TVSquad

Some old boyfriend kills Ruth and the Fishers leave the business to Rico.

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ruth suffers a breakdown and commits suicide

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Brenda ends up with Billy which makes him the stepfather to his nephew and their crazy mother ends up with Ruth.

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I have no idea, poor Brenda, lisa's psycho sister will try and take maya brenda better punch out maggie and Ruth will play the strong one to being the family back together

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I'm so sad. It really is the end, isn't it?

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Nate defines "ecotone" as the region where two disparate ecosystems overlap when Rico tells how their latest client was mauled by a mountain lion. It is a strangely poetic metaphor for the entire run of the show. The family business and the family experience seems to lie directly in the ecotone between the environment of the living and that of the dead. It's too bad they didn't hold the disclosure of the term's meaning for an episode or two. Sure, the studious among us could've looked it up (or some may already be familiar with the term), but if it had been his last word imagine the moment when the family discovered the impact of what it means. They've all run into their own mountain lions from time to time since their father first died five years ago.

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The ecotone was Nate's dream. It overlapped David's dream and was their final moment together. Very sad episode.

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We're going to see how the Fishers deal with Nate's death and move on with their lives. I am hoping that Brenda will retain custody of Maya: I would hope that all of the Fishers would want Maya to grow up in the same house as her younger sibling. I also think that Nate will definitely return in dream/ghost sequences, and I really hope that he does something to redeem himself in the eyes of the audience. I am not happy with the fact that his character turned into such a jackass this season.

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Ruth will raise Maya -- that's what has been missing in her life. Claire will marry Ted. Brenda will find out that she is actually carrying a boy and will name him Nate when he's born in the final episode. Rico and Vanessa will patch things up. David and Keith will formally adopt the boys.

That's my prediction.

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Interesting symmetry in this episode: it begins and ends with an example of a very sudden death. Some may dispute that Nate's death was "sudden," but the writers certainly had me feeling relieved that Nate would survive. Then BOOM!!! Brilliant TV!

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Some of these comments are incredibly silly, some are right on.

I thought they probably would kill off Nate. The situation they set up is so incredibly conflicted, touching, ambigious, visceral- he denies his wife reconciliation and then dies a bit later. And the subtlety that no one seems to have picked up on is that when someone has a brain injury they can say and do some pretty kooky things. They can feel euphoric and uninhibited and seem almost serene and medicated. But Nate seems like that when he's peaceful, anyways. So which was it, the brain injury or a volitional decision? We'll never know. I wonder if they will reference this at all.

Predictions:

No one else is going to die. The people predicting that Durrell or Keith or David are going to die, now that Nate has died, are just not thinking. It can't be hyperbolic or it won't be real. It can't have a huge body count for pete's sake, not among the main characters.

Keith and David will live happily ever after with their children.
Claire will begin a relationship with the fascist Republican.
Federico and his wife will be cool.
Ruth will probably end up raising Maya.

But I am sure these final episodes will be fantastic.

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Interesting symmetry in this episode: it begins and ends with an example of a very sudden death. Some may dispute that Nate's death was "sudden," but the writers certainly had me feeling relieved that Nate would survive. Then BOOM!!! Brilliant TV!

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*This* season? Nate's been a jackass for a long time and I, for one, laughed and laughed when he flatlined.

Now all we have to do is get rid of the rest of these thoroughly unlikeable characters and leave David and Keith (pretty unlikeable at times himself, but David needs him) with their two boys. David's really the only character I can stand any more.

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I think at least there will be a dispute over Nate's burial. Typical, but Nate told David that he was going to change his pre-need to be buried in a shroud next to a tree. Now this might be another tease that SFU is obsessed with--showing what could happen but never does, instead something worse happens--so David may forget it entirely.

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i think next week we're going to be greeted at somepoint near the beginning of the show - by a shot of nate in the shower with victoria principal - and that it was all a dream ! ???

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Brenda goes back to the one person she depends on and they both end up dead thanks to Billy lack of medication and manic depression.

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great episode. nate going into the sea telling david to join him, cause it's what we were born to do.
it really is, isn't it?
and i love that it seemed nate and david were sharing the dream.
i hope the last episode is just fade to white death cards over and over again, while we learn the fate of all the main players in the show.
which of the fishers do you think will die last? (not counting maya and the unborn kid)
and how?

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I really don't think Nate has been a jackass this season. Brenda has been and continues to be borderline psychotic and definitely neurotic. Nate's always done the right thing -- stayed home to run the business, married Lisa to help raise Maya, forgave Brenda for all her transgressions. The only thing selfish he did was when he slept with Maggie. Of course I wanted it to work with Brenda, but I'm glad Nate finally told her he wouldn't fight with her and its over. Next week we'll see how Brenda never really knew Nate. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but Nate's really taken a lot of crap and ended up doing things for other people all the time.

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Superfly Dave has it right, right, right. Nate was always there for others, almost to a fault. It was Brenda who completely shut down on Nate when he merely raised the question of her getting an "amnio". He was her enemy from that moment on (although his slip of the tongue about her being pregnant at his birthday party seemed to spark her incessant annoyance with anything he said or thought). I've always liked Brenda, but, as far as I'm concerned, she ended the partnership, if not the marriage. And I think Superfly Dave is right about Maya and Ruth. I hope that IS the way it turns out. And for all the Maggie-haters out there: Think about how doctrinaire that is.

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I've viewed the series finale and can confirm the following:
1.) Maya is being raised by Ruth while the truth about Brenda is reiterated (She had an affair with someone after she lost the child in the first half of season five---this must've been brought to light in the second-to-last episode. The baby she's carrying isnt Nate's!!!). Ruth reconciles with George.
2.) Maggie is pregnant with Nate's child (It will be a boy)
3.) David complies with Nate's final burial wishes.
4.) Claire finds happiness with her lawyer friend and continues a relationship with him.
5.) Rico and his wife reconcile. Rico accepts the business as a whole while David becomes a silent partner.
6.) David and Kieth formally adopt the children.
7.) Nate appears to each major character and says his emotional good-byes to each of them.
I've skipped a lot of other stuff. Including the heart-felt farewells between Nate and all the other characters---it isn't tantamount to anything ever written by Alan Ball. (He's been quoted as saying that he cried while writing it and that the characters cried themselves while filming it) Definitely a "NOT-TO-BE MISSED" episode. It couldn't have ended any better.

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