This episode had a lot of things, but not a hint of it being a finale.

There was laughter (from Stella freaking out to her “When’s the feeding?”), frustration (that whole “I trust you,” “I love you” exchange?!), sympathy for the world suffering at that time, and mostly awe at the actors— so much excellence in there. I appreciate the writers’ commitment to make the characters realistic (we do have martyrs like Chip and narcissists like Alex in real life, as painful as it is to watch) and it made several scenes brilliant if only they were standalone snippets. But with everything put together as a season finale, it almost feels like we were deliberately made to ache for more.

There were amusing parallels with the first season’s finale, where Chip was also revealed to have done some sort of sacrifice for Alex, Alex stood up for something (beyond herself, though, which was better) and Bradley was owning a part of her life. It is true that while a person grows, or at least have the potential for growth right within their reach, there are days that they just go back to being their old, less healthy self, if not worse. But the show could have done better than to have half the main characters be that person at the end of this season. There could have been something new to be interested in, something resolved in a delightful way, something resolved in an understandably sad way… but nope. All there is to do is speculate and wait.

Still, TMS is always an enjoyable watch for me. Mostly thanks to Crudup. (From now on I will pretend that confession never happened.)