Oh. My. God.
I don’t think the producers of “Jericho” could’ve come up with a more annoying ending unless they’d had everyone join hands and sing “Good Morning, Starshine” over the goddamned closing credits.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
This week’s episode begins where last week’s ends: with those missles going into the air. A few minutes later, there’s an electromagnetic pulse and the power goes out. Cut to the opening credits (such as they are), then go to commercial. When we come back, we get a title card that informs us that two weeks have passed…but, strangely, the only thing that seems to have happened in that time is that kids are now playing baseball with their cell phones. I guess that’s supposed to show us that the phones are all dead now, thanks to the EMP.
Actually, there have been a few developments in that time. The Mayor has “the flu,” or at least that’s what everyone’s being told. Robert is still majorly paranoid around his family, but he’s managed to incorporate himself into the local police force pretty well. Stanley’s crops are infested with bugs, which turns him into an instant asshole. Also in those two weeks, Dale started running with a bad crowd, though we don’t really get much clarification as to how that came to pass, and Eric is steadfastly avoiding talking with his bartender babe, even though he and his wife don’t seem to have been getting along that swimmingly.
We get more clues about Jake’s reasons for leaving town, including his dad’s key line, “You left town and a boy was dead.” We meet his former cohort, Mitch, who’s apparently started stealing horses for fun and profit, and we get a little bit more detail from the conversations between Mitch and Jake, including Jake’s comment about how “I told you I wasn’t going to rob anyone.” Oh, yeah, and Jake’s mom gets trampled by some horses, which is actually kind of a scary scene…but maybe that’s just because I have friends who are equestrians and have told me about the dangers of finding yourself underfoot of one horse, let alone several.
Okay, fine, I’ve waited long enough: what about that fucking ending…?!? Oh, CHRIST, it was bad. After spending the episode with Stanley being an asshole about not wanting to share his crops with the town, then getting all whiny and asking, “Is this what we’ve come to,” the whole town shows up and, to a soundtrack provided by the new Jakob Dylan album (which is helpfully hyped after the credits roll), helps him harvest his crop. It was so schmaltzy that I just kept smacking my forehead with my notebook, repeating over and over again, “This is not happening, this is not happening.” We got no further details about the government, making the phone call and broadcast from last week nothing more than a tease, and the last few seconds of the episode, with that brief encounter between Jake and Mitch, was in no way enough to redeem the big steaming load of dung that immediately preceded it.
Okay, Mr. Paulsen, I’m with you. “Jericho” is now officially on notice. Enough with the conflicts within the town; give me more of the big picture sooner than later, or I’m on the verge of walking.
