Oprah’s Au Revoir

After week of waiting for the big secret of Oprah’s final guests to be unveiled, viewers were (a) disgusted, (b) thrilled or (c) other, to find out that Oprah had no final guests. It was her last chance to both inspire and brag so she grabbed it with both hands and ran with it.

After her two-day gala with celebs up the kazoo, it was probably a better idea anyway as opposed to having more celebs sing her praises.

“Nobody but you is responsible for your life,” Oprah intoned in her Pied Piper of Self-Improvement voice, “You are responsible for your life. What is your life? What is all life? What is every flower, every rock, every tree? Energy. And you’re responsible for the energy you create for yourself, and you’re responsible for the energy that you bring to others.”

She also worked in a clip of Whoopi Goldberg as Celie in “The Color Purple” showing the scene where Celie leaves Danny Glover as Mister. Oprah couldn’t exactly show the part where Celie put a knife to Mister’s throat and still make her point. Her character, Sophia, says “I knowed they is a God,” and Oprah says there is, too, crediting the Almighty for her success, then explained which God she was talking about: “I’m talking about the same one you’re talking about. The Alpha and Omega. The Omniscience, the Omnipresent, the Ultimate Consciousness, the Source, the Force, the All of Everything There Is, the one and only G-O-D.”

And the program would not have been complete without a reference to her humble beginnings: “… I’m truly amazed that I, who started out in rural Mississippi in 1954, when the vision for a black girl was limited to being either a maid or a teacher in a segregated school, could end up here,” she said and tears welled up in her eyes as she added, “It is no coincidence that a lonely little girl who felt not a lot of love, even though my parents and grandparents did the best they could — it is no coincidence that I grew up to feel genuine kindness, affection, validation and trust from millions of you all over the world. …” Amazing, when you consider that her own relatives have said she was loved and cared for. But after 25 years of spinning that yarn, complete with a pet cockroach, she probably believes it herself.

At the end, Oprah said: “I won’t say goodbye. I’ll just say, until we meet again. To God be the glory.”

As entertaining finales go, it sucked a lot worse than the “American Idol” Finale.

The Oprah Myth will continue operating on OWN.