Really glad to hear the critics speaking out against things this episode, and half-season.
Just logged onto Facebook to find that Other Roomie posted about the show last night – in short, how wrong it was. I’ve actually taken care to cloud her viewpoint very little, and although she has been told on multiple occasions Neal was dead-dead, I know she was waiting for him to return last night. Let’s face it: they killed one of their core characters, set up the expectation that time travel could resurrect him, enacted the time travel episode, reminded us that he is the heroine’s definition of home, and gave the character with the means & motivation to save him the information necessary. And then… no. Talk about whiplash for GA, who had no spoiler of doom, and no forewarning that this one, singular time, dead really meant dead and there would be no magical plot exception. Even WITH that knowledge, Other Roomie was clearly devastated last night – really, as far as someone who doesn’t ship goes, very devastated.
It’s horrible storytelling, really. How do you kill a character, tease a return, have the means to easily and logically execute said return and then not deliver?
Coming at it from that angle, it feels exceptionally cruel.
Cause this story needs some mending & a better happy ending...