Edit: 2018-July-19
Watched the series again on DVD 5 years later and find my original comments on Season 4 below, written at broadcast time, overly critical and off-base. Would delete, but the system doesn't allow.
Back then, I lost track of some of the plot threads running over weeks, especially with the long mid-season hiatus. Watching the episodes closer together, the season does make sense and is really outstanding.
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Good finale, but I hope the show gets back on track. The surprise of Season 4 was that Piper Perabo agreed to come back next year for Season 5 after the foundations of the show and her character were nuked.
Annie Walker originally knew 6+ languages. How many words did she even speak during all of season 4? How many weren't mostly babble? Did she smile even once all season? Bit of a waste.
Arthur & Joan's careers were trashed just as they developed plot momentum. In return, we have unemployed Joan and Arthur with a baby. Dramatic gold for a spy show about the CIA! Oh yeah! You can almost hear the brain-trust running the show thinking "now we can do shows about how having a baby affects spies -- it'll be awesome!"
Just imagine the writer's bull sessions for season 4:
Writer #1:"Let's see.. Arthur, one of our main characters who anchors the show, has been building his career to the highest levels of the CIA for 30 years"
Writer #2:"Wouldn't it be cool if he just threw it all away and resigned? That will really open up way more story-lines than if he was appointed ambassador to China, or continued in the CIA"
Write #1: "Why would he throw away a 30+ year career?"
Writer#2: "I've got it! He has a secret son who's also a spy. If he throws away his career, that will somehow save his son!"
Write #1: "Cool!! That's like family values. That will be great because good stories are always about families. So it will be a good story!"
Good-girl Annie now has a body count that needs a calculator to total up, mostly pointless throw-away drama with a wildly implausible "super-villain".
The show has a bad habit of developing a plot idea, then before it can be really developed, abandoning it for a less interesting plot idea. Rinse and repeat in a downward lurch. The exception was Season 4, where they picked a weak plot idea and totally committed to it instead of abandoning it, dragging it out for 16 episodes instead of the ~3 it might have actually supported.
Any vaguely realistic depiction of the CIA is gone. Maybe the magic wand will wave and Humpty Dumpty will be reassembled, but the show seems to have lost any concept of what its about.
Best episodes were still the season 1 pilot (the new hire concept) and the one where Annie first cranked it up a notch and recruited the asset in Yemen (persuasion and seduction). Of course there were many (many) other arguably great episodes in seasons 1-3, those were just two stand-outs. Her strength as a spy is an ability to charm and persuade and develop relationships.
Season 4 suddenly decided she was Jason Bourne. Skulking around the streets with a scowl on her face and getting into fist-fights with burly guys while waving a hand cannon around. What little dialog she had was mind-numbing, as if Annie's IQ had dropped 50 points from Season 3. The big Season 4 close? "It's nice here on the water." <- now that's big-time writing!
I did notice the curious role inversion between Henry and Annie. When he had her in Lexington/HK, he snaps at her "It doesn't matter" (being cut off from support) and she responds, "it always matters". Then in the penultimate scene, they switch lines, with Annie saying "It doesn't matter" (how she found him) and Henry responds "It always matters".
Later, she sadly walks out into the market, pausing in front a sign in the background that says "Nowhere Fast".
Annie Walker would have a problem as a spy in that she couldn't move about unnoticed. Every guy she passed on the street would remember encountering one of the world's most beautiful women. There would be people stopping and staring.
Piper Perabo no doubt has difficulty going out in public and has a large array of glasses and hats and coats and tricks to look plain for out-and-about. But "super-spy" Annie Walker hangs out in junkyards and markets like someone who just did a shoot for Vogue.
Not a complaint, just saying that as a spy, she could not be effective in the field as a covert "fists-of-fury" operative ala Season 4. But in terms of persuasion and seduction (both intellectual and physical) she could be effective and believable if not unstoppable. The fact they spent all season going against the character they established was a problem.
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