Evicted: Bret and Jemaine Sing, Herd Sheep on the Series Finale of "Flight of the Conchords"

Was anyone else let down by the series finale of HBO's Flight of the Conchords?

Last night's episode of Flight of the Conchords ("Evicted") marked what is likely to be the series' last installment as Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie have publicly indicated that it's unlikely that they'll return for a third season.

In the episode, Bret and Jemaine discovered that, unless they were able to raise roughly $7000 (in US currency, that is) within a month, they would be evicted from their apartment. Unable to do so, they end up moving in with Mel and Doug and launching a bid at Broadway stardom by putting on a play written by Murray about their lives (with a little Star Wars thrown in). Inevitably, however, the play's themes about illegal immigrants attract the attention of the INS and the duo are deported to New Zealand, where they return to their previous lives as shepherds.

I wasn't terribly impressed with this installment and it felt almost haphazardly thrown together, as though the writers didn't quite know how to wrap up the series or had completely run out of steam at this point. I loved the percussion opening and Mel and Doug... and that was about it.

Full disclosure time: I was one of the Conchords' early adopters. I heard them live in Los Angeles in 2006 and was a fan of their BBC Radio series and I was completely captivated with the series' first season when it aired in 2007. The second season, which wrapped last night, seemed to lack the sort of spark and verve that was completely felt in every single installment of Season One. Perhaps it was the fact that, unlike in the first season, the scripts were written first and then the music tailored to the episodes rather than vice-versa.

Which isn't to say that Season Two of Flight of the Conchords didn't have some memorable moments, because it did: Jemaine becoming a prostitute, Bret forming a gang and embarking on a West Side Story-influenced dance-off, the gorgeous Michel Gondry-directed installment, the fantastic 1980s synth pop of "Fashion is Danger" and the hilarious "Sugalumps." There were some stand-out episodes among Season Two's ten-episode run, but sadly the season finale wasn't one of them.

Which is a shame as "Evicted" seems perfectly set up to be a truly memorable episode. The subplot that had Bret and Jemaine move in with Mel and Doug only to have the couple separate and divide up the band, with one of the boys staying with one of them should have been a bigger part of the episode rather than just a five-minute aside. Instead, the focus was mainly on the meta-theatrical play-within-the-show about Bret and Jemaine's life... which really wasn't all that funny and went on for way too long.

Adding to this head-scratcher of an episode was the fact that the last full-length song the guys perform on screen was the surreal and bizarre "Petrov, Yelyena, and Me," which recounts Bret's dream of being stuck in a liferaft with Russian versions of Mel and Doug as they chop off his body parts and feast on them before he doses himself with arsenic and kills his attackers. Not exactly reaching the same sort of memorable replay value as say "Sugalumps" or "Fashion is Danger"... or any of the first season songs.

Ultimately, "Evicted" lacked the off-kilter humor, hook-filled musical numbers, and character-based banter that have defined Flight of the Conchords since the beginning. And it left me feeling more than a little nostalgic for those early days when the episodes were overflowing with laugh-out-loud moments and clever repartee than about meta-theatrical plays and deportation. Personally, I think I want to remember Flight of the Conchords in that context rather than continue to think about last night's subpar series finale.

But I am curious to know: what did you think of last night's episode? Was it a fitting send-off for the guys and the series? Or did it leave you disappointed? Discuss.