Shawn Ashmore, who has committed professional suicide by being associated with The Following, was asked about how a season finale should run. His response regarding the season finale for The Following…….. follows
“What I will say, without giving too much away, is people rarely love the finale. Sometimes shows end on such huge cliffhangers that it’s exciting because it pumps you up for the next season and I understand why they do that. But, sometimes there’s a sense that there’s no closure, no satisfaction about what happened in that season. The creative team really does a great job of not only tying up and giving some satisfaction, emotionally and character-wise, but also leaving it wide open for a second season. It’s a huge episode.”
Now The Following has a huge advantage because nearly every one wished that episode 1 was also the season finale – alas that has not happened but the bar is so low 43 mins of commercials would be a step up come finale time. This can not be said for The Walking Dead and certainly not for Justified which had their season finales this week. Probably not helped by return of GOT and my personal favourite Vikings being in full swing
TWD had a very good second season. My general loathing for all things Zombie related is well known by my loyal band of Followers (the non-psychotic version natch). Season 3 started in the prison and ended in the prison and that pretty well sums up the lack of progress in this yarn. They dont mind killing off some major characters which is definitely a plus but the story simply does not engage me anymore and I imagine that Season 4 premiere will sneak up on me without any warning…… like a zombie even……. and may wait for a season rewatch in 2016 if any good vibes abound
Now Justified is a different animal altogether. Has been a great season but someone seems to have blinked at the end and forgot it was the season finale. Of course I will watch Season 5 premiere tout suite but it will seem more like Season 4 Ep 14 I imagine. Of course I blame Zea. She bought across a The Following script by mistake! They appear to have no idea how to handle Patton Oswalt all season? The show has some good baddies but do think Goggin’s character and his interactions have not really evolved. They have never quite recovered from the loss of Mags Bennett but do like Win Duffy et al.
Its a rich vein of TV around at present with the imminent return of MM also so this finale disappointment will quickly pass but the weak season finale is becoming a common event as many show runners get on the Dexter bandwagon and just keep churning out the seasons
However, as women will always tell you, all the build up in the world means nothing if no satisfactory conclusion at the end which only leaves one unsated.
And unlikely to go back to the well again.
flashman181 
I definitely agree with you on the Walk Dead finale, one of the seasons worst episodes and an even stupider way of ending it. I can see now why Mazzarra was dropped, he clearly knew how to do a decent job executing plots already in motion but doesn’t know how to lay any new track for himself now that those paths have been tread. I quit the show mid-way through the first season, came back at the beginning of this one and was humbled by those first few episodes but everything post-return has only cemented my original decision to quit, so I will do so again.
Justified though I had a lot less of an issue with, this season has been a strange, mercurial thing with no real enemy or goal and so closure wasn’t exactly going to be an option but there was, i thought, something satisfying about the episode. For one it began an ended within the hour while allowing for further stories to be told, unlike Thrones which was the real ‘episode 14’ for me.
How did you feel about Girls ending? The reaction in my circles has been mixed.
Really bagging GOT aint ya:) Justified is a top show and always on the radar but there just seemed something meandering about the finale. Do you think they used Patton well? The Limo shoot out seemed like an odd choice to me
I liked the subtle, or not so subtle, shift in Girls about midway through the season when we went from slutty Lena to fragile Lena. Adam is a great character and his story was more interesting than the other 3 bimbos. So it was a surprisingly “corny” ending for the season in some ways but fitted in fine with the last few episodes direction. It has never been my favorite show but it climbed up a few rungs by season end
Speaking of mixed reactions, finally got through VEEP and by episode 8 it was rather good – my biggest beef has always been the overuse of the F word (by JLD) which just seems forced. When they just stick to actual clever lines it works very well and the final episode was great
Yeah, I’m much more excited about the return of Veep than I am of Girls even though it is the most meandering show I have ever seen; though Enlightened still beats out both.
Girls baffled me a little because I wasn’t sure whether it was meant to be taken seriously; I ha a similar issue with the whole OCD plot-line though. It just came across as a bad joke and the cornyness of all the conclusions felt like something the show needed to undercut before it went away for a year. Hearing Dunham talk though it seems that she meant it to be a meaningful step forward for her characters and a positive one at that…which only made it seem stranger to me.
Patton was a bit more peripheral than I would have liked but then that’s true of every show that he’s in since I am such a fan. There is some merit to the idea that the show should have dropped Boyd at the end of Season One (not after the pilot though) and used the time this would have freed up on Art, the other Marshalls and new characters like Constable Bob since all of Boyd’s stories feel strangely separate. A show designed to be about the two men and their entwined but inverted paths is a valid idea and it seems what the finale was pushing towards, but structurally its not what Justified was set-up to be and so it still never quite sits right with me.
Forget Kim-Jon Un GOT is the new Hitler.
Lets hope Hannibal lives up to expectations