DavidSeven
06-22-2015, 06:20 PM
Finished.
I definitely felt they got back to some of the light-heartedness that made Season 1 so good. It was also a huge relief to see them divert from the "Big Bad" structure that they handled so poorly in Season 2. Here, the first 10 or so episodes are really excellent in dealing with compelling minutae. It also felt like there was less message-y pontificating throughout ...at least early on.
Unfortunately, the last few episodes just didn't land well at all for me. The Sophia storyline was a little too on-the-nose and soapy. I really enjoyed Piper's arc early on, but by the end, they were basically writing a bush league version of Breaking Bad. The Norma stuff just became completely absurd. The storylines involving the Doughnut Guard and Alex Voss seem like ones that should have been resolved within a season, so it was a little annoying that both got left on cliffhangers. Also, those cliffhangers came about 15-20 minutes too early ... so, we could get 10 minutes of narratively insignificant lake swimming? Odd choice.
Anyway, still a significant improvement over the previous season. I laughed and felt things. I think having less of Bennett and Larry worked in the show's favor this year. Need more Cal/Piper interaction.
I definitely felt they got back to some of the light-heartedness that made Season 1 so good. It was also a huge relief to see them divert from the "Big Bad" structure that they handled so poorly in Season 2. Here, the first 10 or so episodes are really excellent in dealing with compelling minutae. It also felt like there was less message-y pontificating throughout ...at least early on.
Unfortunately, the last few episodes just didn't land well at all for me. The Sophia storyline was a little too on-the-nose and soapy. I really enjoyed Piper's arc early on, but by the end, they were basically writing a bush league version of Breaking Bad. The Norma stuff just became completely absurd. The storylines involving the Doughnut Guard and Alex Voss seem like ones that should have been resolved within a season, so it was a little annoying that both got left on cliffhangers. Also, those cliffhangers came about 15-20 minutes too early ... so, we could get 10 minutes of narratively insignificant lake swimming? Odd choice.
Anyway, still a significant improvement over the previous season. I laughed and felt things. I think having less of Bennett and Larry worked in the show's favor this year. Need more Cal/Piper interaction.