I didn't like the very ending of the last episode at first -- I was annoyed right away by Keith being the first to die, and then it took me a while to figure out what was going on. But looking back, it was the perfect ending.

The symmetry between where everybody was at the time of Nate's stroke, and the beginning of the series, worked really well. I thought it was a really nice move having Ted not turn out to be an asshole. (i'm still a little skeptical about Claire marrying him, though I guess odder matches have been made).

Re: Nate and Brenda, there's no way that would have been the last chapter between them -- though I did like the notion of Brenda and Billy talking each other to death. That's the relationship, ultimately, that both of them would always come back to (and maybe Brenda's crest-and-trough relationship with Nate was in some way patterned after that, the formative relationship of her life).