One of the crazy things to me is how unceremonious so much of this season was, from the wedding to a lack of a funeral for Rue to not committing to calling it a series finale. Like, this had to be a hugely expensive season, from the cast to shooting on film to the production costs and it felt like a lot of it was treated with a shrug. Part of that I feel is HBO’s fault, part of it is Sam’s and I assume the other part is smaller shooting windows for the cast. It just felt like for being one of HBO’s biggest shows, they didn’t really go out of their way to celebrate it.
i like that Jules had the whole Rapunzel symbolism but her story never went anywhere. Hunter--and hell, even Jacob--were completely underutilized. like, yeah, maybe they had busy schedules, but Sam could've at least given them something interesting to do. all Nate did was lose a toe and a finger, and then die. instead we have a Cassie gigantism fetish scene because that was sooo much more important to the plot. i was hoping Jules would do something differently with her life after the way she left things with Rue but nope she's still locked away in that tower. aside from Zendaya it felt like Sydney had more screen time than anyone else
I have to imagine for both Jacob and Hunter it’s bc scheduling issues but that doesn’t excuse the bad writing. Just makes sense they were largely kept to interacting with one or two other people ultimately if their scheduling was this big of an issue the characters just shouldn’t have gotten brought back
This reminded me of the kind of style over substance ending nonsense Ryan Murphy comes up with once he, just like Sam too, gets his own shows so far off the rails.
I think like with Ryan Murphy-centric stuff, this just shows the power of having a writers’ room and not some one-man army operation. Shows need other writers to challenge a creator’s ideas and suggest other options. Vince Gilligan was adamant that they contributed to “Breaking Bad”’s success. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that one of the best episodes is co-written by Hunter. And to Sam’s credit, both of those COVID episodes are great examples of his strength as writer.
I thought the season overall was pretty decent. I enjoyed when they started weaving the threads together. The glaring issue is that the more that happened, the more noticeable it was that Jules was just not really a part of the story this season. If she wasn't there at all, I'm not sure anything would have really changed, which is a shame for such an interesting character. At least Nate was important to the story, even if he wasn't physically present for much of it. I had a good enough time with the Ali revenge quest line. It was all ridiculous, but it was satisfying to watch Alamo get what was coming and having Bishop turn on him. And they did get me at the end with the dinner scene. I think it was fun they took the show to a completely different place while still dealing with a lot of the same themes. I'm not saying it deserves awards, but it did the job for me.
I don't think I agree with all of this but I do think it's an interesting take and it better articulated some of what was bothering me this season that I hadn't really touched on
The more I think about it the more I find the Rue & Ali storyline from beginning to end really impactful, cartoonish villains and overwritten monologues about fentanyl aside. At least up until Ali suddenly becomes The Equalizer. Problem is absolutely nothing else about this season works on a storytelling level imo. And given that he had a time jump to work with, I’m not sure why he insisted on working in certain characters where he knew he wouldn’t have the actors for more than a week, as it seems was the case with Schafer and Elordi. Sure, it would have felt weird and like a disservice to those characters to write them off between seasons, but their absence would have stuck out way less than what we got, which was nothing. Then you’ve got Cassie becoming an OF model manipulating an influencer for exposure, to aspiring actress, to neither, back to OF model manipulating a celebrity for exposure. Lexi given and giving nothing. Maddy’s storyline being somewhat interesting for the most part until were meant to believe she’s naive enough to sell out Rue in passing to aforementioned cartoonish villain and then never reckoning with that as a character. Idk man. Very nice to look at tho
I thought the last ranch scene was nice. The opening vignettes through out the series were always the best parts I think.
Last two episodes were absolute chores to get through, I was kinda enjoying the first part of the season but it devolved so far by the end