Moonlight Serenade

Moonlight:
"Sonata"
Well, CBS, you dropped the ball. It's not the first time (Now and Again), and it certainly won't be the last, but, boy, did you do it...

Moonlight's (sigh) series finale episode was fantastic. Just a thoroughly entertaining and enrapturing hour of television, which--if the 3 minutes of Ghost Whisperer I accidentally watched were any indication--is not something that is easy to come by on CBS.

There was so much to like about this episode, just as there was so much to like about this show (which I truly believe has been getting consistently better and better all season). The post-strike episodes have been particularly solid, with intriguing weekly cases and heightened romantic stakes (he he, stakes, get it?). And the best post-strike revelation was that the show's third--or is it fourth?--showrunner seemed to understand the importance of using Jason Dohring in as many scenes as possible. The guy is just hilarious. And hot.

If it had to be the last episode of Moonlight, at least it had Joseph making wisecracks, a vampire task force, a humongous police transport vehicle crash, a touching sacrifice, and a romantic revelation.

Gotta say that I love Moonlight's new favorite pastime of having Beth walk into Mick's apartment right when he's saying or doing something incriminating. I was pretty amused by her showing up right when Mick succumbed to peer pressure and tasted the other lady's blood (to check her blood type) and the ensuing argument: "There are laboratories for that!" Ha.

I also loved that the show threw in some final references to Veronica Mars with the return of Hearst College. Especially great was Beth asking Joseph if he went to Hearst College. Yep, he definitely did. Another fantastic line in that conversation was Joseph's "You know, prom wasn't really big back in the 1700s. High school either. The plague--the plague was big."

And I'm not sure which Hearst College fraternity Mick and Beth wandered into, but those guys made even Veronica's Pi Sigs look classy. The best line of the night, which I'm still laughing about, was Mick's line (which was flawlessly delivered by Alex O'Loughlin):

"Yeah, well, I got hit in the face with the sacred ass paddle."

The vampire posse banding together to stage the prison break was fun (wow, those "cleaner" ladies sure mean business), and the execution/sacrifice of the vampire wife and husband was emotional, but the cancellation of this show would have been especially hard to take without that ending. Thank goodness for that ending.

I expected the show to fade out on post-break up Mick and Beth crying into their respective walls. I was terrified that the show would end like that, because that did seem to be the best move for a season finale. As a series finale, however, I think Moonlight's fans (who take this show very seriously) would have taken a collective jump off the roof. Or, more appropriately, driven a stake through their collective heart. Or something. But how gratifying was it to see Mick finally overcome his fear of commitment and actually tell Beth what his actions have demonstrated all along: that he loves her. Beautiful.

Personally, I could have stood to see Mick and Beth do a little more than just kiss after all of that, but, sure, go out on a classy note. Good call, Moonlight. CBS, not so much.

(photo: cbs.com)