The House Jan. 6 committee will hold what is probably the last public session of its probe on Thursday in the late afternoon. Committee members will be working against the clock from now until January.

The present Congress ends at that time, and Republicans might take over. After Thursday’s presentation, there should be enough time for at most one more hearing where a complete summary of the report the members will put together can be presented.

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The committee has presided over a series of presentations that have been remarkably well-crafted, although it has been 12 weeks since the most recent one on July 21. Twelve weeks have passed since the committee’s report was released, during which time the subject of the inquiry, former President Donald Trump, has become involved in a brand-new scandal.

New information allegedly collected after the hearing on July 21 will be used on Thursday to shed more light on Trump’s awareness of the possible outcomes of his address at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021.

But the committee on Thursday will, like the makers of popular TV, have the difficult challenge of sticking the landing after that run of must-see television programmes transformed the nation’s perspective of what happened after Trump narrowly lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.

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The hearings on January 6 have so far produced a cohesive story arc that Hollywood television producers would be envious of. Over the course of the summer, viewers were guided through eight short documentaries, each of which focused on a different aspect of the bigger picture.

The first and most recent installments were broadcast during prime time, which not only allowed for a larger audience in the United States but also added a layer of distinction.

But after that, there was essentially a midseason break. People have likely stored away the shocking allegations made by individuals like former White House employee Cassidy Hutchinson and have not likely brought them up in the months since. There have been new stories coming out of Mar-a-Lago as well as opportunities for the public to create stories of their own that may not quite align with what the committee has found.

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The evidence produced by the committee faces the risk of succumbing to the popularity’s double-edged sword because the pace of the committee’s high-profile work lags behind the public’s curiosity.

When the finales of well-known shows like Lost, the Battlestar Galactica remake, and Game of Thrones revealed that mysteries remained unanswered, confusing mythologies remained unsolved, and seemingly crucial plotlines had been abandoned, fans of these shows were deeply upset.

This dynamic has previously played out under comparable circumstances in recent years, as high-profile investigations have grown to the point where they have their own fandoms.

In the lack of breaking news, the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller became the inspiration for some genuinely spectacular works of theories akin to fan fiction, with some suggesting that President Trump would be arrested in the Oval Office.

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Even though his investigation has come to a halt, his Trump-appointed counterpart, special counsel John Durham, has been praised in the MAGA universe as the one to finally reveal the “deep state” plan against Trump.

The committee is actively conducting an investigation. It’s not creating a work of fiction. The committee’s conclusions have never been certain of its conclusion, which makes the well-developed narrative arc I mentioned all the more stunning.

However, viewers are used to seeing their suppositions and beliefs validated on TV in order to satisfy them. The committee’s current problem is to avoid having the series finish in a way that leaves viewers disappointed, as several of the series mentioned above did.

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The committee still has a lot of information to gather and questions to address, but after Thursday, there won’t be many opportunities for it to do so publicly. There won’t be any more settings like this one to reveal the results of investigations by the Justice Department and the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, concerning what Trump and his supporters were doing in the days leading up to and following January 6.

Is it unjust that the committee’s labour can ultimately fail to impress viewers and dull the shine of their cumulative efforts? Absolutely. But the fact that we’re even considering it shows how high of standards the committee and its members have set for themselves.