I was surprised to see Arrow ending its third season in a way much like one of the possible endings I see for Mad Men. Although Don Draper doesn’t currently have a comparable woman in his life, I can easily see him ending the series starting over with a new life in California. As for Oliver Queen, there is little doubt that a new threat to Starling City will bring him back. The best line of the finale was Lance not being surprise that the cite was in grave danger because it is May, showing awareness of how each season of the show has turned out.
Mark Guggenheim appears to have given away the direction, and big bad, for next season in an interview in Variety:
What can you tease about the trajectory of season four — will HIVE still play a major role?
We’re kind of doing a lot more in terms of the big bad for next year than we have in previous season finales. We first heard about Damien Darhk in episode 321 and there’s a pivotal sequence that surrounds Damien Darhk in the season three finale, so that’s exciting. It feels like we’re pulling a “True Blood” or a “Sons of Anarchy” where the big bad for the following year is teed up in the season finale of this year, so that’s kind of exciting for me because that’s something we’ve never seen before.
A trailer for the spin-off DC’s Legends of Tomorrow has been released and Caity Lotz will play The White Canary, apparently returning to life in a changed form due to The Lazarus Pit.
As for Mad Men ending with a comparable ending with Don Draper driving in California, this is one of many possibilities. He did look the about the happiest he has ever looked at the end of last night’s episode, just sitting on the bench at the bus stop, having divested himself of almost everything in his life. It would be even more plausible that Don would never return to New York if not for the events of last week, but it is also possible that he will pick up the kids after Betty dies and settle into a new life with them in California or elsewhere. There has been some talk recently that the show could end with Don jumping out of the building as in the opening titles. I see the story very likely ending figuratively along such lines–not with Don actually jumping but with him giving up everything about his life as Don Draper except possibly his kids.
There is little doubt that the finale will center around Don, but there is much more in question as to whether we will see more of other characters. Pete somehow looks like he will be the one to end up living happily ever after after last week’s episode, but it remains possible that something will still change things in the finale. After we saw Betty in a previous episode with both a happy family life and going to school, it looked like this might be the end of her story. In retrospect her lung cancer was certainly foreshadowed, between Betty smoking so frequently and all the episodes dealing with cigarettes and lung cancer. Joan could live happily ever after with her financial settlement, and possibly with her new love interest, and we may or may not see her again. I do hope we find out whether Peggy is successful in being treated as a professional, but if we don’t see her again the manner in which she walked into McCann Erickson the last time we say her would be a satisfactory ending. I’m not sure what Roger will do there, but I was also never sure of what he actually did previously.
Whether or not Oliver Queen or Don Draper wind up in California, it looks like Peggy Carter will when Agent Carter returns. The synopsis to the second season:
Marvel’s Agent Carter returns for a second season of adventure and intrigue, starring Hayley Atwell in the titular role of the unstoppable secret agent for the SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve). Dedicated to the fight against new atomic age threats in the wake of World War II, Peggy must now journey from New York City to Los Angeles for her most dangerous assignment yet. But even as she discovers new friends, a new home — and perhaps even a new love — she’s about to find out that the bright lights of the post-war Hollywood mask a more sinister threat to everyone she is sworn to protect.
The season finale of Agents of SHIELD tied up the Inhuman plot but left them as potential future enemies. The whole question of a second SHIELD appears resolved, but we don’t know if Coulson will lead SHIELD as a one-armed man (or whether Dr. Ricard Kimble will be chasing after him). Hopefully Simmons will be saved and Fitz will have happiness. We got some clues as to where next season could be heading. From Entertainment Weekly:
And here’s where the show sets up the now-official season three: a one-handed Coulson decides to put together a new team, centered around people with powers, led by Skye, under the promise that everyone on the team will be kept anonymous. An Inhumans team! Ah! It’s all happening!!!
But even Coulson and Skye don’t realize just how important and necessary their powered team is now, since the crate of crystals Skye sunk in the ocean breaks open, infecting all the fish, who are then caught by fishing ships and chopped up into fish oil pills sent to supermarkets and pharmacies everywhere. The world is about to become overrun with unsuspecting Inhumans! Jiaying’s plan succeeded, even if she did survive to see it happen.
More from executive producer Jeffery Bell at IGN:
IGN: Coulson wants Skye to form a new, super-powered and anonymous team. Is this heading towards the Marvel Cinematic Universe take on Secret Warriors?
Jeffrey Bell: Well, Daisy Johnson certainly has a big part in Secret Warriors and having a team like that. If you’ll notice, Coulson says right now she is the only person in what might be this new outfit. But you know, the idea of a team of powered people is something we’ve seen in the show, and I think there’s a world down the road where we do our version. We do our version of all these things so they may not be Secret Warriors but there’s a whole lot of super-powered people fighting super-powered people. That’s not really what we do or what we can even do on a weekly series. But tipping our hats to that direction I think is something we’re suggesting there in the new season.
IGN: Another new team looks like it could be forming under Ward as he moves into a leadership role in Hydra. What’s ahead for him?
Bell: Ward has been a lot of fun. He’s gone through several changes over the course of last two seasons – going from boy scout, to Hydra foot soldier who’s loyal to people above him, to someone who’s been off on his own, and coming to a place where he’s at peace with himself. But after these events at the end of these last two episodes — finally he has a personal vendetta against Coulson and his team in a way he didn’t before because he can now point to them as the reason, whether rightly or wrongly, that he killed the woman he loved. By saying he wants to get closure – and we’ve seen what that’s meant in the past — I think in many ways that means he’s going to be a much more terrifying person…
IGN: What can you tease about whatever the Kree monolith did to Jemma?
Bell: As you go down your list, you’re always looking at what would generate the most story and what would tell interesting, compelling stories. And her character has changed so much in the course of a year. With Fitz, in just in a more obvious way with the head trauma and PTSD with what happened to him, but we did see her go through a lot of changes as well. They’ve each kind of become their own — in the first season we referred to them as FitzSimmons, one word almost as if they were two halves of the same person. This season we’ve split them into two whole people. They went their separate ways, and now that just as they were coming back together, it just seemed like there was an opportunity to twist that story a little bit.
And now that she’s dead — [laughs] no, I’m just kidding — or lost somewhere. Who knows what happened to her? But it seemed like too good of an opportunity not to explore. We love Elizabeth as an actress, and we look forward to seeing what happens to her and how she deals with it.
Person of Interest has only been picked up for thirteen episodes, but that could be a good thing as the show has moved from a procedural to a more science fiction show about artificial intelligence and surveillance. Thirteen episodes will allow them to deal more with the mythology and less with the number of the week–especially when the machine might not even be able to shoot out more numbers. It is not know if there will be further seasons after the fifty. If they end it with a good thirteen episode arc like on Fringe that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
Co–showrunner Greg Plageman has discussed plans for the fifth season:
How much do you have planned about season 5 at this point?
Greg Plageman: We’ve actually got a lot mapped out. It’s really kind of cool. We gathered our writers at the end of the year — and obviously we left on quite a cliffhanger in terms of Team Machine being engaged in a firefight. [Laughs] We really wanted to know where we were headed. What does it mean with the Machine being in an impenetrable case, and what that’s going to entail for the first couple of episodes, and what the larger arc of the season was. Some really great things emerged from that, and [PERSON OF INTEREST creator] Jonah [Nolan] and I both feel great about the blueprint going forward.Will you be picking up next season in the immediate aftermath of that epic gunfight? Or will there be a time jump?
GP: We discussed a couple of options, and we feel the most honest and satisfactory way to go would be to pick up in real time. Clearly, Team Machine is carrying a pretty valuable football. The case seems pretty impenetrable; I certainly hope it can float.Will they be able to return to their subway sanctuary? Or is that off-limits now?
GP: The subway is still okay, as well is, interestingly enough, the cover identities of the guys hasn’t been blown in terms of Samaritan’s point of view. The problem comes when members of Samaritan recognize our crew out in the street, and know who they are, or they engage in anomalous behavior that alerts Samaritan. We feel like some of the fun we had [with the cover identities] is an unexplored arena we’d like to get into a little bit more in the next season.Do you anticipate going back into the numbers of it all as soon as possible next season? Or does the Machine being compressed give you an opportunity to step away from that for a bit?
GP: It’s going to take some doing [to get back to normal], obviously. We imagine if the Machine knew its demise was imminent, it may have also known of a number of premeditated murders and plotted — before it was compressed into a Kevlar case — to let our guys know that there are some people they should keep an eye on until the Machine is able to regain some of its faculties.
Although not science fiction, The Blacklist ended the season in a way analogous to Person of Interest. The show started out as primarily a vehicle for James Spader and frequently concentrated on the case of the week. Lizzie Boone was often a weak character who could only succeed by getting key information from Reddington. The season finale blew that up, and should make Lizzie more interesting as a character. I have some question about the finale as I don’t really think Lizzie would take the step of shooting the Attorney General, ensuring that she would be a fugitive. However for the purpose of advancing the show, I will accept that in a moment of extreme stress, with everyone she knows being threatened, she might take such an extreme action.
Morena Baccarin has been promoted to a series regular for the second season of Gotham.
Orphan Black has hit a relatively slow point the last couple of weeks, with one or another clone captured, along with some DNA talk, so I will hold off on detailed reviews. Among the more memorable scenes was Helena killing the “lab rat.” I was surprised to see her leave Sarah behind, as previously she said she did not believe the claims that Sarah had betrayed her. Helena is never predictable.
There were questions as to whether David Lynch was going to go through with the revival of Twin Peaks. It looks like it is back on again.
Saturday Night Live mocked Hillary Clinton once again. Video via Crooks & Liars:
