The River might not be a great show, but it is a successful one.
In several important ways, ABC’s The River is a lot like AMC’s The Walking Dead. Both shows are essentially about a group of people trying to survive an environment that is both deadly and mysterious. In the case of The Walking Dead, the environment is a zombie apocalypse while in The River, it’s the river and its mystical properties that have the characters running scared.
However, aside from the obvious, there is one big difference between the shows. Unlike Rick and the folks on The Walking Dead, the gang in The River have a goal. The show has a destination, an end game: find Dr. Emmet Cole (Bruce Greenwood). On The Walking Dead, the goal is simply survival. In real life, survival in the face of death is a perfectly satisfactory end game. For a television show, not so much. Surviving doesn’t drive plots forward in any particularly meaningful direction — like NASCAR, it’s just a lot of left turns. If The River is Super Mario Brothers — complete with Bowsers and Koopas to dispatch after each level and a princess to save at the end — then The Walking Dead would be Pac-Man, a never-ending feeding frenzy.
For this reason, I would argue that The River is a more successful show. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing that The River is a better show (although that argument could hypothetically be made). I’m simply saying that as a singular piece of art, The River accomplishes what it set out to do — provide scares and thrills, and find Emmet Cole — while The Walking Dead has yet to convincingly convey its goals to the audience. Even if the end game is as silly as a man trapped in a giant cocoon of slime made by dragon flies, it’s better than sitting around a farmhouse bickering about the inevitable.
If you’ve been keeping up with The River, than you already know that Emmet Cole was rescued in last week’s penultimate episode. In other words, the show reached its end game before the finale. At first I was concerned about this. I wondered how the show would maintain its momentum.
As it turns out, I had little reason for worry. The writers had it all figured out. For their grand finale, they (temporarily) turned the show’s protagonist, Lincoln (Joe Anderson), into the villain and transformed Emmet (the show’s real emotional center) from a damsel in distress into a savior.
It’s not clear whether The River will return for a second season, but if I were a betting man I would put my money on cancellation. In a way, the writers seemed to be hedging their bets last night, creating an ending that serves as both a season finale and a series finale. If the show doesn’t come back, that’s okay. The River was a success — an occasionally messy, silly success, but a success nonetheless — even if it fails to garner a renewal.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.