the last six episodes

All right, so this will be a grab-bag post, and advance warning, maybe long-winded.

Not much of a narcissist, but in case anyone’s wondering, in advance, full schedule lately, got behind on my stories, and last night I just finally watched the final six episodes. Not hard to make different posts for each episode, but I didn’t want to inundate the wall, and binge-ing like that can make events bleed into each other in the mind, not easy to always recall which event in which episode. Just wanted to clear that up so people wouldn’t wonder/ask why the post so long and about those episodes. And didn’t want to leave it at the end for those who don’t make it that far ;)

Anyway:

4x05

Eph and Alex wandering in the town reminds a bit of the early Season 7 of True Blood, finding abandoned towns and so on. Of course it was done better here.

The North Dakota storyline is getting tired to me, and I’m tired of everyone being separated. And Rhona Mitra feels too obvious, like “Well we couldn’t get Kate Beckinsale but”

Don’t care about the mongrels, meh.

The unnamed North Dakota characters are all obvious redshirts.

The Quinlan flashbacks bored me and I could never find a real reason for them. Feels like another True Blood rip-off, reminding me of Pam’s flashbacks. Not sure which show did it worse. I think True Blood did that slightly better. Sorry I know they’re different shows, but I note parallels where I see them.

Dutch’s dinner with Eichhorst was creepy. If they both survive, which I doubt, I can see him chasing her a long time like he has with Setrakian. And, parallel time, reminds me of when Ben forced Kate to eat with him in the LOST Season 3 premiere. Creepy as all heck. Poor Dutch though, thought she was playing a trump card and got trumped instead. Her rescue of him was great though.

Francis was an idiot and should’ve offered her life. Like what are you going to just run around by yourself a bit and enjoy the experience of turning, that your big plan for the rest of your life?

Ending was creepy. Now the concentration camp flashbacks come full circle.

4x06

Eichhorst got to South Dakota or wherever quick. So now they’re ripping off Season 7 of Game of Thrones with unrealistically fast-tracked travel? Okay. Cool intro though.

More boring Quinlan flashbacks, yay… To be clear, I like the character, and I like flashbacks well enough, but they should’ve flashed back to something of more interest.

And Zach, great… Okay, so in retrospect, I can understand the recast with more hindsight now. Zach 1 wasn’t as annoying, but he seemed a bit more docile, and for the character’s later arc, they needed more anger. So when recasting, they focused on that. Zach 2 is heavy on anger, that’s why he got cast. He knows that’s what he’s good at and what they want, so he overdid it at first, and we’re getting a bit of pay-off now, at least in the sense that the character now feels more suited to the anger he’s supposed to feel. Still an annoying as hell character though. And sorry kiddo, realize that being nice/charming/generous doesn’t mean a girl “owes” you a relationship, oh my. Poor dear Abby.

The airport escape felt a bit silly. It would’ve been slower-paced, but I think the story would’ve been better had they not had that, could’ve gotten into NYC a bit more covertly.

4x07

Um, just wow, what an episode. Finally everyone’s back together, no Zach, Eph and Gus meet (had kinda slipped my mind that hadn’t yet happened). Setrakian tearing apart the Lumen, why not, after this is over its will have no real use in any fashion.

Okay I think it’s pretty clear Dutch will survive. Side note, minor book spoilers (these will happen more), I feel like Dutch is a broad stroke replacement for Nora. Yeah they coexisted a while and Dutch is for sure her own character, but just in the bigger picture. No main women are still left alive, she’s pretty blonde and bi, of course they’ll let her live. Anyway, to that, of course they’ll pair her off with someone. Romance is part of our nature and experience, but grr, I don’t want them devoting a bunch of time to a supposed triangle between she and Eph and Fet. Just irritating when shows that are more about “who dies next” try to make you care more about “who ends up together.” Just my opinion.

Poor Alex. Never expected her to survive the whole thing, but she was a decent character.

Setrakian v Eichhorst: Final Round

Okay so there’s a typical trope of the old hero dying and their proteges finishing their work. So this was a long time coming. And his book counterpart dies at the end of the first book. So TV Setrakian made it a lot further. This worked well for me. Aside from David Bradley being a great actor, I felt like he died a bit too soon in the book, and so was happy to see them diverge in this manner. Honestly was just pleasantly surprised they let Eichhorst die then as well. At least Setrakian got that.