Nikita -- The Final Mission

Watching the show cave to shippers in the final season made me be at peace with the show coming to an end. For three years the show had the best writing around because they kept to the plot they wanted to tell and just ignored the shippers making demands about what they wanted. Unfortunately, in the last season that all changed and these wingnuts who'd been shipping Alex and Owen before they even appeared together in a scene were given what they wanted and it wasn't a good thing. It was one of the lamest unbelievable turns this show has taken.

I joked that I thought the real reason Ryan got killed off he because they couldn't pair him off with something, and show runner Craig Silverstein said the same thing, but I didn't find it funny. I also didn't find it funny that he was talking about how he considered having Nikita end up alone as Michael went back to his old life while his fake shipper-appeasing couple Alex/Sam ended up together. It's stuff like that that made me feel it's for the best the show was cancelled now while it could go out the high quality show it always was.

The show begins with a flashback to when Nikita was first brought into Division and she was like a wild animal wanting to kill everyone just to kill them. Michael thought there was no hope for Nikita and he wanted to have her canceled, while Amanda saw potential in her. Perhaps what Amanda saw more than anything else was herself. She gives Nikita a piece of advice to choose deception over violence. That advice plays a major role in the show's final episode.

The show pulled it's own deception on viewers. They kept saying that there was a member of Nikita's team that was a clone and showing scenes with Alex and Nikita fighting, it appeared Alex was that clone. There was a clone, but it wasn't someone you could even call a member of Nikita's team. It was one of their interrogators named Slocum. And he went along with Michael, Birkhoff and Sam I Am when they went to try and stop Nikita from making things worse.

Meanwhile, Nikita and Alex were on a killing tour of the bosses of The Shop. They got to Jones first, who told them who the other members were. Then it appeared they killed him. As well as three other members. Appear being the key word.

I'm not sure if Michael was in on the real plan or not, as when he and Sam I Am released all the real counterparts of the clones that took their place he seemed shocked that Slocum was amongst them. So Michael could have just been putting on an act or actually speaking the truth when he talked of the darkness Nikita has inside her and how she could abandon herself to it and become a killing machine.

Nikita and Alex took the remaining four members of The Shop hostage, including Mr. Adrian. Amanda didn't mind that one bit as before this happened he made it clear her future in The Shop didn't look bright. But she was shocked when it appeared Nikita killed one of the remaining members as she demanded a list of the 54 clones still in place. And once she had that, she intended to release that news to the public.

Michael manages to call Nikita up and tries to talk sense to her, but she won't listen. She wants to release to the public the names of all the clones, and Birkhoff offers to help her, as he thinks she's right. So Michael talks to Alex without Nikita knowing it telling her she knows what Nikita is doing could destroy the world. Alex agrees and takes on Nikita and puts an end to the stand-off by hitting Nikita on the head with her gun and knocking her out.

Nikita, Birkhoff and Alex are put in a prison and buried so deep that no one even knows where they are exists. Amanda enters revealing she controls this part of the prison. That's when Nikita unsnaps the shackles binding her to the chair and informs Amanda she finally took her advice and chose deception over violence.

The whole thing was a scam and Nikita had killed no one. Then she snaps Amanda into the chair that is very reminiscent of her brain washing chair and tells Amanda, "Welcome back to the basement." She'll be shackled to that chair until she dies. Nikita's last sight of Amanda is hearing her screaming in agony as she walks out the door.

I've been complaining forever about Amanda becoming the main villain Nikita was up against as she didn't seem that great of a villain. But when Amanda made her little complaining speech about how another man was trying to hold her back from attaining power, then I got it. Amanda and Nikita were like two sides of the same coin. Amanda was the dark half and Nikita was the light half. Maybe that's why Nikita could never bring herself to kill Amanda, because it would be like killing herself.

Both Nikita and Amanda were born in darkness, but while Amanda stayed in the darkness, Nikita came out into the light. Nikita fell in love with Michael and she made friends who became like a family to her. Maybe that's why Amanda hated Nikita so much and sought to destroy her and take everything from her. Because she just couldn't do what Nikita did. Maybe in Amanda's warped mind Nikita was her family and she felt by Nikita abandoning her and going out into the light she'd betrayed her.

When Amanda had Nikita in her chair what did she do? She had her put in the role of the sister she killed. Perhaps that's how Amanda saw Nikita; as her sister. She took the wild animal that was Nikita and molded her into another version of herself. And the ultimate irony may be that it was her own creation that finally ended up taking her down.

You can almost feel sorry for Amanda. She got out of the basement but there was always some man in her way preventing her from gaining total power. Then what power she attained was stripped from her and she was put back in the basement with nothing and no one, again.

Meanwhile, Team Nikita lived happily ever after. Alex has appointed Sam I Am as her bodyguard while she continues her work against human trafficking and they pursue a [gag me] romance. Sorry, but maybe Alex and Owen might have worked together, but Sam I Am is a total crud. Sorry, didn't buy his lame redemption. I would have actually preferred Alex be the one to end up alone. She started the show being dependent on drugs and Nikita and for her to come into her own and stand on her own that would have been a good thing.

Even though she wasn't seen, Sonya and Birkhoff would be living in London together. And Birkhoff went semi-legit by releasing a watered-down version of Shadownet to the public.

Meanwhile, Nikita and Michael eloped and were on their honeymoon on some nice beach when Nikita saw a guerilla soldier ordering a child to take a gun and join the cause. Nikita thought she saw Ryan urging her to right that wrong, as she and Michael take off to do just that.

It was a good ending to a show that just ended up on the wrong network. The teeny-bopper network was not the place for a well-written adult show. But it feels like it's a complete story told of Nikita's journey from the darkness into the light.

And Nikita will also be the only show I can say got better with each passing season, minus the last season when the show runner decided to cave and give into a bunch of crack shippers to make them happy as some sort of goodbye present.

As for me, now I never have to watch the CW again. Nikita was the last thing keeping me watching this network and now it's over, I'm free.