The final episode of ITV's wartime drama series kicked off with some explosive actions and not just since it was the finale but also turned out to be the season finale too. Seems everyone was getting their share of kicks and knockbacks, especially when D'Abberville (Charles Edwards) gets his comeuppance as Toby (Edward Bluemel) finally comes clean about being a traitor really and being blackmailed by by D'Abberville with him having the lowdown on his secret, which he tells Priscilla (Olivia Williams) is sordid. Also adding that if anyone finds out about him then he'll go down as a traitor too. Of course Toby would wait the entire season to come clean about his goings on and stealing secrets to Garland (Steven Mackintosh) now, when it's over. Though he tells him that he came to him shows he is not a coward and is willing to act, well took his sweet time.
Of course Priscilla wouldn't believe Garland when he told her about D'Abberville since she doesn't like him at all with added sarcasm thrown in when Garland tells her he wouldn't lie to her, which is exactly what he did do when he covered for her husband's dalliances and indiscretions. Not the same thing though and he was also his employer after all, considering good jobs are hard to find and so is the hired help. So doing a mad, drastic dash through D'Abberville's belongings, she finds his passport and his ticket away from here; but of course he high tails it back to his room after Toby confronts him and tells him he's called Special Branch. D'Abberville tells Priscilla about Garland too and not being who he seems, as he confronted him too earlier about the Sgt Green mystery and what he did in the woods. Of course there were several new stories/plots being set up for a series 2, which didn't happen. Ain't it always the way: they always end on a cliff hanger and can't be bothered to finish what they started, not even in a special, at least they could've got a Christmas special out of it to tie up loose ends, before everyone went their own way.
But you just knew that Priscilla Lady Hamilton (not Lady Emma Hamilton though there is an Emma in the characters!) was going to get the vest of D'Abberville, especially when he threatened Toby and conked him on the head with the paperweight. It wasn't as though he was going to let things go, thought he was going to get her for a minute. Then to top it off, she calls on Garland to help her. That was rich after how she treated him, then asking him why he's helping her, well cos she asked was his reply. As he clears up, too late Special Branch arrives and he manages to get the DB into the bathroom. Although for Special Branch they didn't really do a good job of searching the room, aside from finding out that Garland was hiding something. Aah yes, Priscilla's romantic interlude with D'Abberville.
The love triangle also continues as Joe Vs (the volcano ha! - sorry) well Joe (Matt Ryan) vs Freddie (Jamie Blackley) continued with Joe punching him out and Emma (Hermione Corfield) just happened to be there to see. That was some kinda macho bravado going on there. D'ya think Joe realized he did the wrong thing since Freddie was in uniform after all and fighting for his country, as well as his girl. Though later in the lift Freddie tells Emma that he loves her and that it's probably too late. Emma was stringing them along it seems especially as she glances at both of them longingly. She can't decide and as Betsey (Kara Tointon) said to her, she should have both of them cos there is a war on. Well many of us know who they'd go for!! (Ahem Joe perhaps?!! Well he is more of the manly man and not a, erm, boy. In the sense he's also a doer, a thinker, reporter...)
Betsey having her own feelings and declaring she loves Sonny (Soph Dirisu) which you knew was going to be too little too late for her. Also the music band leader thang being already done in Downton Abbey. Toby is given the note from Adil (Akshay Kumar) as he prepares to commit suicide and Toby manages to get to him in time, missing the bomb altogether. As The Halcyon celebrates 50 years, it's hit by a bomb, seems they didn't have five minutes after all. Just as Joe looked like he was going to declare his love for Emma too, with Freddie standing by and watching, everything goes awry. Telling her to go to Freddie after he helps out a woman. Betsey singing a song A Nightingale in Barkley Square, as she looks for Sonny and then sees him, but he vanishes as Emma calls out to her. She lies unconscious and Sonny is no longer around. Well at least it was good news for Klein (Nico Rogner) as Garland managed to find his family and bring them back to London.
Of course it'd end on a cliffhanger, why can't they just once finish things on a final note instead of giving viewers the runaround. They know if we like a show we'll come back to it, but it's always the viewers who get short changed. Not the TV companies or the networks cos we invest so much more in the programme and the characters and cast than they do!
Matt did a great American accent, it's funny when I spoke to him I mentioned how he didn't have to do an American accent in Criminal Minds :Suspect Behaviour which was an American series, cancelled too on a cliffhanger I might add. But how he did one in this, which happened to be a Brit show! Strange! But he pulled it off as he would do!
Well there you have it, Priscilla and Garland saved by the bomb as D'Abberville's DB was conveniently blown up in the proceedings, with Priscilla aimlessly wandering around like the walking wounded, which she was, as was Betsey too. Seems Garland and Priscilla would've forged some semblance of a fleeting friendship from this ordeal had there been a series 2. Having this dark secret hanging over them, but he did come through in the end as a loyal employee, much to her chagrin earlier and throughout the series that he was more liable to help Lord Hamilton than her and quite frankly she hated him for it. Yet Garland saved her 'soon to be' rationed bacon here! As well as Garland also getting to have a tender moment with Peggy (Liz White) that was obvious throughout the series too. Peggy was married but her husband's away, doesn't make it right, but after what she went through with Billy, she needed some tenderness. Garland and Emma came across as practically a couple of potential heartbreakers, like father, like daughter in many ways.
Yet there was also the way that Garland understood what Priscilla was going through, he did the dirty too (guess all's fair in love and war - again) when he killed the diabolical military officer during the last war. Now her hands are tainted with blood too, albeit to save herself and Toby. Garland was also saving a life as he saw it. Besides D'Abberville was a nasty Nazi after all, as Garland warned him, "if you think you can act this way in my hotel without consequence..." Only to be met by his revealing Garland's real name of Sgt Green. Well if Priscilla hadn't done him in, Garland surely would have.
Then Priscilla mentions to D'Abberville that perhaps, "why not ask the American to write it? Apparently he’s rather popular on the wireless." When threatening to tell the world about Toby, well okay not the entire world, but their little corner of it. Before she grabbed the paperweight. Well Joe was extremely popular and yet D'Abberville would've been outed eventually as a Nazi. Wow for once I didn't have to defend Joe against snide remarks from critics, must be they were too busy crying shed loads that this was the final ep!!
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