Maybe it would have been better off staying that way, because I thought the finale was mediocre and derivative of every other bland finale.
It was bad enough that Will and Neal's situation was resolved though an offscreen deus ex machina of their source killing herself in protest (and man was her sacrifice poorly handled --no one gave two shits about it or her cause except for how it impacted Will and Neal), but now the big bad of Pruitt is also taken down a notch through offscreen shenanigans out of nowhere, so that they'll get to go on doing their show their way for Charlie's sake. Well, that's special and all, but it didn't occur through the character's own actions standing up to Pruitt, it happened because Pruitt was a douchenozzle to women somewhere else. I would have rather seen them fight the good fight and lose than win by forfeit. Yeah, they put up a fight last week, but Pruitt wasn't giving up because of that.
I wanted to see more of where these people would go rather than where they've been, so naturally we get half an episode of flashbacks that provide some admittedly nice character moments, but don't actually tell us anything new. In fact all the characters were reset to their pre-epiphany settings so it was like they weren't the people we've come to know at all.
Jim and Maggie were obnoxious again. There's no way in hell that trainwreck of a relationship is gonna last a month long distance. I tuned out after the fifth iteration of will she or won't she go to DC and why or why not and was it because Jim was trying to get rid of her or because he wished her the best and why didn't he express more regret about her leaving for the job he got her. Uggh.
The reason I was surprised by Charlie's death last week was that I didn't think Sorkin wouldn't so closely mimic Leo's death from the West Wing (although John Spencer's death didn't give the WW much of a choice). It wasn't the heart attack that surprised me, it was the death itself. I thought Charlie would recover and have to retire or at least take things down a notch, not die. I guess I should be glad that Will didn't walk alone into the church and start yelling at God in Latin like after Mrs. Landingham died. But if the last episode was going to feature so much Charlie anyway, I would have preferred if he had just lived and been in it rather than only feature in flashbacks.
The song was nice in a hokie way, but it went on a little too long, and I would have rather seen everyone welcoming Neal back or a longer look at the direction the characters will be taking instead. I didn't feel like certain people got enough closure because their time was traded off for flashbacks --oh, no way, Jim was kind of a dick back then too; you don't say!?
It wasn't an aggressively bad finale like say, Dexter's or True Blood's was, it was just boring and derivative and focused on the wrong things, IMO.
