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Well no initially it wasn't because it was cancelled. Afterwards it was.
Things like John stabbing himself and Bill going "he ain't from Cincinnati" feels like it's attempting to go the normal route of mystery reveal (that I already lost count of the moments "to be explained" if that's what they're going for; "oh look Cass saw something on the footage, she's crying she... oh well nothing, maybe they'll say what it was later"). But fuck, I'd assume everybody was on the same boat as Butchie (note aside, Brian Van Holt and Ed O'Neil are unbelievably good) concerning John's strangeness and things happening during his stay (and that Butchie, for instance, just decided to go on with it accepting it fully without questions).
I'm getting a bad vibe that the show is trying to go through the "who is John?" mystery when I thought those specifics didn't really matter to the show.
And that's the thing, it's really great to watch, these characters got themselves incredibly interesting and some of the WTF moments are great (while others are starting to feel like "maybe we'll answer that in the second season; if Lost can do it, why wouldn't HBO let us?"). But I'm suspicious that they were aiming at a plot-driven thing with very little butter to spread through the bread of these ten episodes (or were just fearing there wasn't enough butter and foccused on character's curves and decided to create a very contrived mystery).
For instance, this episode. It was great from a character-driven stance. Communication breakdowns, losts in translations, etc. People surrounding the outsider, going back to their old roles, falling back into the one threat of a coming bad tide. But it seems they're actually going for a conventional mystery plot, and if so, there was nothing (Bill found out that John doesn't die with stabs -- I thought everybody was on board with what happened to him and Joe!). And things like the way it's treating something like "Shaun will soon be gone" really pisses me off. It feels now as if a miss-interpreted overblown line, but it was initially presented with actual directorial gravitas (to which one can only go "oh fuck I thought they killed the kid in the 2nd episode to get that out of the way already! They're not ACTUALLY treading water on THAT drama are they?").
I'm hoping these next last two episodes will be enfuriatingly excellent. It feels like treading water getting ready to drown. |
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