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Jon & Kate Ends: The World Continues to Spin

"Jon & Kate Plus 8" airs final episode

By DANIEL MACHT

| Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009 | Updated 11:56 PM EDT

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Jon and Kate's TV show is done.

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“Jon & Kate Plus 8” is no more – and critics couldn’t be more thrilled.

To recap last night's series finale: Jon's brood ran a lemonade stand to raise money for firefighters, that is, everyone except the twins, who didn’t get to participate after one said they'd rather spend time with mommy. Jon said he'd never remarry Kate. Surprise.

Meanwhile, Kate took the kids to a farm to milk cows. She lamented how painful it felt that the reality show had “been taken from us, from me and the kids” and said Jon's relationship with "girlfriends" was "too warped" for her little ones to ever find out about.

Kate also summed up her relationship with her soon-to-be ex-hubby with an expression that appears on this year’s list of most annoying phrases: “It is what it is.”

David Zurawik at the Baltimore Sun blogs that Kate's actual message was: "If you feel sad, dear viewer, because it is over, blame Jon. It's all his selfish fault." Zurawik concedes that Jon is indeed "an idiot, adolescent, self-absorbed, low-life fool of a fool." But "he is not a bad person for taking his kids off TV, even if Kate said several times Monday night how much the kids 'miss' being circus animals for TLC.”
Over at Newsday, Verne Gay writes that while the finale episode made Jon look like a “jerk” it was “abundantly clear” the show couldn’t go on. “What a bummer," he says. “At least the kids are still cute and innocent. In time they'll learn what their parents did to them, and to each other.”
Many commenters over at the anti-Kate blog Gosselins Without Pity refused to believe the reality mom would ever give up being on TV. “The milking the cow for the last epi[sode] seems appropriate...they have been milking the viewers for years...” Lisa K writes in one of the most cheered comments.
Ken Tucker at EW.com asks viewers to step back and remember about "Jon & Kate's" good-ol'-days. “The kids were adorable and funny, and the interactions between Jon and Kate seemed unguarded, fresh, often amusing, and sometimes provocative,” he blogs." Too bad both parents are now more interested in “justifying their behavior” instead of worrying about if they’re hurting the kids, he concludes.