Kyle XY Season Finale (spoilers)

I came across one of those ads for KyleXY in the mall a while back, you know the one, with cutie boy Kyle holding up his shirt and showing his lack of a belly button. I also recall seeing "Who is Kyle XY?" skywriting on Father's Day; ABC clearly did a nice job with the pre-release promo. Still, I ended up missing the first few episodes and kind of decided against watching it. Luckily I had mentioned the show to a couple of friends who did stick with it, and later convinced me to give it a try. I ended up watching the last 4 or 5 episodes, and in between went back and saw the premiere off of iTunes. One of these days I'll get the few I missed and fill in the remaining blanks.

I was very pleasantly surprised with the overall quality of the show. I must admit I was a bit biased against it at first given that it was showing on ABC Family. But ABC did a nice little trick and did a replay of the show on the main network, which meant I could watch the show in HD. That was enough to get me to watch, but it was the show itself that got me hooked. An interesting blend of traditional family drama, soapy high school trauma, all mixed in with the mystery of who this super kid with no memory was. I love sci-fi mixes in shows, but what really got me was how the show suckered me in with touching moments about family, love, loss, heartache, etc. It's like a cross between Dawson's Creek, 90210 and the X-Files.

Anyway, the promos promised answers to all our questions for the finale. I'd say we got a good helping of info, but things are definitely set up well for a second season. The big reveal (which I'm guessing most sci-fi fans had already guessed) of Kyle as a clone/experiment was handled fairly well. They had given enough clues to make it pretty much what we expected. The second reveal of the "original" being alive was also not too hard to guess (though I also thought Kyle might have been cryogenically frozen for 20 years and memory wiped) - but what was amazing was how perfect the casting of J. Eddie Peck (btw anyone remember him from Cheers) as the older/original version was. He looked so much like an older version of Kyle it was kind of creepy. Their 2 scenes together were excellent. And then the third reveal of another (maybe evil?) Kyle clone being ready for action was a very nice way to end the season, promising all sorts of problems to come. Interspersed were some excellent goodbye scenes, as well as the Tragers dealing with Kyle's sudden departure. The best scene was the mom's breakdown - I was anticipating it the whole episode, but it still got to me, and I admit I got a little teary-eyed.

All in all, great summer show and I look forward to seeing the show return next year. Reminds me of how I felt after watching the first season The 4400.