Hi all. I hope you and yours are doing well. We’re fully into the new year now, so I hope your resolutions are still intact.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of the TV show Brassic. I gave it a 9/10 in my review for it a few years back, so it was clearly a show that I held in high regard. Well, it’s been a few months since I finished the last ever series of it, and I’m still angry about it. It will surely go down as one of the worst endings of all time. Here, I will dissect how and why things went wrong, what should have happened, and how this could potentially be fixed. Enjoy:
Looking back at when I gave my stellar review for Brassic, I can see the date was March 2022. This makes complete sense, as the third series finished airing towards the end of 2021, and series four started airing in the autumn of 2022. So, I was right in the sweet spot, quality wise.
For my money, the first four series are near-perfect. I feel like there was a dip in quality in the fifth and sixth series (particularly series six), but there were still plenty of great moments throughout. The seventh – and final – series, however, is a complete disgrace.
It’s so bad, there’s still a part of me that wonders whether it was done badly on purpose. Did a Brassic super fan sleep with the creator’s wife or something? It almost feels like the final series is meant to be some kind of punishment for the fans who stuck with it. It’s just such a letdown.
Now, it’s far from the first show to suffer from a drop off in quality. Most shows – even some of the very best of all time – can only maintain top level output for a couple of seasons. The only show that immediately springs to mind where the quality was consistent throughout is Better Call Saul. So, I have no qualms about Brassic not maintaining the high standards it had previously set.
And look, endings are difficult. Very few shows are able to end on a high note. The way The Sopranos ended was widely panned. The ending of Dexter (the original show, not the newer series) was mercilessly mocked in many quarters. The final season(s) of Game of Thrones was so bad that it arguably altered whether the show as a whole could still be considered one of the greatest of all time anymore.
So, when I’m criticising the final series of Brassic, it’s not because I’m being unreasonable. It’s not because I’m demanding perfection. I simply wanted a competent, well intentioned finale. Which I clearly didn’t get.
Firstly, the main cast didn’t hardly spend any time together. Michelle Keegan was pregnant during the filming, so it was completely reasonable for her to appear in fewer episodes. But, I don’t understand why some of the other characters only appear in three or four of the six episodes. It would have been great to see the whole gang sign off together, rather than the bitty scraps we were served.
In addition to the regular cast not being as involved, there seemed to be a weird obsession with introducing new characters. I don’t necessarily mind some fresh faces being brought in, but the way it was handled was muddled and confusing.
A couple of younger characters were introduced, which had the potential to be an interesting storyline. They were a new gang of thieves, stepping on the toes of the established group of thieves. However, instead of a blossoming rivalry between the new school and the old school – or even a passing of the baton from one generation to the next – they all just end up working together pretty much straight away.
One of the new thieves happens to be the daughter of one of the main cast. They have an estranged relationship and haven’t spoken in years. Due to a convoluted set of circumstances, she ends up having to move in with her dad in episode four. They end up having a blazing row, where she tells him how much of a terrible dad he was and that she hates him. She storms off. They then don’t have any scenes together until the end of the episode, where she hugs him and tells him he’s not so bad, actually. And then they’re not seen together again.
I don’t think the long-lost daughter storyline was a bad one, per sé, but the problem with bringing in new relationships in the final series is that you don’t leave yourself enough time to adequately tell the story.
And if you thought adding one estranged family storyline into the final series was ill advised, two would be madness. Right? Too bad, because another character runs into his absentee father in one episode. That story all gets wrapped up within one episode. I’m not saying the writers were struggling for ideas, but I’m not not saying it.
Another character’s brother becomes a regular member of the gang as well. To be fair, this isn’t a long-lost brother. It’s a brother we have been introduced to before. However, let’s see if you can spot any problems for this brother:
- Series 1: 1 episode
- Series 2: 1 episode
- Series 3: 1 episode
- Series 4: 0 episodes
- Series 5: 0 episodes
- Series 6: 4 episodes
- Series 7: 5 episodes
I’d love to know why a character that only appeared in three episodes across the first 5 series then suddenly appeared in nine of the last 12 episodes. And, not to be cruel, but it’s not because the actor is particularly good or the character is particularly interesting.
My suspicion is that in the last couple of series, they couldn’t get the main cast to appear as regularly as they would have wanted. Be that because of scheduling conflicts, the actors commanding a larger fee per episode, or some unknown reason. Which then led to them shoehorning lesser characters in to fill the void.
Ok, so there were some casting issues in the final season, but the storylines in general were still good, right? Right?! Not really, I’m afraid.
Let me tell you briefly about what I think the best episode of the series was. It’s set at Halloween and, due to a strange set of circumstances, the gang have to move a dead body from a morgue to a pub. It actually vaguely makes sense within the context of the show.
Anyway, after some ups and downs, the gang succeeds. And it’s quite a fun episode. There are some great visuals and some decent laughs along the way. However, let me tell you the biggest problem with the episode: THIS IS THE PENULTIMATE EPISODE!
If it was just the penultimate episode of a series, fine. But for this to be the penultimate episode of the final series is mind-boggling to me.
For me, when a show is winding down, it should be moving towards a conclusion. There should be some sense of cohesion, with a through line of a story throughout the final season(s). For Brassic, so much of what happens in the final series has little to no consequence to what occurs in the final episode. It is just random stories mashed together, with the final episode plonked on top like a rotten cherry on a stale cake.
Ok, let’s talk about the last ever episode. I’ve had to psych myself up for this moment. There will be a SLIGHT SPOILER for how the episode ends. Just because I can’t explain how bad the ending is without saying what happens. However, it is only a slight spoiler, because the ending is vague and infuriating in equal measure, so it doesn’t really matter if you know how it ends.
I’ll start with a positive for the final episode. It was nice that all the remaining main cast were all present. As mentioned, they spent so much of the series apart. Erin (Michelle Keegan’s character) wasn’t there, because of the aforementioned pregnancy. Carol and Cardy weren’t there, as they had (wisely?) fecked off in episode one. But everyone else you would have wanted there was there.
And that’s it for the positives. The rest of the episode was convoluted, rushed slop. Weird pacing, an uninteresting plot, all actors delivering average performances. If the episode itself was quite bad, the ending was an abomination.
Without going into loads of detail, a few characters end up in a Mexican standoff, with various guns pointing at different characters, including the main character, Vinnie.
Quick sidebar: is the term ‘Mexican standoff’ acceptable? It feels like an old-fashioned term that should probably be offensive in this day and age. I don’t think I’ve heard any modern alternatives. I’m going to stick with it, if it ends up being problematic, someone let me know.
Anyway, the final scene ends with the sound of a gunshot. The camera cuts to Vinnie lying on the floor. He’s the one who’s been shot. As he is laying there motionless, I couldn’t help but think that there were literally dozens of better ways the show could have ended.
Brassic could deal with sad topics at times: addiction, depression, loss. But, mostly, it is a joyful and positive show about friendship and overcoming tough moments together. So, to see Vinnie laid out, alone, felt like a kick in the teeth. Especially given there had been such little time with the gang hanging out in the preceding episodes.
And, in addition to that, who shot Vinnie? The other characters had been left in a tricky predicament before the shooting, so what became of them? I get that sometimes a story’s end will be left ambiguous, to give the audience a chance to imagine their own ending. But this is one that leaves you so frustrated at the lack of closure.
In the moment, as I was watching Vinnie laying on the ground, and just as I was thinking that it was a terrible ending, it got worse. The camera zooms closer and closer, and then Vinnie just sits up, seemingly unharmed. And then the episode ends! So, a terribly disappointing ending where it seems as if Vinnie is dead is upgraded (downgraded?) to an abomination of an ending where nothing is resolved.
As much as I hated the idea of ending the show with the main character killed, at least that would have been final. You could even put a positive spin on it along the lines of all Vinnie’s choices led to that moment, so the journey was still important. Him sitting up like that was like a cheap trick. You could almost hear the show creators saying, “Haha, you thought he was dead!” It was the equivalent of when you were writing a story at school and couldn’t think of an ending, so you just had a character wake up and realise the whole thing had been a dream.
So, a very disappointing series and ending to say the least. However, it does leave me with some slight hope. Because, if they had nailed the ending and gone out on a real high note, I think they would 100% call it a day and never return to the show again.
But, because the ending was so poor, and not well received by many of the fans, I can’t help but think that none of the show’s actors/writers/producers will feel satisfied with what they produced. I can see a world where, 5-10 years down the line, they return to make things right.
There is a young character, Tyler, who is the son of the two main characters. He’s probably about 13 years old. It would be great to see him as a young man, possibly in a spot of bother (perhaps he has become a thief, too), so the whole gang has to rally to save him.
So, Brassic creators, you can have that idea, no payment necessary. Because, you know what they say: the best things in life are free!
Thank you for reading. I get the impression that Brassic has more of a cult following than widespread fandom, so I don’t know how much this will resonate with people. Oh well, it’s written now. Join me next time where I’ll be talking about… something. Bye.
Rob Recommends
Brassic – TV – 10/10
Perfect show, no notes! I kid 😛
Wicked: For Good – Film – 7/10
I really loved the first Wicked movie, so this one did feel like a bit of a letdown. I think the songs are better in the first one, and I really like the dynamic between Elphaba and Glinda. First as rivals and then as friends. The other big advantage the first film has is that everything that happens in it occurs before the events of The Wizard of Oz.
In this movie, the story sort of runs in parallel with the story of The Wizard of Oz. And that’s a problem. For me, anyway.
You see, I’m a big fan of the 1939 classic. It has to be up there in contention for films I’ve seen the most. Real story, I’m currently in the midst of writing a pantomime version of it. So, it’s safe to say that I know the story pretty well.
And that’s why I struggled to enjoy Wicked: For Good. So much of it just didn’t make sense when looked at through the prism of The Wizard of Oz. As just one example, in the original movie, the Tin Man doesn’t have a clue who the Wicked Witch is, but goes along with Dorothy anyway. In this film, he’s an old school friend of Elphaba and has a full on vendetta against her.
If I’m being generous, I guess you could say that rather than Wicked being the Wizard of Oz story, it is a Wizard of Oz story. The same characters, more or less the same plot points, but with a few subtle differences. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, I’m proposing that there is a Wizard of Oz multiverse. An Oz-verse, if you will. Very importantly, pay no attention to the men behind the curtains of space and time…
A Rob Blog 