Just finished this. Hmm. (spoilers)

I’m definitely onboard the Refn train. He’s the only director outside of Lynch that takes you into the haunting strangeness of the night. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it’s a place I like to be.

I loved the first episode, a typical neon nightmare with 5 second pregnant pauses between lines of dialogue, peppered with the occasional sudden burst of extreme violence.

The second episode was a real slog but I eventually got onboard the Mexican storyline.

Then it was up and down with some fantastic episodes and some patience-testers, but the quality never dipped, every frame was a painting, and the music always seductive and enveloping.

The chess pieces were set up and it looked like an almighty battle was coming, or at least a squaring off between the twisted characters we’d come to know and curiously empathise with. But it just didn’t go anywhere.

It’s as if Refn was inspired to create certain characters and their worlds, but didn’t know what to do with them. In an interview he confessed to largely making it up as he went along according to what ‘inspired’ him - well that doesn’t make for a satisfying narrative.

I also caught some ‘gurl power’ and tedious anti-Trump messaging toward the end, which doesn’t indicate a thoughtful or free mind. His method of making us sympathise with a mass murdering avenging angel was to drape their enemies in a literal Nazi flag. Because there are Nazis everywhere? One suspects Refn has been reading The Guardian or injecting CNN 🤦🏻‍♂️

I’ve since learned that he co-wrote the very weak final two episodes with some woman. It smells like he ran out of ideas, money or time but had to deliver 10 episodes, so he killed off most of the male cast then cobbled something together with a feminist - so of course women are victims, men are evil, some are Nazis, badass feminist heroine kills the Nazis, the women inherit the earth, gurl power, yadda yadda yadda.

I’d still recommend the show, but I think Refn needs to structure things better, rather than setting up characters then suddenly killing them off when it’s time to wrap up the show.