surprise endings
Just finished a really good book--HUNTING FEAR by Kay Hooper. Kay hooked me with her "Shadows" books about the psychic FBI agents, & even tho I'm behind with the series, I do love it when I get the chance to pick up one of them. I think one of the things I like most about her books is that I never seem to guess the endings. I've been reading, watching television, & going to the movies for a long time...it's hard to pull one over on me anymore. Almost always, I figure out whodunnit long before the last page, or before the ending credits roll. My brother once made me sit & watch THE USUAL SUSPECTS with him. (I say "made me" because he literally would not let me see it on my own; he had to sit right there with me the entire time. He said because I always seem to know whodunit in movies & on TV & he just knew I wouldn't be able to figure out the ending of this movie. For the record, I did, & to this day he just shakes his head & tries to think up new ways to stump me.)But Kay kept me guessing. And you know who else? The writers/directors/producers of the NCIS season finale. Oh. My. Gosh. (SPOILER ALERT!!! If you haven't seen the season ender yet or simply don't want to know what happened in case you someday start watching the series, STOP READING NOW!!!) I knew someone was going to die--hey, I read TV Guide & Entertainment Weekly--I just didn't know who. And the whole episode kept me guessing. Was it going to be Gibbs? Lord, no! He makes the whole show & I'm just starting to work up a second crush on Mark Harmon. Was it going to be Abby? Please, no! She's so cute & quirky...& I love that spider web tattoo on her neck (which I've heard is one of the only face tattoos she sports for the show; the rest are real). McGee? Well, gee, shucks. He seemed like a likely candidate, since he was the last member to join the cast & he is just a probie...but I hoped not. I like him, too. Then there was Kate & Tony...hmm. I just couldn't wrap my mind around either of them biting the dust. I like them both; they're both big parts of the show.
And then, the end. I thought for sure McGee was going to buy it once the bullets started flying & he was hiding behind the car. Then when Kate threw herself in front of Gibbs, I thought that was it. But she got up...she'd been wearing a bullet-proof vest & was fine. And then--BOOM! Never, never did I see it coming. Kate takes a bullet from a sharpshooter right between the eyes. Oh, man, there's no coming back from that. You know how sometimes they kill off a character, but in such a way that you think the person may show up again down the road? They drown, but the body could have washed downstream...or a car crashes, but the person could have gotten out before the giant explosion. But a bullet between the eyes? Yeah, there's, um...no coming back from that. So here I sit, a week or so later, still having trouble believing they killed off Kate. And really curious about who will replace her, if anyone, & how they're going to deal with her death next season.
Oh, & another whodunit that caught me off-guard recently: the ending of Karen Rose's HAVE YOU SEEN HER? I thought I had it all figured out, but the actual bad guy came as a complete surprise.
