a better ending?

A better ending could have/would have had Pope capture Mason and bring him into the DC area, bypassing security so that they could deliver Mason directly to the Queen....

there are a lot of issues i have with this finale and I'm not sure how to reconcile them honestly.

1. They never explain why the Queen showed up, they just vaguely note that she only shows up when the war is almost over. Considering the fact that they had meagre defences and no power for the entire planet, with Skidders going wild and ravaging everything and overlords barely able to control anything this makes no sense.

2. they introduce a previous human/alien conflict, which makes no sense as the technological differences would have been significant.

3. Ben should have died at the end. When everything with connection to the aliens died, he should have died as well. It would have been better if Maggie had decided to choose Ben, and then he died.

4. Mason bringing back his wife... he was easily a full days drive away from the lake/river/whatever.

5. A Queen that has no defence sits at the foot of the lincoln memorial....

6. The Queen and others became aware of the intercepted messages by Ben.

Lots of problems in a final season that was rather weak. The continued references to "cut the head of the snake" is fine, but considering what was going on in the larger scale of things, the supreme commander of a military that controls multiple planets showing up and being completely unguarded seems stupid. You would think they would show up and just do a planetary bombardment to beat earth into submission. You think that the Queen would have maybe arrived in the first season, since that was when they had almost complete control of the planet.