666 Park Avenue Series Finale Recap: 'There Is a Price to Pay for the Thing We Want the Most'
Not every burning question got answered as 666 Park Avenue wrapped its 13-episode run — like, who exactly is Gavin Doran, and how exactly do his enemies get sucked into the walls of the Drake? But there were enough solid answers to make you feel like the elevator arrived at some kind of destination, rather than jolting to a stop somewhere between floors.
Before we get to how things ended for Jane and Henry (and Gavin and Olivia), let’s dispense with a few dangling subplots.
* Brian and Lou, fresh off their self-defense killing of batshit crazy lover/assistant Alexis, decide to stuff her body into a garment bag and wheel it down to the basement along with some cement blocks and mortar — nothing conspicuous about that combo! — where they can wall it off and then try to resume their normal lives. Wouldn’t you know, though, Lou loses an earring in the process, and when they return to the burial site to look for it, they’re greeted by Gavin. After sharing that both of ‘em have been living on borrowed time — Brian in exchange for success as a playwright, Lou for getting away with a hit and run — Gaving delivers the bad news we know is coming: “I own both of you — and I’m terminating the lease!” And — bam! — in a flash, they’re the ones trapped behind concrete, doomed to die together (or worse, get turned into fuel for the Drake’s human-to-energy conversion project).
* Jane’s dad spends approximately two-thirds of the episode trying to blurt out a couple of basic facts: Jane’s mom died in a bathtub at the Drake and everyone figured he had killed her; Jane’s mom had had an affair with some mystery man, but broke it off well before her death; Jane’s dad stashed Jane away with relatives and stayed out of her life, hoping she’d never return to the building that made her mother crazy, all as a way to protect her. (Wouldn’t it have been more effective to write her a letter at age 18 outlining good reasons not to move to NYC?)
Anyhow, during the process of getting this info, “the Drake” tries to “show” Jane the truth about mom, too, by causing the drain chain in Jane’s tub to wrap around her leg, bring her to the brink of death, then release her. (I won’t lie: That scene freaked me out.) At one point, Jane sternly tells her dad, “I already know that I’m in danger there [at the Drake]!” But instead of taking his advice (and her fiancé) and heading for L.A. or Detroit or even the Lower East Side, she insists there has to be “a bigger reason” that she, her mom and her grandmother were all drawn to the building. (If Jane were a character in a slasher film, she’d totally run up the stairs instead of out the front door when confronted by the knife-wielding psycho.)
* Unlike his political opponents, Henry refuses to trash disgraced Councilman Sullivan in the press, but the latter dude — knowing Henry’s benefactor Gavin leaked the story of his affair with a teenage staffer — decides to harrass him in the street, telling Henry that in politics, ”we all end up with blood on our hands.” Henry then dreams that Sullivan (with a gaping hole in his head) creates a bloody mess in his bathroom, and when he wakes up, he learns Sullivan actually took his own life. ”Not to sound too ghoulish,” says Gavin (sounding totes ghoulish), “but I expect your noble intentions will pay dividends at the polls.”
OK, into the important stuff…
Everything culminates when Jane’s dad gets drunk and shows up at her apartment with a gun, demanding that she leave the Drake for her own safety. When they get on the elevator, though, it refuses to follow orders, transporting them to the penthouse suite and a waiting Gavin. When Henry comes home and finds bloody handprints on the bathroom mirror — maybe Sullivan was there after all? — he rushes up to Gavin’s place, too, where his father-in-law is all “I’m trying to set down my gun but it won’t let me!” BAM! Jane’s dad shoots Henry right in the heart, then makes his exit by elevator, where Gavin’s creepy henchman Kandinsky is all, “The lobby is out of order. We’re going to the basement instead.” Sorry, Jane’s dad! It was nice knowing you! And hopefully it’ll all be quick and painless for ya!
Jane, meanwhile, is desperate to save her man, and as she begs Gavin for help, you can see where it’s all going to end. Gavin explains that he was the one who’d killed Jane’s mother: They’d had an affair, that affair resulted in a baby girl, and Gavin wasn’t prepared to let that child be taken away from him. (Translation: “Jane, I am your father!”) Jane barely has time to get upset, though, because Henry is bleeding out on the foyer floor.
Gavin: I can save Henry.
Jane: I’ll do anything.
Gavin: You have to understand, Jane: There is a price to pay for the thing we want the most.
Cut to…”One Year Later.” Young Nona is continuing to cut and paste clippings about weird goings-on at the Drake. There’s a headline about “Playwright and Wife Missing.” A Playbill for Brian’s Disappearing Ink. And a story about Henry’s landslide win for the city council seat. Plus, Nona is wearing Jane’s old locket. Maybe Jane doesn’t have a need for it — even though it saved her during with some sort of levitational pull during the bathtub incident? Hmmm.
Then we head upstairs, where Jane is rocking a severe (but hot) bob and dark red lipstick, and Olivia is praising her work in restoring the Drake, noting that she can’t wait to show her friends at Architectural Digest.
Out on the balcony, Jane and Gavin have a little father-daughter chat — on the one-year anniversary of her decision to save Henry. It seems as though Jane has become Gavin’s assistant in finding lost folks, providing them with the things they want, and then, once it’s time to pay their debt, collecting their souls. Is Gavin the devil in this Faustian dance? How important is the physical brick and mortar of 999 Park Avenue in the scheme of things? We’ll never be entirely sure.
But Gavin does reveal this much: Jane and Henry will have a child who will grow up to be a powerful, feared leader, who will do “great things” and usher in “a new order.” Jane barely reacts, but later, when Henry joins her on the balcony, she looks at him meaningfully, and reveals that she’s pregnant. And I’m 99.9% sure that’s the end! (For the record, as the credits rolled at 10:59, the local ABC affiliate cut into the feed with an update on the George Zimmerman verdict, but it appeared as though the final dialogue in the 666 Park Avenue finale had been uttered. I’ll rewatch the ending on ABC.com when it posts and let you know if there’s any update.)
[UPDATE: The NY ABC affiliate merely cut off a shot of Henry touching Jane's stomach and looking down with wonder, then as eerie music cued up, the camera zoomed out from the happy couple to a shot of the Drake and the NYC skyline.]
And with that, I turn it over to you: What did you think of the 666 Park Avenue finale? Are you glad you stuck with it till the end? Did the conclusion satisfy you? And what burning questions would you still like answered? Take our poll, then sound off in the comments!
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