Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs

And "Frasier" ended the way it began. Smooth, subtle, poignant without being cloying and with a delectable twist even when the major events were already pretty much common knowledge. So much better as a finale than the lame "Friends" closer last week, which, even with all the secrecy and the airport adventures, wasn't really able to surprise us with the Ross-Rachel outcome.

The show even managed to weave in a tribute to Tennyson's epic "Ulysses" via the flash cards between segments, which were then masterfully brought together in Frasier's farewell speech to his family and then to the extended family at KACL and Seattle. This is what tying up loose ends is about, and MSN does another excellent job in reviewing the finale - read the perfect report here.

And so I leave you with these diametrically opposite glimpses that are a trademark of the show that managed to walk the fine line between slapstick and highbrow comedy with all the grace of a seasoned circus acrobat...

Niles (looking at Daphne feeding their baby): God, they are so beautiful!
Marty: Yes. And they'll stay like that as long as she keeps breast-feeding.

"It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
... and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are -
...
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
- An excerpt from "Ulysses" (Alfred, Lord Tennyson; 1842)

Goodnight, Frasier. The building won't be the same now that you've left.