On endings

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

Ivan Held--the president of the Putnam, Dutton, and Berkley imprints of the publisher I still insist was crazy not to celebrate its merger by calling itself Random Penguin--published a moving tribute to Sue Grafton this week. If we hadn't lost her too soon, we'd all be celebrating the release of Z is for Zero right now.

I also wish she'd lived to finish Z, and would have looked forward eagerly to whatever she decided to do in her post-alphabet career. I'm sad that there will be no more books, no more interviews, no more panels. Damn.

But I'm an oddball in one respect: I'm okay with the fact that she didn't get to wrap up the series. In fact, I'm relieved.

I hate endings. A movie, an individual book, a fairy tale--yeah, they need endings. But a book series or a TV series? Especially a beloved one that I wish were continuing? I don't want everything tied up in neat bows. Let me think of the characters still living their lives and having whatever adventures or misadventures I enjoyed reading about or watching.

There are a few exceptions. I rather liked the final episode of M.A.S.H. I could have lived without it, but I liked it. The final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer--loved that. But I think I liked the final episode of Angel better. (Stop reading here if you don't want even the slightest of spoilers. Although I'll try to avoid them.)

For those who never ventured into the Buffyverse, Angel was a character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and then the protagonist of a five-season spinoff called Angel. He's a vampire fighting on the side of the good against an increasingly powerful array of evil antagonists.  In the last episode, Angel and his allies defeat a powerful force of evil, but are well aware that there are plenty of other evil forces lying in wait for them. In fact, after a brief victory celebration, the good guys find themselves surrounded by what is by any reasonable measurement an impossibly overpowering force of evil creatures. Angel says "Let's get to work." And they do. We'll never know if they won or not.  We just know that they went on fighting.

In discussing this episode, Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy and Angel, said: "This was not the final grace note after a symphony, the way the Buffy finale was. We are definitely still in the thick of it. But the point of the show is that you're never done; no matter who goes down, the fight goes on."

Perfect for Angel. A non-ending ending.

And for the most part, I'm happier when a TV or book series doesn't wrap everything up neatly in the final episode. I like to think that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are in the middle of another five-year mission. That Ilya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo are still emerging from Del Floria's to battle THRUSH. That the game is still afoot for Sherlock Holmes and Watson.  That Alan Shore and Denny Crane are at this moment smoking another cigar on the Crane, Poole, and Schmidt offices. That Nero Wolfe's latest client will have to wait until he and Archie have finished one of Fritz's superb dinners.  That Jessica Fletcher is still expressing astonishment that murder has struck in peaceful Cabot Cove. And that Kinsey is still renting her tiny apartment from Henry, enjoying dinners at Rosie's, and writing "Respectfully submitted, Kinsey Milhone" at the end of another case report.

I'm fine that I don't get to see their further adventures. I just want them to continue to exist, somewhere out there in Fictionland.

I've even been known to hang onto the last book in a series for a long, long time, just to avoid the ending. I may never read Agatha Christie's Curtain. And I have yet to read Y is for Yesterday.

Someday.

Just not yet, dammit!

 

 

 

Comments

[Mark]

I can see your point, but I hated the ending of Angel. That was a cliffhanger, not an ending. It was one of the reasons I haven't watched any show by Joss Whedon in years. He can't end a story to save his life. (Hated the ending of Buffy, too.)

I'm still a little behind on Kinsey, having just listened to "O" this month. But I'm already mourning reaching the end. My guess is I will be okay with the series ending at "Y" (partially because I have to be), but a part of me will always be curious what she would have done with "Z."

[krisneri]

I also haven't read Y yet, and probably won't for a while. I'm of two-minds. While I wish Sue could have completed Z and had a "What's next?" time in her life, I suppose I like thinking that Kinsey doesn't have an ending, that we can imagine her living her life and having further adventures, even if we don't know about them.

[Barb Goffman]

This is why I was so unhappy with the choices the people behind Major Crimes made in the show's final season. Killing off Sharon? Why? I read an article explaining it was designed to help the audience grieve a few episodes before the end. But I was already grieving. I didn't need that slap in the face too. I prefer to not think about what happened. In my mind the squad members--all of them--of the Major Crimes Unit of the LAPD are still working their cases, alive and well. I just don't get to see them anymore.

[Lesley]

I know what you mean. I'm a big fan of Peter O'Donnell's comic strip/novels featuring Modesty Blaise. I was spoilered for what he did to the characters in his last book and I refused to read it for YEARS. Leave my beloved characters alone, dammit, they should be eternal, as they are in my head. And I'm still pissed off at the ending for Quantum Leap. Star Trek: The Next Generation got it spot on, at least for the TV show :)

[Donna M Williams More]

There is a sadness to knowing there will be no more books and chances to visit with a character or universe, no surprises in store, that forever after I will always know how the story ends when I re-visit. Meg has now overflowed a shelf - I had to file the last one at the end of the Emma Lathen collection, which will forever not quite fill a shelf. It's better when I know that the characters filled out their lifespan - Lord Peter and John Thatcher wouldn't be around to solve any more mysteries, anyway. It is just possible that I let it all be too real for me.

[Claudia]

1, "Random penguin." lol

2. Curtain is definitely not one of Christie's strongest works, and the ending would probably make you very angry. It was an unusual and different problem, though.

3. I hope we are still reading about Meg and Michael when they are grandparents and the third generation is thwarting criminal shenanigans. In a way, I wish they were ageless and we could keep Meg's parents and grandparents around forever, because they are wonderful.

[Theresa Williams]

I was in the middle was Y when Ms. Grafton passed. I was heartbroken. I also was at an empass with myself. Do I finish the book or not. Knowing that there would never be another! I finished it and wept. Like you Kinsey is still around.