Goodbye to The Finder

The Finder is gone.  No one watched it and that's a real shame.

If you've never heard of it, it's about a guy (Walter) who finds things.  That sounds simple, like a detective, but it's not.  It's an overwhelming compulsion to find things where he can't rest until he does.  And he's good at it.  All season, they alluded to the fact that bad things happen when Walter can't find something.  In the season (series) finale, they showed it.

I only got around to watching the finale this week, but with how they left things, I'm really sad it's over.

The Finder started during Bones last season as a backdoor pilot.  I hated that episode.  I was convinced I was going to hate The Finder as its own show since I hated that episode of Bones (I actually think I fell asleep, it was so terrible), and maybe I wasn't alone since it definitely didn't have the audience that Bones does.

But I tried it out, since I like to give new shows a chance, and I liked it.  It was lighthearted.  It had spirit.  It had humor.  It had potential.  It was about finding things (or people) but it was also a show about characters.  All along I felt like the people who said it belonged on USA had a point.  Characters welcome?  This show is all about characters.  The quirky main character with his odd system of finding things.  His best friend/sidekick with a sad backstory who will always be there.  The girlfriend/marshal who really grew on me.  The "problem child" who is placed with them but comes to find a place in the "family" threatened by her other "family."  It started off a little rocky, trying to find its chemistry and its place, but by the middle of the season, there were some truly enjoyable episodes which led up to a final few that were really great.

Which makes me really sad that it's gone.  The show was different.  It was a procedural but it wasn't about solving crimes.  And now that we finally know more about who these people are, what they care about, and what they are willing to sacrifice for each other, we will never know if they find their way back to each other.  (Spoiler alert, even though it's been over for a few weeks now!)  We'll never know how Walter gets out of jail (although I'm sure he will).  We'll never know how he solves the problem of the painting he's been looking for for 4 years, and what will happen to him if he doesn't (now that we've seen just how "talented" he is).  We'll never know if Willa made it into the sunset to escape her family.  We'll never know how the characters made it through the tough times and back into each other's lives to find things and help people along the way.

It's sad when shows end on a high note, with so much promise for the future, and you know they will never get it.  Very sad.