For those that keep saying the ending of "Saving Grace" was rushed... you have to keep in mind that it had to be rushed. The end of the proper third season was the episode where Grace kills the little girl and is holding her in the street.
THEN, TNT told the creators of "Saving Grace" that they were canceling the show, but would give them 3 more episodes to wrap it all up.
So, everything had to be tied up in 3 episodes. I think they did a great job.
Your partially correct.....
It was not a great job IMO, it felt sloppy and forgotton
like many homeless people, or friends you had in Highschool.
If the writers truely cared more than they did even under a rush
Job they would have done better. I personally think the Writers LOST
intrest and their Excitement in doing their job. As such Digrunteled
Employees, do their work half-assed, just because they were paid, not
because they cared. They Were OBLIGATED to do their job, not becasue they wanted to after they learned it was cancelled.
Excitement was Lost. When it Should have been Better than Ever.
It was like they stop careing about their job, because they knew
their job was nearly Over...... time to put in a New application
to another show, and hope to get work as another writer on another show.
To me it felt like the inevitable ending to Grace but without a Respected heartfelt Goodbye. Lets kill her without much story, lets leave to many Unanswered Questions. They had plenty of time to Answer questions,
and they had plenty of time to END the show GraceFully. But they didnt.
The had to Know that the show would eventually End, they had to of already
had Ideas for it. The End was Fully Expected by the Creators and the writers.
They were actually Luckier than Most shows, they new it was over with 5shows Unwritten and unfilmed. Most shows get cancelled and dont really have any sort of foreshadowing that it is Over.
20thCenturyFox cancelled the show... TNT was only the channel it aired on.
In fact TNT had originally Ordered from 20thCenturyFox episodes to finish
a 3rd season and TNT--- Wanted to Renew for a 4th season.
They had already Placed an Order for the show to continue,
20thCenturyFox refused and said No were cancelling the show,
but We will finish out the season with 5 more episodes.
Fox Refused to continue making the show.
The Excuse was the production Cost of the Show was too expensive.
20thCenturyFox agreed with TNT to finish the episodes for season3,
and said there would be no more.
It is Likely the Writers/Creators KNEW the show was cancelled Long before
TNT knew the show was cancelled.
As such TNT was willing to delay their original airtime for the remainder of the 3rd season, to try and assist in letting the creators/writers develop a proper ending, as such it was still a rush job but the writers could have Done allot better, and they ended the show with one Obviously Inevitable ending.....Grace HAD to DIE.
For one reason alone, just to prevent all us crazed fans from sending replica Angel wings to the Studio offices causing havok and dismay in the mail room.
It is truely a problem for studios dealing with fans that create petitions and ways to try and convince the studio to keep a show on the air.
Besides the fact Im sure some of the writers were genuinely
Pissed off that 20thCenturyFox Warned them they would be losing
their jobs.
The writers needed to try and consider their future, at the same
time finish a show they have now LOST their intrest and respect for,
because of a selfish Studio.
Personally I am sickened and saddened with the way it ended,
not because Grace had to Die, Or Sacrifice herself
but because it felt sloppy and disjointed from the previous
two and half years of a Fantastic TV Show.
It was Cheap and thrown together like a Kids Cr..Happy Meal
at McDonalds, junk with no real Substanace to it.
In the End it was all about Profit Margin, Not that an Award Winning Series, should be Kept on the air because millions of Fans or Viewers, wanted to see it.
The couldnt CareLess about the fans or Ending the show GRACEFULLY.
Even When it was Possible to do so.
They wanted No Way for it to EVER be Possible to come back.
Easy way to try and Kill the outcry and fan outrage as a Forshadowed Retaliation.
No matter why they had to rush it, it was rushed. It was everything the show had avoided carefully so far: moralizing, soapish, melodramatic and bloated with Hero Complex.
I was nervous the ending was going to be bad so I waited until today to watch the finale. Even with low expectations, I was disappointed.
What did she accomplish in the end? Nothing. That was pointless and don't even get me started on the awful direction of the episode. That fake slo-mo with the cigar and the fake explosion were ludicrous. I'm not even mentioning the long closeups on the bad acting by most of the supporting cast at the end.
They botched it. They didn't know what they were going to do even though they had announced God had a "plan" for Grace from the start and they were caught unprepared by the announcement of their cancellation so they improvised. Badly.
For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco
Wow...SpudsofSteele!
Hate to tell you but we've known since August of 2009 that Saving Grace was cancelled ...so they could have done a better job on the ending.
The problem was, the episodes were already done when the announcement came for the cancellation. The last episode they created was the one where Grace's car hit Esperanza.
They aren't going to go back and re-do episodes already in the can if the reason for the cancellation is money-related. Fox gave them an additional three episodes to try to tie everything up.
Things to tie up included Grace's guilt over her sister's death,
Grace's guilt over Esperanza's death.
Grace's concern over Neely.
Her relationships with her mom, sister and brothers, her nephew and her friends.
And, since Earl is a "last-chance angel" then they need to deal with Grace getting to the point where she has reached whatever point she needs to reach before the end.
Personally, I didn't like the whole "spirit walk" trip to Mexico - felt it wasn't in keeping with the character Holly Hunter had created up to this point, but I think they used it to get Grace to the point where she walked into the ocean so that they could give Grace the line during her "last supper" with Earl that when she let go and let the ocean take control, she relaxed and didn't struggle to breath any longer.
I also didn't like the character of Hut, the "darkness" that came into her life at the end. Once we got into the whole "good versus evil" thing we left "Saving Grace" and moved into "Touched By An Angel" territory and I thought it was trite.
Grace's strongest episodes, IMO, were always the episodes where she fought against her own nature, not outside forces. When she struggled to keep from killing Father "Satan" Murphy, for example; or when she at first was in favor of capital punishment in the case of Cooley but came to wish Cooley didn't have to be executed and even came to be his witness and be with him at the end of his life.
Having her die trying to keep evil from setting off another bomb in OKC was heroic, but she could just as easily have died in a car accident at the end of the series. What I didn't understand from the ending was the purpose of Grace having to go through this. Kind of like Job, she suffers from losing someone she loves, then kills a little girl accidentally, nearly loses Clay. Our bad guy clearly spent time with sister Mary Ellen as she died and took an interest in hurting Grace and I wondered: why is Grace so special that both good and evil are taking such an interest in her? The whole necklace storyline was something contrived within the last three episodes simply so it could be dangled in her face before she threw the cigar into the bed of fertilizer.
I think the writers could have come up with something much stronger had they had an entire season to put together a story and character arcs. They had spread out the show to the entire ensemble and now had to wrap everything up in the Grace storyline and try to do justice to the other characters in the story at the same time.
And perhaps we wouldn't have needed to have a "Touched By An Angel" character situation in order to bring the series to a close.
Hate to tell me, WOW I know this and thats my complaint on the ending. they HAD MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME
....thats exactly my point they should have done a hell of allot better with about a years worth of time.
Like i said to me it felt as thoiugh the writers stopped caring about the show and their duties when they were basically told they were fired.
they just threw something together without giving 2 seconds thought to ending the show well.
they had more than enough time to do it right and failed.
if the truth be known the only reason we got what we did was simply when the writers were told their fired and have 5 shows left, they were contractially obligated to keep working. they didnt finish it because they loved the show, they didnt finish because they cared.
they finished it on a rushed attitude to find another job. 1year is not enough time let alone only 6-7months. considering everything needed for a production to start, film, and complete. before air dates.
fact is they could have done much better even with the short amount of time they had.
you made alot of great points lthilfaen. i agree with what you say, even though it said it would answer all the questions, it didn't.
i'm not full of virtues and noble qualities. i love. that is all.
by Ithilfaen
They botched it. They didn't know what they were going to do even though they had announced God had a "plan" for Grace from the start and they were caught unprepared by the announcement of their cancellation so they improvised. Badly.
I liked this series, but was underwhelmed by the ending. I thought the Mexico trip went on too long and caused the rest of episode to suffer.
Why Mexico?
Ocean near Nuevo Leredo?
New Orleans?
I am willing to believe that the whole Mexico, New Orleans series was only partially real, if only to make the plot better.
Neely dying in Mexico? This also leads me to believe that the whole roadtrip part of the show was something other than reality. It's really the only way I can make any sense of it.
Which begs the question did she really meet the guy who recovered her sister or was she simply receiving revelations?
@Howie_Roark: I'm gonna have to agree with you 100% here, man. I was also under the impression that some of the things in the finale weren't truly real; i.e - The roadtrip, and (dare I say) Grace's "death".
I mean, who's to say that her "death" this time wasn't just a dream like it was in the S2 finale?
I, myself, personally feel as though the first couple of bullets that brought Flanders down to the ground, did in fact kill him. Everything else afterwards was, or could've been, unreal or untrue.
Basically, the way I see it: We don't really know what the hell happened with Grace.... we've seen angels stop time, teleport, falsify reality, and many other things too. Who's to say Grace isn't still kicking ass and taking names in Oklahoma? What if Fox turned around tomorrow (I know it'll never happen, but for the sake of conversation....) and felt like bringing the character back? I'm pretty sure they'd find a way. :)
But, anyhow, I digress.
They should have never had Grace kill the little girl, let alone kept it in the show after knowing it was canceled. This would have given them 3 episodes to end it rather than 2.
Episode 1: While working on a case as per the show's norm, Hut burns the house down. Proves he is willing to kill. Maybe even put her fireman brother in the hospital.
Episode 2: While working on a case as per the show's norm, Grace figures out the plan via some convoluted plot device and ends with her walking into the warehouse.
Episode 3: Bring in anyone involved from House MD, Maybe have the episode start in the middle and flashback it or use cool plot techniques to keep the viewer guessing and jumping from a theological point to theological point, until the big bang and her lunge for the necklace. Then maybe have her and Earl watch the funeral. Maybe have her brother the fireman find the necklace in her palm, thus proving his theories and give it to Clay. Have Ham place the ring in the casket. etc. And end the series with a white light or the God character going for a walk down the street.
But instead they wasted 2 precious episodes on a distraught Grace. Just like they wasted the Leon Cooley story.