #6, the one I’m currently working on, will be followed by (natch) #7, which will conclude the main storyline.  Book #8 will provide an epilogue of sorts.  This very last book, believe it or not, already has a complete first draft while book #7 is still being outlined.

As I reach the end of this series and the end of many years of at times very hard and frustrating work (don’t get me wrong, there was also an incredible amount of joy in finishing up each and every book along with the joy of people reacting so positively to the works), I can’t help but look over at how others have ended their prolonged stories.

Raymond Chandler’s last Phillip Marlowe story, Playback, was an oddity and, to many fans of Mr. Chandler’s books, easily the weakest of the bunch.  Agatha Christie wrote the final Hercule Poirot book, Curtain, during World War II and while worried England might be overrun by the Nazi’s.  She wanted to leave behind a final Poirot book for posterity should she die in the war and, having survived it, wound up keeping the novel under lock and key for several decades until she neared her own death.  It was then that she released the book.  It too was an oddity, a work that reflected both a fear of death -understandable considering the times in which it was written- along with what was perhaps the ultimate variation of her “the murderer is the person you least suspect” plot concept.

On TV, M.A.S.H., the very popular comedy set during the Korean War, ended its run on a ratings high.  Though the show was in its 11th season, people loved the bow the actors (figuratively) took in this episode, which had the cast finding out the Korean War was over.

Similarly, the Newhart tv show’s finale made clever reference to The Bob Newhart Show which preceded it.  Both shows, of course, featured Bob Newhart in the lead role.

A couple of weeks ago Person of Interest (POI from here on) had its series finale and, as a fan of the show, I have to say I’m conflicted by what I saw.  While I think its great the show’s makers knew going into their fifth season that it would be the final one and therefore were able to plan out the ending, I can’t help but feel ultimately they dropped the ball.

How?  Well, I’m glad you asked…

BEWARE…THERE BE SPOILERS BELOW!

You’ve been warned!

Let’s start with the obvious: The show’s body count.  POI was always a violent show, with characters who killed and maimed their adversaries and an enemy, especially in the show’s final act, that did so routinely.

With heroic tales involving violence and death, it is not unusual to find one or more of the protagonists meeting their end at the end.  In the case of POI, one of the show’s regulars, the quirky Root (Amy Acker), was apparently killed a few episodes before the series finale.  I say “apparently” because, bizarrely, in that series finale there is a hint given that her character’s grave was dug up.  This odd bit of information presented in the series finale leads exactly no where and, worse, isn’t mentioned again, yet I couldn’t help but wonder if this might have been a storyline that was cancelled/changed when the episode was assembled.

So my question: Was Root still alive?

Considering she re-appeared before Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) for a good portion of that episode -as a ghostly incarnation of the machine Harold created to help humanity and which was now fighting its doppleganger, Samaritan, one last time- I can’t help but wonder if maybe her appearances were originally designed to be more…real…than they were presented within the episode.

Let me put it out there: Had the show’s finale originally considered using Root’s reanimated-by-the-machine body?  I mean, it makes a certain sense given what we saw in her grave.  If that’s the case, perhaps the show’s producers realized this might be a little too out there and decided to rework things so her appearances are simply the vivid imagination of Harold while he thinks he’s dying.

Still, why keep that graveyard sequence intact?  Why not cut the bit with the evidence her body was dug up?

Then there’s the end of the episode itself.  Harold and Reese (Jim Caviezel in the role of his lifetime) bluff their way into a high security vault by Harold pretending he has a thermonuclear bomb in a suitcase (a quick problem with that…how did they get out when clearly the entire military might of the United States would surround the living hell out of that building after that bluff).  In reality, the suitcase Harold carries has a duplicate of his machine and the virus he intends to unleash on the last remnants of Samaritan, which is locked away in that security vault.

After Harold and Reese get to the vault, soldiers for Samaritan appear and there’s a shootout.  Harold is shot before the soldiers are subdued.  Afterwards, he manages to get the virus to infect the last remnants of Samaritan, but Samaritan manages to send out compressed versions of himself at the last second.  All but one of them are infected and the duo realize the only way to infect and neutralize that last remnant of Samaritan is by going to the top of a building which has the satellite array ready to receive this Samaritan copy and infect it as it arrives.  But Samaritan has also taken over a warship and will send a cruise missile to hit that building moments after it downloads itself and, therefore, whoever uploads the virus while Samaritan is being downloaded will die saving humanity.

Harold is determined to do this and locks Reese in the vault.  He makes his way to the building and is in a daze, bleeding out from his wound and hallucinating visions of Root (which, again, maybe at one time weren’t hallucinations?!).  He then realizes the satellite dishes on the building he’s on are incapable of receiving Samaritan.  Reese appears on the building beside Harold’s and it turns out Reese chose to sacrifice himself to save the world and let Harold live and the machine agreed to do this.

Reese, it turns out, has the suitcase with the computer and virus in it, while Harold has been carrying around an empty suitcase.

This leads to Reese holding off Samaritan’s guards while uploading the virus.  At his dying moments, shot up and bleeding, we see the virus was successfully uploaded and then the cruise missile takes the building out.

This is all good and well….

….BUT….

While in the vault Harold is shown with the open suitcase loading the virus.  He finishes with what he’s doing on his computer within the suitcase, closes it, walks out of the vault with suitcase in hand, AND THEN locks Reese up.  At what point exactly did Reese switch suitcases on Harold?  Further, at what point did Reese have an identical suitcase to switch?

Worse, when Harold is made aware of the suitcase change later on and while on the roof of the wrong building, he opens his suitcase and finds it completely empty.  Even though he was shot and not in the best of mental states, wouldn’t he have noticed the significant difference in weight of his suitcase?

Just…strange.

So the show ends with Fusco (Kevin Chapman) and Sameen (Sarah Shahi) meeting up one last time and Sameen getting the dog (you’ll understand if you saw the show).  Then we see that Harold reunites with the love of his life, the woman he had to leave because of his work with the machine.

Then, in the show’s closing minutes, we return to Sameen on the streets of New York with her dog and as she walks the streets.  A pay phone near her rings.  She picks the phone up and, after listening to the call, notes a camera observing her.  While all this happens we cut to shots of a computer re-activating itself.  Presumably the Machine is coming back to life.  After Sameen hangs the phone up she smiles.

It appears the story isn’t quite over after all.

So there you have it.

I still like POI and I’m not unhappy about the years I spent watching it.  In many ways this show was a high tech version of Batman, with Reese being Batman and Harold being a combination Alfred/Oracle (or, perhaps more accurately, the intellectual part of Batman).  You had villains who were not all that far removed from some of Batman’s Rogue gallery, including Root who at first was presented as someone akin to the Joker before becoming one of the good guys.

While the series finale left me thinking the producers didn’t quite stick the landing, I’m glad they were able to finish it off.  It might not have been perfect, but few things in life ever are.