Forever episode 20 review: Best Foot Forward

This review contains spoilers.

1.20 Best Foot Forward

If I jave one criticism of Forever, it’s that it has on occasion a tendency to drop into Murder She Wrote-mode. I mention that show because it often relied rather heavily on simplistic caricatures and stereotypes for the guest stars to play. And this story, set in the word of ballet is knee-deep in both those things, with bitchy ballerinas and uncaring creative directors aplenty.

That disappointed me somewhat, as did the fact that, after the surgically removed foot is found before the ballet’s third act, Henry never says ‘the game’s afoot’ in true Sherlockian style. But you can’t have everything, can you?

There was one part of this whole mystery that was worth watching it for, and that was where Henry revealed to Eva that he’d worked out what really happened to her, and then she went to take the adoration of the crowd. Much of the rest seemed a little clunky in places, especially the part where Henry found the message in the statue. A big stone statue that moved rather too easily when he touched it lightly, unfortunately.

Thankfully, what this 42 minutes was actually more about is a series of subplots that have been in motion for a while, all of which are rather critical to how this the show ends.

The first of these are Jo’s romantic diversions and the rather calculated wooing of Isaac. I really want him to turn out to be more than just a rich guy, but perhaps that’s all he’ll ever be, even if he made it into the show for three episodes straight. The problem I have with where this goes, or rather ultimately, it doesn’t go, is that Jo has a physical relationship with Isaac, but she’s never even kissed Henry. Would she really junk one known good relationship for a totally unknown one? Maybe.

In the end Abe comes to the rescue of that question and Jo, so that choice is deferred somewhat.

However, unbeknown to Jo, there is a chance that Abigail might be returning to the show, given that technically she might still be alive if very, very old.And then there’s the gun, which cleaned up remarkably well, and now looks ready to shoot, but who will it shoot? And, here’s a question, if it shot someone who isn’t either Henry or Adam, would they become immortal?

I’ve long thought that the gun was a red herring, because we’ve only Adam’s word that it came from the ship, and we’ve seen the skeleton of a man it probably shot who most certainly didn’t come back to life. Also, to get the gun to look as good as it did here a great number of parts would need replacing, making it not actually the same gun. Therefore if it turns out to do something special, the shark will have been well and truly jumped, I’ve concluded.

The final ingredient mixed into the show for baking in the final two episodes is the immortality reveal. Except, there has been more than one hint given that Jo already knows, because she’s a detective and a quite smart one too. If it turns out that Henry doesn’t need to give this explanation that will save more running time for other narratives, which could actually work out very well.

What’s slightly odd about Forever in respect of a show that is in-all-but-name cancelled, is that instead of wrapping it up smartly, ABC seems intent to stretch it out as long as possible for whatever scheduling reasons.

It took some digging to find this out, but Forever returns for its penultimate episode on April the 21^st, when Abe and Henry go looking for Abigail in The Night In Question. The finale will then air two weeks later on May the 5^th. I also have it on good authority that the finale guest star will be none other than the wonderful John Noble, of Fringe and Sleepy Hollow fame.

As we’ve never likely to see any more stories from it, I really hope they complete it in an appropriate way.

Read Billy’s review of the previous episode, Punk Is Dead, here.

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