Paired with a beautifully crafted retrospective, the House series finale, in its two-hour form, perfectly represents the best and worst of the series. Using Hugh Laurie to endear audiences to the behind-the-scenes production of the series, House entered into its final episode by presenting the perfect platform for audiences to not only enjoy the finale, but to also appreciate it from the point-of-view of everyone who worked on it.

Sadly, all of those fond memories and earned goodwill from the retrospective were all-but lost, as the lack of actual story, its poor, disjointed flashbacks and "twist" ending served to almost isolate this episode from the entity of the series. Perhaps a story viewers would be interesting in hearing - though not as the closing chapter.

Trapped in a burning building, much of the episode was spent trying to figure out what was actually occurring. Attempts at using familiar faces from series' past were a welcomed inclusion, if only in the most simplest sense (i.e. it's nice to see characters return).

Trying to find a connection between the House series finale and the emotionally charged story-arc that audiences have been enjoying for the latter half of the series, the almost decade-long invested viewership is insultingly asked to hinge the entirety of this episode's logic and existence on an elementary school stunt of flushing something down the toilet.

As the talk of consequences from vandalism was continuously used as an ill-thought motivator for House's change, all hopes for a competent conclusion to one of television's most compelling characters were embarrassingly thrown away, as the hopes for any type of definite ending took over.

House Series Finale - Taub

And for five minutes, a definite ending was provided. In a mish-mash of illogical occurrences, House's attempt at redemption was met with his fiery death, completely visible to Wilson and Foreman. If one purely focuses on the act of killing House, an instinctual, emotional response is felt by those watching. However, that extremely thin veil is easily lifted once any type of logic is added and audiences realize that the death of lesser characters were more emotionally impactful.

Fortunately, those feelings only lasted for a few moments, as it was revealed that House had actually faked his own death. Absolutely proving to anyone watching that House has a direct connection to Sherlock Holmes, the House series finale insultingly believed that the best way to end one of television's most iconic characters with an ending that every iteration of Sherlock Holmes (film and television) used as their ending – and they did it months before the House series finale was written.

Almost winking at the audience, this disastrous ending followed the absolutely wonderful House retrospective, which spoke in-length about how the series was based on the doctor that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. While showing that House isn't simply some clone of Sherlock Holmes, it does become laughable once you realize that the series finale turned out to be exactly that. A poor clone.

House Series Finale - Wilson & Foreman

For whatever reason, this was the ending that the producers felt viewers deserved. Certainly not the ending they had originally planned (if they even had that figured out), one has to wonder how the finale would have been altered if certain things had played out differently in the series' history.

In the end, the House series finale is a careless, uneventful and almost pointless entity into the series franchise. Unfortunately, the series had reached a point where there were very few places left to go (or character movements to explore). So while this may not be the best ending to the series, it's an ending. And at this point, many will be satisfied with just that.

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House aired Mondays @8pm on Fox

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