The L Word series finale: “This is gonna take a little longer than we thought”

So after six seasons, the groundbreaking drama “The L Word” is no more. I am sad about this, but mostly I’m just pissed the show’s creators ended it the way they did. Those who watched the series finale the other night know what I’m talking about. Here are just a few of my thoughts on it (beware, major spoilers ahead):

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-Not telling us who killed Jenny is just fucked up. You make us viewers buy this preposterous murder mystery premise for the final season, and then you don’t even bother to tell us whodunnit? I suppose it’s kind of cool that they left it as an actual mystery so that you have to rewind and watch for clues throughout the episode, and of course it has gotten people talking on the message boards, so this was probably all part of the plan. And I do like mysteries, like those “Eleventh Hour” type books. But that only counts if you eventually tell us who did it. If we were simply waiting for the next season to start and answer all our questions, giving us a few months to try and figure it out, I would be thrilled. But unless there’s some surprise announcement of another season or a movie, I doubt this will happen.

-Regardless of the fact that I like mysteries, the ending made me shout “What?” at the TV, and my incredulity only increased as the bizarre end credits rolled. I understand the need for a curtain call, but did they all have to smile so creepily as they walked into a police station RIGHT AFTER THEIR FRIEND DIED? Oh, and Jenny’s ghost is walking with them, which only increases the weirdness factor. Then, when I think the ending can’t get any worse, the text “Thanks for six great seasons!” flashes on the screen. Bah? Talk about tacky.

-Making loyal viewers go online to watch “webisodes” if they want to continue following the story is really a cheap move. But dammit I know I’m going to watch them. Plus, the first of these “interrogation videos,” which features Tina, is all kinds of messed up and totally changes the character. That’s just not fair. It’s like J.K. Rowling declaring that Dumbledore was gay after the last Harry Potter book had been published.

-Not counting the frustration of loose ends, I did rather like the tone of the last episode. There were a number of very sad scenes, and the general David Lynch-ian feeling of gloom was very effectively conveyed, in my opinion. When it became clear that Jenny had died and nobody was noticing, I thought that was very powerful. If it turns out that she killed herself (which I think all signs point to), it would be an even sadder episode, because then the point is, there is no killer, so the story ends here.

-Then again, there are lots of clues that seem to indicate that it was a murder. Take Bette’s chilling confrontation with Jenny, her testimony being repeated twice, or the thousands of pointed references to the broken banister (which I find hard to believe existed–the contractor had time to paint, put a bunch of weird metal plant details in Bette and Tina’s bedroom, and generally construct a whole floor of a house in about a week, but couldn’t find the time to fix one measly wooden banister?). Plus there was that weird knife scene with Dylan and Helena (who, by the way, the episode spent entirely too much time following, especially considering their storyline had already reached what would have been a very satisfying conclusion in the last episode).

-Timeline-wise, everyone is missing from the media room around the time Jenny dies, which seems to make everyone a suspect. Tina and Bette and Max have a very tense conversation and experience ghostly chills right after she dies, which makes them look pretty guilty, but we also don’t know where Kit and Helena are during this time. Shane also makes reference to her relationship with Jenny being over to Alice right around then. She could just be implying that she plans on breaking it off, but it could also mean she’d already confronted Jenny, and Jenny did say earlier in the episode that if Shane broke up with her she would probably kill herself (and leave Shane everything).

-Then there’s the fact that Niki is hiding in the bushes after Jenny is found. There are a few explanations I can think of: she and Shane were canoodling and Jenny oversaw this and either ended it or died by accident out of surprise; she was planting the Lez Girls negatives in Jenny’s house out of revenge for embarassing her at the dance-off auction; she and Jenny had a confrontation and Jenny died accidentally; she saw someone kill Jenny (or it appeared that somebody did from her angle–let’s not forget the importance of angles in the Jenny-filming-Bette-and-Kelly plotline). We know she’ll probably be the one who blames the murder on Alice–nobody else from the group of friends would ever be that disloyal–so she would probably only do that to save herself, or to save someone she cared about (i.e. Shane), or if she actually thinks she saw Alice killing Jenny.

-Then there’s the possibility that it was merely an accident–Jenny tripped over her dog or fell off the balcony. If she did kill herself, I’m pretty sure she walked into the pool, rather than jumping in…somebody would have heard the splash.

-There’s also a theory that this whole season has been imaginary, whether it’s Jenny’s ideal ending for Lez Girls, or something along those lines. I’d like to think the show creators wouldn’t fuck with us that much. I hate when people theorize that kind of thing about “Lost” too, i.e. “it’s all in Hurley’s head.” Those kinds of plot twists are so cheating.

-What was with those police interrogation scenes? For one thing, barely anyone seems sad about Jenny, even Shane. Secondly, the cops are asking questions that seem more appropriate for a therapist and seem to have no connection to any sort of murder investigation. Even Alice points it out…”I don’t get these questions. What does any of this have to do with who killed Jenny?” Well put, Alice.

-A few last thoughts: when Shane ran into Molly, the bowl she was holding looked like a target; Alice and her impression of Tasha and Jamie getting it on was pretty funny; I didn’t see it coming when Tasha came back, yay!

But the funniest part for me was at the very end of the episode, when Lucy Lawless as the lady cop said “This is gonna take a little longer than we thought.” My thoughts were, yeah no shit. That was probably Ilene saying, oops we ran out of time in the episode, sorry. It was also a sad plant for the aforementioned webisodes, which is even more obnoxious.

What were your thoughts? And do you have plans to watch the webisodes or the upcoming spinoff, “The Farm”?