No official announcement yet, but a closure (and not a good one) seems imminent for Mercy...

This show isn’t getting another season. It hasn’t been officially announced or, in fact, even whispered about one way or another, but no show on a major network gets renewed when it’s been on a steady decline in viewership from the get-go and the drop-off between the third-to-last and second-to-last episodes was from 4.92m to 3.92m. So I wouldn’t get my hopes up over a second season. Not that this couldn’t have served as a series finale, given how it neatly ties off most of the show’s plots save for one out-of-nowhere cliffhanger.

I don’t really feel like summing up the events of the episodes, to tell you the truth. The last couple hours of the show’s run were predictable and built to an anticlimax. Since the show’s not coming back, I don’t feel that I have to convince anyone to watch it or exhort its virtues. This is just one of the many shows in the history of television that didn’t make it past the first season, like a band that gets dropped from its label before they get to make a second record.

Chloe’s boyfriend, Footballer Guy, dies after he falls and hits his head on a table during an argument resulting from getting banned from playing due to his brain trauma. Saw that coming. Saw that coming a mile off. Also saw Chloe finding comfort on the lips of Dr Dawson, whose mob problems resolve in getting engaged to the mob boss’ daughter who caused the difficulty in the first place. In the end, she decides to go to medical school and become a doctor because, fuck it, why not?

Veronica’s issues don’t miraculously solve themselves, which is good, seeing as how they’re the catalyst for the show’s plot. She gets her own apartment, the first time she’s lived by herself in her whole life. Things are looking up with Mike, who provides the aforementioned cliffhanger when it looks like he may have been hit by a car in the seasons waning moments. Chris and Veronica’s old CO, whose name escapes me but was played by William Sadler, asks them to come back to Afghanistan to run a civilian hospital with him. Initially, they both turn him down, but after seeing Veronica and Mike together, Chris drops everything to fly back to the desert. It is implied that he dies when the plane is bombed upon reaching its destination. The season (and perhaps the show) ends with our protagonist not knowing that both her lovers may be dead.

"I’m a little upset the show is probably not coming back, but I’m a lot more disappointed that the last episode was so lackluster"

The oddest thing was the almost complete lack of closure to Sonia’s legal woes. She gets back together with her cop boyfriend, but I guess they were leaving the resolution of her investigation until next season. They spent a good while developing the subplot, though - maybe half the season, all told. Given the show’s uncertain future, I thought that would have been handled differently.

I’m a little upset the show is probably not coming back, but I’m a lot more disappointed that the last episode was so lackluster. I don’t know what I was really expecting, but given how it doesn’t shy away from high emotion, the relatively sedate finale just left me wondering if I was mistaken and there’s still another episode next week, but... no. I don’t normally watch shows during their initial run - I usually watch them on DVD or via other means once something’s completed its narrative. Mostly that’s so I don’t have to wait for any continuation that may or may not exist, but partially, it’s to avoid a situation like this. If the series really is over, I’m glad Michelle Trachtenberg and Guillermo Diaz have something else for their resumes and I’m definitely looking forward to whatever Taylor Schilling does next. Maybe next time they’ll have better luck.

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