Jessie Series Finale Recap: How Did the Everyday Party Come to an End?

Disney Channel’s Jessie wrapped its four-year run on Friday night in perhaps the only way possible.

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In fact, I had a thought earlier this evening to open this recap with a multiple choice poll, suggesting funny (or “funny”) options for how it all ended — and one of them was going to be “Jessie leaves the kids to star in a TV series about a mishap-prone nanny.”

So close.

Setting things in motion was the return of the Ross kids’ oh-so-rarely-seen mother, Christina, who has shoehorned a New York trip into her busy schedule as a “visionary CEO.” But when Mom realizes that the kids will always turn to Jessie for help (or reliable grilled cheese sandwiches), she gets the idea to have her nanny cast in her and the husband’s movie adaptation of the popular Tournament of Scepters YA novels, penned by Robert R.J. Roberts.

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Jessie gets off to a rough start on the set of the movie (which apparently was closer to production than Mom initially led us to believe, raising the question: Just how big of fans are Ravi and Emma?), but ultimately acclimated to her role as a Bat Warrior. Meanwhile back home, Bertram shares the hard truth with Christina — that what the kids need more than any expensive toys or upstairs ice-skating rink is to have their Mom around. Like, really around.

Bertram then drops the headline he buried, that Zuri, Ravi, Luke and Emma took the family jet to Los Angeles, to visit Jessie. Alas, in their quest to get a bird’s-eye view of the Scepters set, the quartet get stranded atop the “H” in the “Hollywood” sign. “Sensing” that her kids are in trouble, Jessie risks losing the role of a lifetime to save Emma & Co., by using an arrow to shoot a rope up to the sign, which Jessie then shimmies up… and the kids then zipline down, using their socks to protect their hands.

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Once everyone is safe, the good news comes in big batches: Robert R.J. Roberts decides that Jessie’s mix of maternal instincts and moxie is perfect for his TV series about a “nanny by day, superhero by night.” Then, just as the kids wonder who will take care of them, Christina announces that she is going to be a stay-at-home mom.

Back in NYC, Jessie delivers a perfect, tailored goodbye to each of her charges as well as “best friend” Bertram. And if that didn’t have your/your own rugrat’s eyes wet already, Christina asks Jessie for any advice — and the nanny quotes the theme song, saying: “It feels like a party every day.”

Arriving at (no joke) “Hollywood Film Studio” for her first day on the nanny TV series, Jessie discovers that doorman Tony got himself a job there as a well, opening and closing doors. Then, in a final (and wholly unnecessary) touch, the Ross kids come rolling up in a studio golf cart to visit Jessie (already), comically knock her on her keister and share another round of goodbyes that greatly undercut the impact of the earlier ones. (You could all but hear the Disney Channel brass yelling, “We need this to close on the hap-hap-happiest of notes! Bring the kids back to L.A.!”)

What did you think of Jessie‘s series finale?

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