Episode Title
Slack Water, Say Hello to My Little Friend, Two Birds, Turtles All the Way Down
Cast
Jason Isaacs - Michael Britten
Laura Allen - Hannah Britten
Steve Harris - Detective Isaiah "Bird" Freeman
Dylan Minnette - Rex Britten
BD Wong - Dr. John Lee
Cherry Jones - Dr. Judith Evans
Laura Innes - Captain Tricia Harper
Wilmer Valderrama - Detective Efrem Vega
Daniela Bobadilla - Emma
Michaela McManus - Tara
Crew
Kyle Killen - Creator
Nick Gomez, Laura Innes, Milan Cheylov, Miguel Sapochnik - Director
Genre
Crime, Drama, Thriller
This review covers the final four episodes because I think they work best when watched together. I am a huge fan of the show. It is currently the best drama that ran this year in my opinion and I am saddened by its cancellation. That said, I felt really conflicted about the way the show ended. On one hand, it was a cinematic masterpiece, on the other I am not a fan for unanswered questions and you get that here. The finale had an Inception type feel to it. I honestly had no idea what was going on towards the end and part of me was wondering what to accept as the reality and the dream. Or even the dream of the dream of the reality... Very confusing stuff at the end.
Michael keeps seeing a man, a hallucination that follows him around much like the penguin did earlier in the season. This man helps him as he struggles to understand why he cannot get back to his son's reality, which he has been away from for roughly a week. His fear that he will not ever see his son again and the hallucination of the man causes some friction in Hannah's reality. Eventually he breaks down and comes to realize and accept that his son's reality was dream... or is it?
The performances from everyone involved in this conclusion to the series were phenomenal. I never once thought anyone was anything other than absolutely convincing in their performances. This credit goes to the actors themselves but also to the directors. Quality stuff from all involved and I thank you all for giving me a viewing experience.
The stakes get higher and higher as each episode plays along and eventually it pops and we get the crazy. It was a fantastic ride and I honestly cannot comprehend why it was cancelled. The finale alone is enough to get me to want a season two, if nothing else but to get answers on season one. There are a lot of things that go unanswered and I think that since the show was cancelled prematurely, they decided to end it in a way that is both open ended and yet offers some closure, depending on your own philosophical bend. As I said before, I am conflicted. I want to believe in the good happy option but the cynic in me just sees the two darker options as the more likely. This would be a fantastic hook for a season two, that much is absolutely true. I give these last four episodes solid 5/5s each. I plan to get the series as soon as it is released on Blu-ray.
Now I want to discuss some spoilers so if you have not watched the show, plan to and hate spoilers being dropped, this is where I think we should part ways until the next review. For everyone else, holy crap! Until the last fifteen minutes of the show, I seriously was thinking Michael only knew the things he knew because he was in on the heroine deal, that he was actually a dirty cop and he just forgot about it once his head got bashed in. It would have explained just about everything, including his fractured mind. The guilt of knowing he was responsible creating this alternate world so he would not have to deal with what he had brought on his family. That theory has not been disproved though. I did not like that Hannah's reality had no resolution. It makes me wonder... what if that is the reality and everything else is the dream. If that is the case, his enemies won. He is rotting in a prison for the criminally insane for the rest of his life. His wife would likely leave him and he just... he just loses. Why not create this entirely new reality where nothing bad ever happened at that point? The loss of everything just would have been too much for someone that was already skating the edge of sanity, so it is easy to see that being the actual reality as well.
On the other hand, the entire series could just be a dream and the final reality at the end could just be him finally waking up from a terrible dream. We all have had dreams like that. The ones that seem to span months or years. It really does depend on what you want to believe. Just like the end of Inception. There is no concrete evidence to support any reality being the fake because once everything started getting weird, he was already in prison in Hannah's reality. On thinking about it more, it actually makes sense that the final reality is the real one. There is just no way Michael could have known some of those things without it being a dream. He actually could not have been in cahoots with the bad guys because they themselves said that they took him out because he was investigating them. Why would he investigate a crime he was committing? So no, that theory is debunked right there. Which leaves that Rex and Hannah's realities were both dreams. Yes, that is what I choose to believe.
