‘Vice Principals’ season 1, episode 9 (finale) review: Did Neal Gamby or Lee Russell make principal?

On the last episode of “Vice Principals” we saw Principal Brown dive head first into a bottle of gin after her children left to go and be with their dad. The worst part about it was that Lee and Neal had decided to film her as she went off the deep end and plan to use the video to get her fired. Lee was thoroughly enjoying himself (he is a complete psycho after all), where as Neal was starting to feel badly about everything they were doing. Is Neal going to put a stop to this before they destroy Brown completely? Let’s dive into the season 1 finale and see how it’s all going to end.

The plan for Neal and Lee is to take Brown to the train tracks and tell her about the video. When they get to the tracks, Brown apologizes for her “gin soaked night” and thanks them for helping her through the situation. They show her the video and tell her that her career is over once this video is out. Lee of course takes things too far by admitting that he spit in her coffee and that he and Neal burned her house to the ground. Brown goes crazy and beats them both bloody, until Lee tells her that he will release the video on the web if she doesn’t resign. Defeated, Brown leaves the school.

So who will get the job now that Brown is gone? Will it be Lee, Neal or someone new? Neal and Lee announce to the faculty that Brown is leaving, and that they will be later meeting with the superintendent to find out more information. The superintendent doesn’t choose either of them to be principals permanently, but instead tells Lee and Neal that in the interim, they will both be acting principals, which makes them temporarily happy. This will give them a chance to show what they can do in the power seat. After becoming principal, it gives Neal a new lease on life and he decides to make things work with Amanda.

We also saw a nice moment with Ray and Neal where Ray admitted that he’s jealous of his relationship with Janelle and is having a hard time figuring out where he fits in. Later Neal gives Janelle a new motor cross bike encouraging her to work with Ray and jump back in the game.

So is this season of “Vice Principals going to end with a big red ribbon on it? Nope! Neal goes outside the school to find his and Lee’s cars have been set on fire. When he goes over to assess the damage, a person wearing a mask and a leather coat comes up and shoots Neal, leaving him in a pool of blood.

For a comedy, this finale was REALLY dark, but it’s not any darker then burning down Brown’s house. We didn’t find ourselves laughing like we have through out the season, but there were some really great awkward moments like the scene at the train tracks. “Vice Principals” in general has been a very fun show to watch and we can’t wait for season 2 to find out what happened to Neal and who was really behind shooting him. Neal does have a few enemies and we wouldn’t be all that surprised if Lee pulled the trigger so that he would be the soul principal – it’s not out of his wheelhouse of psychotic behavior. Episode grade: B

What did you think of the finale of “Vice Principals”? Leave us a comment in the box below and share your thoughts on season 1 of the show.