Where I can, more or less, totally understand that this or that detail feels like it demands to be nitpicked. Hell, I totally WAS that dude for some of Breaking Bad's finer points (and found El Camino kind of dull as a result). So I'm not nearly in the mood to say it's WRONG to think Mattson's (potential) heel turn is abrupt. And while I'll always be a stooge for every single episode of Mad Men, I totally understand people who find the "one big pitch/sale" roller coaster seasons 4-6 lean on feels like a show out of ideas, because not everybody prioritizes character over story the way I do.


Which is also all I meant with the "true detectives" snark; when a show that eggs that shit on comes along, I love lurking the reddit threads as much as anybody, but I'd hate if every show became, at their core, puzzle boxes like that.


I just don't like how common "lazy" has become in audience parlance, either. As a video game player - notably, not a "gamer" lol - I see that word get thrown at creative and talented people who accomplish things I have very little if any aptitude for all the time. Even if they ultimately put out a shit product, and I think it's shit...for me, it takes a lot more than "this happened a little fast for me" to feel like it's "lazy", right? There's only so much time to tell a story on this sort of scale (ie. production labor, writing labor, acting labor, etc.) And it just seems like a...lazy critique, especially when the dealer is still holding two cards from the river.


When it's all said and done, maybe this bit was sloppy or harried or whatever. But I don't think the show has done any of the "get us the fuck out of here" signaling the Game of Thrones staff did, from writers to cast to execution over multiple years.


In fact, I've started to think the whispers of five seasons had a lot of merit to them, until Armstrong and his team realized this WGA strike wasn't going to be solved swiftly and they decided to send this show out on top rather than hold it hostage, ironically, by contract negotiations.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz