Three episodes worth of story spread over a six-episode season

But the real problem is that they didn't really capture either the character of Spade or of The Maltese Falcon. I didn't buy the whole "Mahdi" storyline nonsense and then to put in a deus ex machina ending - what was someone thinking? This had all the ingredients to be something great, but the ball was fumbled, multiple times.

Could have done without the last episode being so dark I could barely see what was going on as well.

And what was with Clive Owen's coughing. One episode he starts coughing all the time, even when not smoking. Then the next episode he doesn't cough at all. Then it comes back again. I don't think that's the way these things work.

This thing is really exploiting Sam Spade and by extension, Dashiell Hammett, rather than providing an homage. It was interesting to hear part of the Flitcraft story being recounted though.