The last few weeks have really been an improvement for Minority Report, and “Everybody Runs” is an episode that is good enough that I find myself very sad that it is likely the last episode of the series. If this is the end, though, it’s a good one. While it doesn’t wrap up everything perfectly, it works well enough to not be terribly frustrating, which is better than can be said for most other shows cancelled by Fox.

“Everybody Runs” continues to deal with Memento Mori and the terrorist plot to murder the US Senate. We also see Blomfeld’s hunt for the precogs come to a climax—and a resolution. It’s a tightly plotted episode that makes excellent use of its time to squeeze a good amount of story in and create a satisfying ending while still leaving room for another season if the show manages to get one (although that seems increasingly unlikely).

The episode opens with a flashback to Wally being interviewed and hired to work with the precogs seventeen years ago. With time at such a premium in this final episode, this might be a little redundant, as it doesn’t really expand our understanding of Wally or his relationship with the precogs. However, it pays off at the end when Wally gets a chance to finally protect them the way he wasn’t able to during pre-crime. It’s a moment that ought to be even more powerful than it is, and there are several other similar moments in the episode, all with their emotional impact unfortunately muted by the series overall failure to fully develop its characters.

This, ultimately, is one of two things that account for this show’s downfall. Network shenanigans don’t help, and I would have liked to see Fox give this show a better chance at success than they did, but it’s always been a deeply flawed project. Though the last three episodes have definitely stepped up their game and finally seemed to more fully embrace the show’s high concept, it’s almost certainly too little too late to save the series, and the larger problem of the show has always been that it struggles to get the audience to really connect with its characters. In the end, this translates directly into those characters not being able to really sell us on major emotional moments, in spite of some fine acting on the part of, well, pretty much everybody this week.

I can’t believe I’m typing this, but one thing that might have helped this show would be some romance. Aside from Dash’s fling with that woman early in the season who turned out to be a murderer and Vega’s implied romantic history with Blake, the show basically avoided romance like it was the plague. I can definitely appreciate the desire to avoid focusing too much on romantic drama, but the utter lack of romantic entanglements actually makes the characters feel unrealistic. I’m sure someone has written the fanfic of it, but I would have loved to see Akeela have an ill-advised one-night stand with one of the twins (and, get real, probably it would be Arthur) or see Dash and Vega go on adorable dates together (I have a feeling that Vega is a secret romantic).

Still, I kind of loved this show, and I’m sad to see it go. The good news is that as endings go, this is a great one. If there’s never another episode, I can be happy that the show is going out with some dignity and on a high note.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

• Wally and Agatha are obviously in love with each other, right?  What a sad, doomed, and slightly creepy romance to toss in at the last minute.
• I never knew how much Andromeda meant to Arthur. I think the show always intended for Arthur to secretly be the soft-hearted precog sibling, and that would make his reaction to her death make more sense, but it’s one of the many things the writers either neglected or never got a chance to really develop.
• I wish Dash wasn’t so boring. Agatha may say he’s the strong one, and he definitely is the one who is most committed to making use of his abilities, but he never did come alive as a real person.
• Whoever designed Megan Good’s costumes throughout this whole series deserves an award. Or at least a pat on the back, because she always looked amazing.
• Excellent use of Akeela and Blake this week. I still very much think that the show should have gotten Blake more involved with the precogs much earlier.
• Vega standing over the milk bath as Agatha foresaw was perfectly executed, and Wally’s final decision to kill Blomfeld was legitimately surprising and interesting.