Hannah Montana - Miley Says Goodbye?

Written by Pirata Hermosa

To coincide with the end of the third season, Disney released the latest Hannah Montana DVD today. As the title suggests, there’s a big question that needs to be answered. Is Miley (Miley Cyrus), really planning on leaving behind her secret life as Hannah Montana and moving back to Tennessee?

Thinking back on her visit to Tennessee, which was the basis for 2009’s feature film, Miley finds herself dreaming about her horse, Blue Jeans. Longing for the country life, she talks her father, Robby (Billy Ray Cyrus) into bringing the horse to California. But Blue Jeans isn’t satisfied at just being left in the stables; he begins following her home, to school, the beach, and just about everywhere she goes. Not knowing what to do about her horse’s wandering ways, she goes back to sleep and once again dreams about Blue Jeans, who helps her realize that she wasn’t just missing the horse, but she’s missing Tennessee. And the only thing to do is to pack up her belongings and move back home.

While she struggles with her decision and how she is going to tell her two best friends, Lilly (Emily Osment) and Oliver (Mitchell Musso), that she’s leaving, her brother Jackson (Jason Earles) is busy struggling with his first apartment and the fact that it’s falling apart. To make things even more complicated, Oliver has been asked to open for the band “Tepid Funk” on their six-month world tour. This means they would both be leaving Lilly totally alone. Feeling guilty, they decide to take her out for a day of fun and adventure, so she’ll have something to remember them by. After a little more soul searching, some advice from her brother, a pinch of wisdom from her father, and a musical montage about friendship, everything works out in the end.

The DVD contains five Season 3 episodes: “You Never Give Me My Money,” “Papa’s Got a Brand New Friend,” “Promma Mia,” “He Could Be the One,” and the two-part season finale, “Miley Says Goodbye?” There is also an alternate ending for “He Could be the One” and two other bonus features.

"Sister Secrets" is a look at the set with behind-the-scenes access to the cast as Miley’s sister, Brandi, interviews them and asks embarrassing questions about one another. This was actually fairly entertaining and a little silly, as it should be.

"Hannah’s Highlights" is reminiscent of watching Pop-Up videos on VH1 where interesting trivia and completely random thoughts are shown on the screen during the episode “You Never Give Me My Money”. If you’re interested in just watching the episode, it’s much better to watch without the comments because they are very distracting.

It’s hard to understand why this season finale is being marketed as it is. Granted, there is a cliffhanger, but it’s not really a good one. Not only has it already been announced that there will be a fourth season, but the suspense only lasts for a week as Part One was shown last Sunday and Part Two is on this Sunday. With the DVD dropping between the two airings, it probably won’t generate any extra purchases.

The season finale is also a little flat as it deviates from the normal formula. It spends way too much time focusing on Miley’s dreams and her talking horse. Normally, Miley would be dragging her friends in to some elaborate scheme that ultimately backfires, but instead all of the humor is left up to Jackson and his new apartment.

The other four episodes on the disc are random selections from throughout the season and don’t really have any common link between them. They are fairly typical episodes and most fans will like them.