The Sun Sets on ‘The Hills’ … Finally!

When "The Hills" began six seasons ago, it was a guilty pleasure -- set to a sweet soundtrack -- about navigating friendship and romance and trying to build a career in LA. It was cheesy and, yes, often staged, but I couldn't get enough of watching the beautiful people partying at Les Deux and "working" glam gigs. Remember Lauren's stint at Teen Vogue?

Then, somewhere along the way, the MTV "reality show" that concludes Tuesday morphed into a freak show. For instance, episodes went from focusing on Lauren's bad date with her ex Jason Wahler to Heidi revealing her post-plastic surgery bod to her family in Colorado. At some point the cast -- and MTV viewers -- said goodbye to storylines about Lauren and Whitney mingling with male models at work, and hello to scenes starring randoms like Stacie the bartender and some chick named McKaela. Drama about whether Heidi was moving out of her apartment with Lauren was replaced with scenes like the one where Speidi brought in an elephant for a bash they threw their neighbor, Enzo, for his 7th birthday. Huh?!

Maybe the show was just doomed after Lauren Conrad left, or maybe it was the fact that Heidi and Spencer appear to have actually gone off the deep end. Or perhaps it's just that the cast eventually stopped pretending the show was even remotely based on reality. Whatever the reason, these days "The Hills" is a shell of the fun, fluffy half-hour it was when it debuted four years ago. Sorta like Heidi Montag, it has transformed itself into something it actually hurts to watch. Every episode, every forced conversation at a Hollywood hangout, every fauxmance between Brody Jenner and one of his hot co-stars is more uncomfortable than the last. So I say "The Hills" finale could not come soon enough.

At least it's going out the best way possible, with original stars Lauren and Whitney (who smartly moved to "The City" long ago) scheduled to appear on the after show. "We have some stories being paid off in the finale that I think the viewers will find pretty exciting," creator Adam DiVello has said about the final episode. "Everybody's coming at peace with the stories we've been following. I think a few of them definitely found happiness and found what they were looking for."

Those of us who knew and loved "The Hills" when it was awesomely bad -- and not just plain bad -- already have been mourning it for a long time. But, if like me, you need to see it for closure, catch the final episode and reunion beginning Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on MTV, then immediately switch over to reruns of the early episodes!

Here's a sneak peek of what we can expect on the series finale.

Follow omg! on Twitter