The final episode of Jericho aired yesterday and brought the second season's theme to a tidy end. If you missed it you can watch the full episode online at CBS.com. Spoilers follow, you've been warned.

From the beginning I've loved Jericho.

In the first season, a nuclear attack is made against the country (something that's sadly becoming more of a reality) and the little town of Jericho, KS is spared, but caught up in the middle of everything. They avoid the imediate blasts and the aftermath of fallout and radiation, but find themselves caught up with having to provide not only for themselves but for the influx of refugees that are left homeless and wounded by the attack.

The town pulls together and makes ends meet, but illustrates the potential for internal strife, the complications of free-trade in a communal emergency, the tensions with the neighboring towns (New Breen in particular), and eventually leads into what will become a full-blown battle. Season one ends with the series being cancelled.

Due mainly to a grass roots, online campaign, CBS sees that online numbers really do matter, and when they factor online viewership into the equation, the ratings for the show jumped almost an entire point (which is miraculous, but telling of where media distrubution is heading). You could watch Jerich the same day it aired online at CBS.com, though the XBOS Live Marketplace, and rumor has it through Netflix on demand and iTunes as well (Zune Marketplace where where you?). That's an awefully large chunk of viewers not to include in ratings.

The campaign was successful and fans were given another season (albeit only 7 episodes split in two groups).

Season two stared with the Cheyenne government's military (under a new President-elect, flying a new flag, amd going by the moniker "The Allied States of America") cluster bombing the boarder skirmish between Jericho and New Breen. Then the occupation began -- under the guise of a reconstruction. Season two changed from a small town pulling together and addressing simple needs such as power (generated via wind turbines), food planted and grown on family farms, and salt from the town's mine traded with trading posts for other staples to something entirely different: how a town deals with an assumed reconstruction turned occupation by a corrupt government using private security forces to handle everything from reconstruction projects to trading in old for new currency.

I won't go in to details about how the season and the series ultimately end, but it involved a piece of evidence that will prove the conspiracy and tip the power away from the new Cheyenne government and the Allied States of America, the statement by the mayor of Jericho at the Constitutional Convention that a government prefers a citizenry that can't shoot back after the Second Amendment was written out of the New Constitution (before lunch!), and the Embassy of the Independant Republic of Texas stepping in to expose the evidence to anyone that will listen.

Season two ends with two Cheyenne fighters being shot down with the Texas Air National Guard, and the assumption that America is poised for a second Civil War. Even the occupation of Jericho by Cheyenne's Military is convinced they're on the wrong side and tear the Allied flag from their uniforms.

It's really a must-see, and to the best of my knowledge you can still watch every episode streamed from CBS.com (not in high-definition, and not in true full-screen, but good enough to beat buying the episodes on XBOX Live Marketplace).

Let me know what you think... and how you're preparing your family just in case something like that actually happens...