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The final episode of Jericho set off at a full run and kept me entertained, if not slightly edge-of-seat.  Although Jake healed implausibly quick, the journey could not be deterred.  He and Hawkins were off to get a nuke.

They popped right into Cheyenne and told Mayor Gray Anderson to head home. I thought it completely in character that the Mayor’s primary objective concerned the “Right to Bear Arms” being left out of the constitution.  His powerful performance on re-entering Jericho revealed what the producers intended amongst all the hoopla:  the people of small town America cannot be overcome.  What could be more poetic than the flag, “Don’t Step On Me?”

The scenes played out between Major Beck and Heather also reinforced this theme.  She appealed to who he was as an United States citizen, not an Allied States citizen, proving that united means standing behind particular values, not just allied together for protection of one sort or another.  The scenes involving Beck at the end stand out.  Our current military are not a group of fighting machines trained to follow orders and kill. They are a group of men and women trained to stand on principal.  Opportunists would take advantage of our military, given the chance, but eventually individuals choose for themselves in situations such as this. They make decisions based on the values they were first raised with, not necessarily the values touted in front of them.

The action scenes were well shot and edited at a primal pace. Still, didn’t like the resolution of John Smith’s character. I wanted to known more about his real intentions and how he got to this position.  I did love how Hawkins and Jake handled everything that fell in front of them.  And I’ll leave it at that.  If you’d like to see what I’m talking about you can catch the whole thing on CBS.com.  For my part, I’m glad I’ve been there, done that, but I won’t miss it now that it’s gone.  I feel no great sentiments at our parting.

As I’ve said before, this show had a great premise but little backing from the network.  I think the intricate overall plot and the way the producers thought through what would bring our country to its knees was an incredibly clever undertaking.  This season certainly wrapped up what they began last season.  I wish they’d had more money and time in the beginning to develop and execute each episode, maybe even stretch it out over a few more seasons – or less intricate character sub-plots knowing they only had two seasons.

But certainly they had hoped for more.  I think the real tragedy will occur when the next exec proposes a disaster show of this scale and the powers-that-be answer back that America doesn’t want such a tale.  That couldn’t be more wrong.  We just want a disaster show done well, with money for more explosions, better graphics spread out throughout the season instead of the one pilot, larger battles, and definitely an epidemic episode that involves more than one person getting a cold and needing Ciparo . . . Or magically confiscating just the right vaccine at just the right time.

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