Ah, Jericho, what are you doing to me? It's like a roller coaster ride every week as I vacillate back and forth between loving it passionately and giving it a big ol' ho-hum. By the end of last night's season finale, I was somewhere right in the middle again: Yes, I'll tune in again when it returns next fall; yes, I'll wish it was fulfilling more of the promise it keeps showing.

I guess if I were ever going to get truly deeply involved with the characters, it would have happened last night, when Major Dad kicked the bucket in the first skirmish in Jericho's little war with the neighboring town of New Bern (where the nearest Costco is!). The scene was, theoretically, quite moving and all, Major Dad telling his sons how much he loves them and all, but it should have made me cry or shocked me or something, but it didn't. That's no reflection on the cast, who do a fine job -- clearly, I'm gonna have to stop dismissing Skeet Ulrich as just another cute boy, cuz he's clearly far more talented that I've ever given him credit for, or else the long form of TV has given him room to stretch and grow as an actor. The scene in which Jake has to put aside his grief and pick up the mantle of his father's leadership was, you know, very nicely done. It didn't make me feel much, but it made me wish I could feel something. For that I give Ulrich credit and blame the writers.

The show has always been much better in creating suspense and drama and mystery through the larger situation of the multiple nuclear bombings of American cities, the incipient civil war, and the increasingly subtle undercurrent of commentary on contemporary American culture. The interpersonal stuff hardly ever rises above the level of melodrama, but the conspiracy/black helicopter/don't-trust-the-government stuff has been what's kept me coming back. (That and, of course, the fact that Skeet Ulrich is even more interesting now that he's cute and talented.) Sad as it may sound, I don't really care so much how Major Dad's Goodwife is gonna cope as a widow, or whether the Cute Farmer guy and the IRS Bitch ever get married, or whether Skeet and the Bottle Blonde Chick Old Girlfriend end up back together. But that weird American flag flying over the army base Heather found herself at near the end of the episode? With the stripes going the wrong way and not enough stars arranged in a circle? Chilling! Intriguing! Finding out what that's all about is what will bring me back for more, even if it means having to sit through Major Dad's maudlin funeral come autumn.

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