Can Someone Explain The Ending Of My Husband'S Wife?

MY TAKE ON THE FINAL EPISODE: ‘My Husband’s Wife’ by Cristy Lyons ends with the removal of the major obstacle to the unity of Cristy and Jordan. The series began with the abduction of Cristy by evil Do Gap who was instrumental in making Jordan remarry Shaira when he believed that Cristy was already dead. The remainder of the series’ episodes were spent trying to reconcile the past with the present as Cristy returns after many long years. In the end, a long and arduous confrontation with Shaira ended with the lady’s demise in a tragic hospital fire. Afterward, Cristy and Jordan could finally return to each other. My feelings after watching were relief, but not surprise. In fact, I felt so relieved and even comforted by the end as it was so classically written in the manner of a classic serialized drama, tying up loose ends for its main family of characters and giving the audience the closure they so desperately yearned for.

I was surprised by how satisfyingly definitive the end of ‘My Husband’s Wife’ was – it felt brutal and neat all at once, like someone had finally tidied up the messy living room and had to get rid of one stubborn piece of furniture by setting it on fire. Over the run of the show, Cristy’s disappearance and four-year captivity had created a whole chain of events. Jordan assumed the worst about her and eventually married Shaira, who became a mother figure to Tori. The whole conflict of Cristy trying to get back to her family after her return was set in motion by that setup, and the writers piled consequences upon Shaira’s schemes until they finally came crashing down in a dramatic fashion – she died in the fire that burned down the hospital room she was recuperating in. Her demise had the effect of removing the toxic woman from the lives of Cristy and Jordan in the most final way possible – no drawn-out legal battle, no long and difficult process of healing and closure for the two. Instead, they could immediately return to each other. Other secondary storylines reached more amicable conclusions, too – Leon and Hannah in particular got a soft and sweet ending that felt in keeping with the rest of the show. The network’s coverage of the finale and the wash of finale photos online show Cristy and Jordan together in the end, as do the cast’s signoffs since. My read of the show was that it chose to go for emotional closure over realism, and that felt right for the show as it was. It was always a melodramatic, uber-cathartic show, and this was a conclusion in keeping with that.

For ‘My Husband’s Wife’ though the last arc followed consequences and catharsis so the ending did feel like a good solid conclusion to the story. In essence there’s a simple premise at the core of the show which then branched out in so many ways for the writers to play with. At its basic core Cristy is kidnapped, presumed dead and her husband Jordan moves on and marries their friend Shaira and they have a child together. Tori becomes the other center point of the show for the family to fluctuate around. Then finally after a long wait Cristy returns and there’s that very instinctive tug of war of Cristy fighting to reclaim her life, Jordan being pulled in two very different ways, and of course there’s the increasingly manipulative Shaira who’d do anything to get what she wants. As the story hurtles on towards the finale Shaira’s increasing tactics become more and more bitter and in the end exposed in her Machiavellian ways. However interestingly enough the writer chose not to lock Shaira up behind bars for good but to go for a more dramatic and more apt conclusion to her story which led to her demise in a hospital fire which of course in one swift swoop manages to take her out of the picture for good which in turn now allows Cristy to return to Jordan and the two can pick up where they left off. The network followed up the finale with the cast’s reflections on the journey to get there as well as their take on the ending and concluded that in the end it was all about bringing the main couple as well as the various supporting characters to a place of closure and reconciliation as they all return to where they began as a family unit. It’s not necessarily realistic but that wasn’t the show’s intention, it was a decision taken to make sure everyone got their deserved emotional justice.