notes on the finales of BARRY, SUCCESSION, MAISEL, and TED LASSO

warning! this article contains spoilers for BARRY, SUCCESSION, THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL, and TED LASSO (duh)!

due to the recent change in emmy eligibility rules (no more hanging episodes), this may has been filled w shows ending their runs or newest seasons in order to qualify for television's most prestigious awards shows. while shows like YELLOWJACKETS or SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE should come back in the hopefully-not-so-distant future, four series, all emmys juggernauts, are capping their runs after years of building their audiences. in this article, i'm going to quickly reviews final seasons as well as the series finales of these four - BARRY, THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL, SUCCESSION, and TED LASSO.

THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL

when i recapped the fourth season last year, i complained about the aimlessness the show had taken on. to make up for that, MAISEL decided to spend its last nine episodes on a hodgepodge of odd choices and random flashforwards in order to avoid cramming too much in the finale. in theory, the 80s scenes could have been a good idea, but their execution was poor: they did not entice the viewer, but annoyed them instead. the scenes of midge being interviewed on 60 MINUTES about her legacy (she's halfway through an egot!), her children's futures, or joel's stint in prison (for midge, what's more) don't build up the suspense about the future of midge maisel, but are an issue of weak planning. and yet, despite having low expectations for the finale, i found myself rather charmed by it. the final hour (and sixteen minutes) shows us the night midge finally got her big break: on the gordon ford show as the first writer to get a spot in front of the camera. the victorious feel is contagious; i was happy as the audience clapped for her after her set. it did feel earned! even tho i never really found midge all that funny (not to mention that she was a spoiled brat masquerading in pink dresses as a victim), would have loved to see more of the aftermath of her success (show us the way she broke boundaries, don't just tell us!), and this idea that everybody is charmed by her no matter what got tired quick, the ending was always going to give her this big win and it actually felt good to see it. the last episode - entitled FOUR MINUTES - is so good compared to the rest of the season, it makes me upset that the structure of the previous eight episodes wasn't better. the idea that joel is midge's great romantic love, the odd parallelism between her own career ascending and lenny's imploding, susie's sexuality getting sidetracked until it's convenient (and then it's just about midge), all these choices and more are incredinly frustrating. there's some clever idea and a fantasy element that helped the show back in its first seasons, but once the novelty wore off, MAISEL became tiring (and i'm not even sure it will age that well, quite frankly) and lazy. even so, the ending pleased me more than i thought it would (even if it needed some sanding to make it better) and i think that an ending where midge wouldn't have made it would have disappointed me more. even if she ended up mostly alone (w only one person left in her life. yeah, it's susie), i couldn't imagine this show not giving midge this win. it's sort of a miracle that the ending was good when the ending was atrocious, but i guess amy sherman-palladino does deserve credit for this.

season rating: 4/10

finale rating: 6/10

SUCCESSION

for a show named SUCCESSION, the most important aspect was never who would win waystar royco. or at least it shouldn't have been; if you watched the show that way, you probably missed on what made it truly special: the family at heart. in the end, the biggest decision in the show hinged on just that. maybe the final "showdown" took place in a board room meeting where the executives vote on the gojo acquisition, but for the roy children - sans connor, who is waiting on maybe shipping off to slovenia -, it's a playground. kendall's dream of becoming ceo (a role he was first promised at age seven) gets squandered when shiv votes against him. it's not a way to save him or her love for tom, but the jealousy of seeing her brother win over her. throughout the four seasons, it's always been more about the roys than it's been about business. the final season, composed of ten episodes which covered everything from the death of logan roy to the american election, only reinstated that at every turn. the addition of alexander skarsgard to the main cast has added a needed outsider energy that made this season better than the third one (but still not quite as good as the first two). while the business elements were always needed in this story (and even basis for some of the best parts in the show: the failed coup in WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? remains one of the show's best sequences), it's the family parts that made up the beating heart of the show. two of the seasons best episodes - CONNOR'S WEDDING and CHURCH AND STATE - showed us the characters dealing w the death of their universe. the last episode - which has a runtime of almost ninety minutes, deserved in this case - promised that the show wouldn't end neatly and even though, as a kendall roy fan, i lost, as a fan of quality television, i enjoyed the ending. it packed the punch that we've come to expect from SUCCESSION. there's been showier episodes of the show, but in a way to set up the next chapter for the roys, one we won't see, it was exactly what was needed.

season rating: 7/10

finale rating: 8/10

BARRY

BARRY has always been a dark show, but throughout its four seasons run, it often crossed the line into bleak territory. and yet, the ending, as disturbing as it was, also had a ray of sunshine seeping through the dark clouds. sally may have been a morally corrupt character, but if anybody deserved whatever this show's version of a happy ending was, it was her. the last we see of her, she's reverted back to being the blonde sally reed, this time happily directing a high school production of OUR TOWN. there's still an old sally in there - as shown by her replying to her son's 'i love you' by asking him if she did well directing -, but she's something she's never been before: content. it's the happiest ending we get in the entire series. maybe fuches, too, gets a happy ending, too: not only does he make it out alive from the shoutout btwn his team and hank's, but he also got to make up to barry by saving his son from the bloodbath. the small moment these two men, bound by history and violence and bloodshed, share in the finale is one of the series' most poignant moments. barry, on the other hand, he gets what he deserves and what he doesn't. on one hand, he finally dies, after years of uttering 'starting now' and trying to get redemption, but w/o doing anything to deserve it. the one to finally take him down is gene himself (using rip torn's gun, too) in one of the show's best scenes (barry's final words and the applause from the next scene are such great touches). we can't even be happy much that barry's finally dead because, as we learn from the biopic made about the relationship btwn him and gene (a very hollywood movie that brings everything down to cliches), gene is serving life in prison for the murders of janice moss and barry whereas the titular character got buried in arlington national cemetery. the world considers barry a hero and gene a monster; it's the perfect ending. noho hank, too, has the right ending, even if it's heartbreaking: he dies, holding the hand of the cristobal statue he erected in his company's headquarters after a shoutout w fuches' team. the visual is stunning and encapsulates his character better than any shot in the entire show. noho hank, you are so missed.

some have argued that the show became too dark or more of a showcase for hader's directing than anything else, but both of these reasonings are, quite frankly, bullshit. a series - comedy or not - about a hitman was never going to have the cheeriest ending. what's more, there was plenty of humour to be found in the darkness (barry's quest for a religious podcast that condones murder, noho hank and the four badass ultimate killers, even gene's reason for leaving for israel). often times, these moments were funnier than anything else on television. as for the complains about hader's directing shadowing everything else, it's ridiculous to even entertain this idea. these eight episodes (all directed by him) are some of the show's best, bringing out the a game in everybody. sally's gena rowlands moment, fuches' transformation, barry's detour into religion, noho hank's borrowed time, and gene's exile shine extra brighter in his assured directing. look at IT TAKES A PSYCHO; in one of the series' most breathtaking episodes, the darkness at the end transforms into the whiteness of purgatory that barry, sally, and their son live in. the action sequence in THE WIZARD blurs reality, hallucination, and dream, making one of the standout pieces of the series. hader directing is one of the most exciting things to happen on television in forever; i, for one, am excited for whatever he does next (but first, let's get him, sarah goldberg, and anthony carrigan the emmys they deserve).

season rating: 10*/10

finale rating: 10/10

TED LASSO

sigh. i don't even know where to start. what was once the bright spot we all needed during the pandemic became, in its second season, a series of bizarre choices and transformed itself into a warning that maybe you shouldn't let a bunch of people w no respect for good storytelling or romance to lead a show. the ending was so bad that even i, a person who recoiled in horror at the idea of ted x rebecca ending up together, thought it was stupid to Not have these two confess their love for one another. TED LASSO is a story of what happens when you're so focused on getting your actor the good pr we badly craves while he's fighting his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend (now turned ex), you forget to write your story well. once bill lawrence, the original showrunner, gave jason sudeikis more control of the showrunner duties, the show started spiraling. i keep nagging on the bad parallel in the funeral episode, but after the ending, it got even worse! season three sidelines its female characters, refused to give nate's redemption arc the meat it needed in order for it to be believable, transformed its characters into cardboard cutouts, insisted on hour-long episodes length, villainized ted's ex-wife, and took on an afterschool psa tone. the cast isn't even so good to keep you interested! the only ones who got out rather unscathed are phil dunster (the only actor who should even get nominated for an emmy for the show this year) and james lance (and his incredible head of hair); everybody else either had too little to do to allow them to shine (nick mohammed and juno temple) or straight-up went to autopilot mode (everybody else). i wrote about the show here, so i won't devote more time to it other than to say: my god, what a disaster of a finale.

season rating: 3/10

finale rating: 2/10

THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL can be streamed on amazon prime. BARRY and SUCCESSION can be streamed on hbo max. TED LASSO can be streamed on apple tv plus (but, like, you shouldn't do that).