"You don't know how lucky you are that this room doesn't have ventilation."
The FRINGE writers, having taken a 2-year break from making an effort, actually delivered a somewhat emotionally satisfying end to an episode. Bravo.
A series finale shouldn't be about giving answers. If you haven't given all the necessary answers by the finale, the end isn't the time. Those answers are bound to be unsatisfying anyway. So just go for emotional payoffs for the characters. And in that regard, these final two episodes (roughly 90 minutes) did that, to a point.
However, it didn't save a series that started taking a dive early in season 4 and made serious errors in season 5 --like killing off the most interesting character, Etta, only so we could meet her younger version at the end via a ridiculously predictable and paradoxically stupid series of events.
So I am not going to take this opportunity to deliver one final shot at the FRINGE writers or their raping of good story telling, or for flushing the greatness of this show down the toilet after its third season. Instead I will take like five shots:
Imagine how awesome the finale could have been had it not been for the complete ineptitude of the showrunner(s) to construct a storyline that wouldn't completely nullify the entirety of the series. That's just a bit dumber than wiping the memory of one of your romantic leads right at the end of the series (hi CHUCK writers!). Just because you wrote an ending doesn't mean it could have happened if we followed the logic of what preceded it.
Anyway, this is the last time I write about FRINGE. I am thankful for that.
If I had to rate these final 90 minutes, and why the hell not, I'd give them:
75 out of 100
And if I had to rate the season, I'd give it:
55 out of 100
That's being really generous.
