80. "binged the whole season this morning, several thoughts:" In response to In response to 0
surprisingly good CG for a TV show, but they had Marvel money to spend I suppose.
great cast all around, I wish we got a little more Hamish and his boyfriend (I really dig Hamish and loved the boyfriend's actor in Fargo season 2) but otherwise I felt like we got just enough out of every character. maybe more Jemaine Clement also.
that said, watching it all in one go this show wasn't always the tightest. especially when it came to the end credits stingers, it almost always felt like they just ran out of time, not that the episode was over. every ending was like a static shock.
but I also felt character motivations would shift for the sake of the plot as often as for character, a feeling I've never really got from the Fargo seasons or Jessica Jones to name another Marvel television property.
actually, I got a lot of Jones vibes from this in general with the mind control and all powerful implications and all that. in that sense I enjoyed that they humanized that conflict as much as they did and I sort of wish Hawley had found a way to avoid the Dragon Ball Z collision at the end in favor of something more...psychological, I guess? I just listened to a podcast where he discussed his disappointment with most super hero stories reducing themselves down to who's stronger and physical conflict, but that's exactly what his show did in the end.
I was also reminded of Stranger Things in the sense that the mystery was arguably more entertaining than the payoff; this interview also mentioned how Hawley never really saw this is a mystery box sort of show, and that he very deliberately made the style of the show more informational and direct, less manic and visually unsettling as David gained more and more understanding of the situation. But I felt like the show lost a little something when it became more about defeating the Shadow King than learning about it, and I think it also lost a little something as Stevens became a less unhinged presence on the screen.
obviously I watched the whole thing in a single morning so these are in some ways nitpicks on what was a wonderful 8 hours of television, but taken as a whole I think the first 4, 5 hours were easily more intriguing than the last two.