"Dirty Sexy Money" Finale: So Wrong on So Many Levels

Oh, that was so wrong!

That’s what I said last night at 10:57 as the series finale of “Dirty Sexy Money” went black…

We finally got the answer to the mystery that had plagued the show since episode one, opening up a whole new avenue of story and…nothing. Show over. Kaput. Done.

I think it actually hurt me a little…

I know I should be happy that we at least got the answer, but it created so many cool possibilities, I just can’t be happy…

If you missed it, there were very few loose ends tied up, but there were many new lines cast. And because this was the finale, some of them came out of the blue and some of them just didn’t get the attention they deserved.

Brian didn’t reunite with Andrea, but he did remodel Nick’s place, leading to the possibility the two would be living together for a while longer. Lisa decided to write a tell-all about the Darlings and ended up debating Nick about it on a daytime talk show. But later, Lisa tried to reunite with Nick. Nick, however, had already told Karen he wanted to make it work with her and the baby. But when Karen saw Nick and Lisa together, she got upset and fell down the stairs, losing the baby.

There had to be a better way to give Nick and Karen a fresh start, but whatever…

Nola found her brother and decided not to return to New York after going to get him. Jeremy proposed, but she turned him down and left. Simon’s nurse then convinced Jeremy to go to Las Vegas. And, of course, when Nola changed her mind and returned to New York to accept Jeremy’s proposal, there was already a Mrs. Jeremy Darling. Meanwhile, Patrick decided to fight for a relationship with the Congressman’s wife.

But the biggest story of the night was the revelation of who was behind all of Simon’s misdeeds against the Darlings. The story played out in frustratingly small pieces over the hour as Simon told Nick the tale of how he stole the biofuel from Nola’s father by having him thrown in jail and how he controlled her by hiding away her brother and promising to get her father released.

Finally, when Nick asked Simon why he had Nola go after Leticia, the truth came out. Simon confirmed what I had already suspected—that Dutch, Nick’s father, was alive and pulling Simon’s strings via blackmail.

And that was it.

But think about the possibilities that could have opened up here. Nick dealing with his father being alive. Leticia dealing with the man she loved trying to destroy her and her family. Tripp facing off against his former confidant…

See what I mean about being wrong? It’s like “Commander In Chief” all over again…

Just like with “Commander,” I put the blame for the demise of “DSM” squarely on the doorstep of ABC. True, the Writers’ Strike didn’t help, but it was ABC that chose to shelve the show, allowing people to forget about it, instead of trying to get it back on the air—as CBS did with their dramas with great results.

And when the show did get back on the air, it was a shell of its former self thanks to behind-the-scenes changes. By the time it found itself again, it was too late.

Now, all we can do is mourn the loss of such great potential and hope that Natalie Zea (Karen) and Glenn Fitzgerald (Brian) find great new jobs soon.

But, I think if Donald Sutherland does another pilot and it gets picked up by ABC, that he should quit immediately…

Photo Credit: Vivian Zink/ABC