Wizards of Waverly Place
Bitter Sweet Closure
Now as you all know, about four weeks ago, I published a Wizards fan fiction, which was my interpretation of how I felt the finale should be, and sure, it may not have been what anyone was expecting, but then, neither was the finale, which I just got done watching a few minutes ago. In my finale, I did what I thought the finale would do, incorporate emotional scenes between the couples affected by the outcome of the competition, such as between Justin and Juliet, and more so Alex and Mason, which I was quite assured would be the main focus of the finale. I also thought that, incorporated into the finale, would be the fact that Max was dating Talia, a mortal girl, and that this would affect his feelings toward the competition, in that he would rather not win in order to stay with Talia. When this was first presented to the show back in March, I thought Talia was added purely for this reason, and was sure that it would be incorporated into the finale, which is why I put it in my story. Finally, I thought there would be heightened emotions in Jerry and Theresa, concerned that the competition would tear their family apart, if any of them Theresa, not being a wizard, and being a mother. Further, I thought, with all my heart, that at least the first ten of fifteen minutes of the hour long finale, would be lead up to the whole thing, like tying up loose ends and setting up emotion. These are all the things I expected of the finale, and therefore I put them into my finale, and quite frankly, I couldn't wait the see the wizards finale, just to see how it compared to mine, and just how the writers would handle it, and I have to say, I was very, very dissapointed.
I know Disney doesn't put out the best shows, in fact, they put out some of the worst, but Wizards started out back in 2007, and back then, it was almost pretty good, and it had a good premise behind it, with the whole wizard competition. Even though the show's quality had certainly dipped in the past few years, I was sure that the writers were saving up all the good stuff for the finale, this being a very finale based show, I had high expectations for it, I thought it would be good. But as soon as the finale started at 7, Central time, I was already to watch it, and right from the beginning I knew something was wrong with it. Starting off a finale in a casual way is never a good idea, I know this being a writer, because it shows you don't have a good finale planned, and are just putting off the inevitable of having to make one out of in the moment decisions, the wizards finale did just this, starting off with Alex and Harper, alone in the kitchen, with humerous dialogue, I mean what the hell? Then, it turns out the whole beginning, was just some pointless filler garbage, of Alex doing some last minute thing to initiate the competition, then it did. This is wrong in more ways than I care to list, but I will. First, there was never any mention of this in any of the previous episodes, so, there's that, second, it was stated in a prior episode that there was a set date for the Russo family wizard competition, this ruins that concept, which I felt added something to the show, knowig the competition would take place on a certain date, no matter what, adding tension to each of the Russos, and lastly, it's because of this, that the wizard competition started, bullshit right at the beginning of the show, with no lead up, and I feel the competition, which had a lot of emotion put into it, and four years of precursors to it, required a lot of lead up, but it didn't happen.
By this point, I was pretty sure the finale wouldn't be all I expected it to be, but I still thought it had the potential to be good, maybe they rushed into it, so they'd have more time for the dramatic competition. Now, the competition was being held on the platform of some sort of game show setting, this took more away from the finale, and it didn't help that the game show was being hosted by the guy who played Andy on "Everybody Loves Raymond," he's good in small doses, but after a while, it gets old. Well, if that wasn't bad enough, I soon learned that, contrary to the rest of the show, there would be cheasy, badly written dialogue moments, with stupid, sad music put into them, by Jerry, of all people. When I heard the mentioning of the competition tearing the siblings apart, I was just, oh, god, sure, that was a factor in my finale, but it wasn't the main thing, let's move on though. So, the competition begins, and it's not what I thought, I mean, multiple events to it, not what I thought, but I guess it could work. So, it starts off with magical questions, which I guess make sense, even though it's boring, then about midway in Juliet comes, with little emotion between her and Justin, she's nothing like she was at the beginning. Then, Alex and Mason share little emotion, I thought Alex was the main focus of the show, and Mason and her were meant to be, but I guess that doesn't matter in the finale. Then, and I was really taken back by this, Alex and the others saving Harper and Zeke wasn't part of the competition, it was just some stupid thing that came to interrupt the competition, not cool. You know, whenever you have a good thing, or something that's not completely ruined yet, you can always count of stupid people, who I wish had never been in the show, to come and completely fuck it up. So, why couldn't the griffon thing be part of the competition, like they did in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, where they took Harry's friends and he had to save them, then put that with the part of the competition where he had to take the egg from a dragon, the griffon was almost a dragon, it breathed fire, but why not, if there's one thing about wizards you can always count on, is then ripping things off of Harry Potter, why not this! So, they do that, which turns out to be a major pain in the ass, with all the rope garbage from that old one, combined with the magic carpets from five years ago, and they kill the griffon, what the hell? What's gonna happen to its babies, jerks! So, they get back, and the competition's over, what, wasn't that the whole show, wha, ah!
So, everyone loses their powers, didn't see that coming, but it's original and not stupid, but wait, what's the other half and hour gonna be? So, the only answer is that it's gonna be about the Russo adapting to being mortals, which I see as using half the finale, to plug the sequel series. The rest of this finale isn't Wizards, it's "Being Human," I didn't tune in to watch ordinary people, if I wanted to see that, I'd watch the movie by Rober Redford, not this, not now. So, normal people, hu, I could handle that, but, people falling apart, no, this is too much, I mean, everyone bitching at Alex, and her vulnerable, no, it's supposed to be the other way around, come on! Oh, I forgot to mention, Alex and Mason reconcile the situation in like ten seconds, and leave each other forever, and I didn't even see Justin and Juliet share any parting words, oh well. So, everyone's working at the sub shop, which it weird, cus I thought Alex and Justin would be at college, or getting real jobs, both of them having graduated high school, and Max would at least be at school, when the hell is this finale supposed to take place at? So, Jerry gets upset and closes the sub shop, because everybody's mad at each other, I don't think he thought this through, what're they gonna do for money, file for unemployment, ya, that'll solve everything. So, through all this, Theresa is, happy, that everyone's lost their powers, so things can be normal now, but the family fell apart, and the financial status is in the toilet, that's some mother, who cares if your kids hate each other, I underestimated this show. But, the kids won't stand for this newfound poverty, everyone needs money, even losers, so, they decide to get along, but not just get along and work together, in an "I Love Lucy" fashion, like when Lucy and Ethel had to get jobs, or when Ricky and Fred had to do chores at the house, either one fits. But it's not just that, there's also music involved, a musical montauge in a finale, come on! So, after the climax of a day's work, the group sits around and talks about it, and everything's fine, but all is not fine, cus then the competition comes back, out of nowhere. I don't know if the writers intended this all along, or if they just decided to do this at the last minute, or, if another writer came in, had no idea what had happened, and just started writing, whatever.
So, the competition's back on, but, by this point, who really cares anymore, the finale is forfeit, I can't believe what they did to it, but I must go on. I should point out, though, that Wizards did, in fact, rip off the griffon thing from Harry Potter, it was part of the competition, so good job Wizards, originality. I should also point out that Mason and Juliet meet for the first time since they ruined each other's lives, and share a sny word together, but not much. I didn't think the show would leave off with the two hating each other, but they did, so, we've got bigger fish to fry. So, we move on to, more questions, god! And, big surprise, the show starts being about Alex again, and she pulls in the tie with Justin and Max, now we're getting somewhere, with only ten minutes left. So, it's on to the competition we saw on the commercial, kind off. The final test is that the three leave the studio, go through a maze and, get back to the studio, what? Okay, okay, so, they walk on fire pillars, which reminds me of the walk of faith from "Indiana Jones," so, after that unnecessaryness, they get to a maze, now, I didn't think they'd be able to rip off, every task, from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but dammit they did, this is just like the last task in the book, so, whatever. But, no whatever, there's five minutes, you can't rush a maze in five minutes, uh! So, after a lot of stupid maze walking, seriously, stupid, if there's one thing I didn't expect the finale to skimp on, it's the competition itself, but that's just what they did. So let's layout the competition before we close the finale, questions on spells, potion mixing, tying up and killing a griffon, about twenty minutes of filler crap, more gay questions, with a few flashbacks, jumping on pillars like it's "Super Mario," and a half assed maze, wow, and I thought the one in the movei was bad. So, there's this, that, Justin gets stuck in a wall, it's hopeless, he breaks it, more stupid walking, Alex walks through a wall, then, Justin wins, whoa! Who saw that coming, Alex, didn't win, that's not Disney, the main person always wins, but I guess this time's different. If you're like me, you already knew what happened next, after more meaningless departure words between Alex and Mason, Juliet and Justin happy, ya. So, as Crums is about to night Justin, guess that's what he's doing, Justin says that Alex would have won, but went to save him, when he was caught in a thorn bush, and he pulled ahead, no wait, isn't that just like, in Harry Potter, how Cedric got caught in the vines at the end of the maze, and Harry refused to grab the Goblet of Fire, and instead went back to save Cedric, it's exactly the same, what the hell, only difference is Justin didn't die at the end. So, Alex gets the powers, and ya, her and Mason are together, not that I heard her and Mason celebrate this fact. Okay, we all saw this end coming, but then the unexpected comes, the typical Disney plot twist, where everyone's happy at the end, and Crums retires, makes Justin king of the wizard world, and gives him magic, just cus he told him what Alex did, what bullshit. Now, Alex and Justin, both, have magic, and Justin's king, I don't believe this, but does Max get magic, no, he gets the fucking sub shop, which we all know is bullshit, and he's happy, and everyone's happy, and it ends? Uh!
Now, there's so much wrong with this, little emotion between Justin and Juliet, or Alex and Mason, in fact, Alex has little to do with this finale, being the main character, and when she wins, there's no closure to it, why? Juliet's happy with Justin, because he's a big fancy boss guy, what a slut, and of course Justin's an asshole, so, whatever. Theresa's still upset, because, not only did one of her children get to be happy and have magic, two did, what a bitch, and Jerry, I don't know what happened to him. What pisses me off the most about this finale, is the lack of closure for loose ends, like, what happened to Harper and Zeke, how'd they react to all this, did they get together, and what about Stevie, and Gigi, all of that, we'll never know! Now, I can get around that, they're just minor characters, but, the fact that the show leaved Max, one of the three main people, an idiot, with no emotion, no resolution, and a complete loser. Why would they do that, I didin't think any real show had indefinite token characters, but this one did. And what about Talia, I thought for sure she'd be incorporated into the finale, did the writers forget about her, they must have, cus her affecting Max's feelings toward the competition isn't something you would just pass up using, but they did, and it ruined the finale, well, more, ruined it. I'm at a loss for words, there was no lead up the the competition, a half assed competition, stupid characters messing with the plot, Harry Potter rip offs, about a third of the time wasted on unnecessary, unwanted filler, mortal time crap, which was lies, no emotion between lost lovers, and even restored lovers, vague tries at flashbacks, then closing up the competition in a rush like it doesn't matter, a sad, Justin winning ending, turned positive by Alex winning, then Justin winning too, Max losing like always, and absolutely no conclusion, they call that a finale, I couldn't believe it. I know, T.V shows often don't have good finales, but this one had to be one of the worst I've ever seen, in every way possible. I'm not a die hard Wizards fan, but I know this finale wasn't a fitting one, and the writers could have tried a lot harder than they did, I was pissed at this finale, I was truly disappointing, angry, it was a major let down. I don't know what else to say, I don't know how the rest of you felf about it, but this was my take, we got jipped of a real finale, and we'll never get the closure we diserve, so, phh. If you want to read my finale, which I think is a billion times better, check out "End of the Road" by Emeralddusk, and, I'm sorry, for the real finale, for this story for all of it. See you, whenever, uh, I'm so upset.
THE END