The ‘Dead of Summer’ finale kills … everyone? Almost

The bloodiest show of the summer has finally come to a close, and if you were hoping for your favorite character to make it out alive, chances are the “Dead of Summer” finale managed to crush that dream.

We may have started out with eight counselors, one director and a deputy in the main cast, but we ended with three unlikely survivors. Everyone else? Deader than doornails.

RELATED: ‘Dead of Summer’ throws a shocking bear trap death into the mix

Jesse (Paulina Singer), Blair (Mark Indelicato) and Drew (Zelda Williams) were the only ones to make it out of Camp Stillwater alive. Still, we got a nice, happy ending for the dearly departed counselors who met the wrong side of Amy’s (Elizabeth Lail) axe over the course of the summer.

Even Garrett (Alberto Frezza) got to reunite with his father in the afterlife before committing his spirit to the task of protecting the lake from further evil.

If “Dead of Summer” was to return for a Season 2, we could see Garrett championing that cause — the new Holy Oak, if you will — as a whole new group of kiddos tempt fate and unknowingly release the demon again.

Unfortunately, we just don’t think that’s likely. “Dead of Summer” was a fun show, full of all the suspense, drama, blood and guts you’d ever want out of a summer series. But, it isn’t exactly the next “Pretty Little Liars.” Ratings records were not smashed and lives were not changed.

RELATED: ‘Dead of Summer’: Amy is evil? Welp, it’s always the quiet ones

More importantly, it works quite well as a stand-alone horror tale, rather than a serialized story that would dredge up the same mythology over and over again.

When you consider that, over the course of the series, more than half the cast was killed off — meaning an all new cast would have to be brought in for Season 2 — it almost feels  even less appealing. Can we really imagine a show without crazy killer Amy or our mysterious director Deb (Elizabeth Mitchell)?

The only intriguing alternative is for the show to go further back into the camp’s history, perhaps to another decade. But that would create a similar problem: All new cast, same old story.

We’re not ones to root against a show’s renewal, but in this case, Freeform might want to just let “Dead of Summer” stand alone as a complete package, just the way it is.

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