Okay, kids; settle down. I said, settle down! Sit down and shut the fuck up! Pull up some floor next to your ol’ Uncle Rob; he’s got a story he wants to tell you. That’s it, hunker down with your Red Bull and your M&M’s and let Uncle Rob’s tale creep through you like Type II Juvenile Diabetes.
Now then: on July 21, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out. And your Uncle Rob knows that means that a bunch of you kids’ll be standing in line outside your local Borders on July 20th at 11:59 p.m., thrumming with almost as much excited anticipation as the gleeful pederasts parked nearby in idling vans, so you can get your hands on the book. And probably read it all the way through in one sitting, making a fool out of that false magician who diagnosed you with the ADD and told your parents that he could cure years of slipshit, inattentive parenting with one magic word.
(No Billy, not “Shazam!” “Ritalin”. Maybe you can get your mom to read the book to you.)
Now, Uncle Rob knows that you can’t wait to find out how Harry Potter ends, and I don’t mean to brag, but: I already know how it ends. Pipe down, Janey, it’s not gonna be a happy ending. There’s no way in hell Harry Potter gets a happy ending. Not with that mousey geek broad he hangs out with. She’d act like she was doing him a favor. The bitch is probably a damn furry-in-training.
What’s that, Timmy? When did I say that it would end with Harry succumbing to an STD? Oh hell, I was shitfaced that day… but I guess that scar could be Kaposi’s Sarcoma… and it’s a hell of a thing when your arch nemesis has a “V” and a “D” in his name, but…
Now kids, are you SURE you want to know how Harry Potter ends now? Okay, Uncle Rob’ll tell you: Harry Potter will end… disappointingly.
Oh, stop your whining, you little bastards! Don’t accuse Uncle Rob of making up fibs because he didn’t read any of the Harry Potter books! I read the first Harry Potter book: The Books of Magic. After that, I didn’t see the point in pissing away my time reading seven volumes of fanfic by some wanna-be ghost writer. But Uncle Rob digresses…
Even if Uncle Rob did ruin your childhoods, you’ve got it coming to you. Hell, I was about your age when everything innocent and good in my world died. I remember it like it was yesterday: it was May 25, 1983. I was a young sprout of eleven years old, and I waited in line for six hours to see Return of The Jedi. I had spent a quarter of my life waiting to find out if Vader was Luke’s father, how Han would escape, and who the other “last hope was.
Instead, I learned that the Galactic Empire was defeated by fucking Muppets, that even a golden bikini couldn’t stop the “sister trick” from turning Princess Leia into the Cousin Oliver of science fantasy, and that if you’ve seen one Death Star blow up, you’ve seen them all. The only real surprise I got was that a token black guy could even survive a sci-fi flick.
I learned an important lesson that day, kids: all finales suck. And they suck because there are only three reasons to end something popular: because someone makes you, because there’s no more money in it, or because you’re sick of fucking doing it. And none of those are motivators for providing quality entertainment. Just ask David Lynch, Joel Schumacher or Larry David.
Oh, come on, rugrats; don’t cry. It feels the same way for grown-ups. Didn’t you wonder, a few weeks back, why Daddy was so grumpy on Monday morning? And who David Chase was, and why he was a cunt? (What do you mean, “What’s a cunt?”, Danny? Uhh… if you want to know what a cunt is, ask your mother. Actually, having met her, you just need to look at her.)
What’s that, Bobby? No, this is not just bitterness because J. K. Rowling made a billion dollars writing for children, while broke Uncle Rob can’t seem to string together a thousand words without throwing in a horsey porno joke. It’s a serious lesson, which is: finales will never be good.
Because no matter how well-crafted or thought out a finale is, it will never be satisfying because it’s the end of something you love. Be it genius or a cop-out cash grab, it sucks because something you cared about is now gone. It’s like your father dying: it doesn’t matter if he goes out saving a busload of school kids, or shivering with fever from a tonsil infection caused by a horse fantasy gone bad, he’s still gone.
(See, kids? Uncle Rob only made it 819 words. Uncle Rob will never be rich. Because Uncle Rob hates children and can’t tell jokes that appeal to them or any other well-balanced human being. Uncle Rob is broken.)
There’s only one finale I’ve ever found to be completely satisfying, and it’s because it wasn’t really the end. So forget about Harry Potter, kids, and let Uncle Rob read to you from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns…
What’s that, Jimmy? What about The Dark Knight Strikes Again? Stop proving Uncle Rob right. And no, you can’t look at Uncle Rob’s Web favorites. Not until you’re thirteen. Then you can join me… and I will complete your training…
[tags]Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling, finale, Sopranos, Twin Peaks, Batman and Robin, Seinfeld, Dark Knight, spoilers, dark humor, satire[/tags]
