You should try Diet Dr. Pepper. It is excellent. Tastes like regular Dr. Pepper.

Yea, I'm also a bit worried about if the ending is going to be rushed or not. As has been said many times, it's a shame this is so short.

There was nothing in the novel at all about someone returning back to Earth by "flying into the eclipse". The fact that they introduced this new element, combined with the fact that Albion is going to be attacking Tristein during the next solar eclipse, might mean that they're actually going to send Saito back to Earth at the end of the anime (next episode).

Saito's sleeping place being "upgraded" from "on the floor" to "in bed with Louise"
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/55/03069ft8.th.png

Louise's knitting challenge
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/706/03099ne0.th.png

My biggest gripe, Siesta's quiet but clear confession to Saito while on the plains of her home village
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/343/03169ir1.th.png

It's also odd that they haven't introduced the Founder's prayer book yet, for something that's going to be playing a huge role soon.

I think that they want to show Saito having to make a choice. Go home or protect Louise. And he will chose to protect Louise.

Given the title of the final episode, if anything, I think Louise will learn to control her Void Powers (TM) and easily transport Saito back and forth between the two worlds. Problem solved. XD

1)Choice between saving the world(and getting the girl) vs going home.
2)Or maybe just maybe, saito finish kicking ass and runs out of fuel and miss the solar eclipse and cannot go home.
3)Or as Lee says free transportation by louise to home and back.

I would go for option 1 anytime seemingly that it is probably the only way they can leave the story open for a second season. Sushi says its not gonna happen though but i am keeping my fingers crossed. Afterall it happened with shana.

A predictable, open-ended finale would be Saito choosing to stay to save Louise/Tristein, and missing the chance to go home in the process.

However, even if Saito stayed, it would still difficult for the anime to continue on (ie. second season). Why?

Because Saito's ultimate goal in the novel has been realized ("to find a way home"). If he wanted to, he could just wait until the next eclipse, and bye bye Halkeginia. Unlike the novel's Saito, who's still "lost" after 8 volumes, the anime's Saito has already found his "way home". This means that a lot of developments in the later volumes won't make sense with the anime Saito anymore (Saito wanting to fly to the East, Louise wanting keeping her true feelings to herself until Saito finds his way home, etc.)

Even if they made the chance a one-time deal like "the eclipse only comes once in a lifetime" or something, it's still going to be hard to attach the novel back to the anime now.

And Shana's isn't a second season, it's a movie, and is most likely not a continuation of where they left off with the novel, but a standalone story instead. The OVA... well, we'll see.
Shana is better off compared to this though, at least the "end goal" isn't exposed like it is here. What they did with Zero no Tsukaima in this episode would be the equivalent of revealing a way of removing Reiji Maigo from Yuuji and returning him back to human.

Of course, if they ended up flipping the table on their own theory (ie. flying into the eclipse does nothing), then that's a whole different story.

How often are the eclipses? The last one might have been the one Seista's grandfather missed. And what happens if the Zero is damaged. It is not hard to make the eclipes a one shot option. It is also possible that he will try it and it won't work.