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Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
I will wrestle and destroy anyone who wasn't satisfied by that finale. God drat, it was good.

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blue squares
Sep 28, 2007

what a boring waste of time that entire season was. what a let down for such a fantastic show to go out with a wet fart. the writers and directors got completely up their own rear end

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
lmao how was it any different from the previous 3 seasons? you sure you weren't watching elementary or something by accident before this season?

blue squares
Sep 28, 2007

It just had almost no surprises. Everything that the first episode set up came to pass in the most unexpected expected way possible. Also, the emotional stakes for the characters just felt a lot weaker.

blue squares fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Dec 15, 2016

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I felt this season has been less about everyone's emotional stakes and more about moving on. The show is "moving on," so to speak, and so are the characters. Janet and Jared, Ted Sr, Teddy and Tawnie, and most importantly, Daniel. poo poo even manic pixie dream girl is moving on. I'd say that's less true of Amantha but still true to a degree at least. Also, I'd have been disappointed if there wasn't some kind of closure to the case past Daniel admitting under duress, again, that he committed the rape and murder; we have Hanna's brother realizing that maybe Daniel wasn't guilty, and trying to atone for that despite knowing Daniel's family won't be forgiving.

I think the show has accomplished that in spades this season. I haven't watched the final episode yet, but I'm looking forward to watching it. I can't say that I haven't gotten out of this final season what I expected to get out of it, and it hasn't let me down thus far.

life is killing me fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Dec 15, 2016

blue squares
Sep 28, 2007

I just think an entire season dedicated to moving on, for a show that is only four seasons long, is way too much. Everything that happened this season could have happened in 2-3 episodes.

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
I honestly think this has been the exact same pace as the first three seasons in every way. It hasn't changed a bit. I really don't understand what you're seeing in those seasons you didn't see in this one.

blue squares
Sep 28, 2007

Maybe its me. I have never rewatched any of the episodes, so maybe my memory is wrong. I know that season 1 and 2 I thouht it was one of the best things I'd ever seen but I hardly cared about this season.

Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.
The entire purpose of the show was to tell in long form an experience that would have been completely glossed over in the movie of how the plucky attorney got him freed from jail and now everything is happy forever. Literally the entire journey is about everyone moving on from the experience of his incarceration and freedom. Every single bit of it. And in the end, there isn't an ending. Not really. There is people just starting to move past the enormity of him being out, but it's basically going to define their lives forever. Daniel's happy ending, the miracle he got, was in not being primed to kill himself. Of perhaps vaguely being able to function in society. Because the odds were wildly against him there. He's probably never going to be a super happy guy, he's probably never really going to fit in all that great. There's just about an outside chance he finds a way to manage though. As he says, cautiously optimistic. And it's really not a place you can get to while doing justice to the characters in 2 to 3 episodes. Or a season. You needed an entire show to do it.

If you were expecting something wildly different from this season, I don't know how you managed to watch the other three.

Teriyaki Hairpiece
Dec 29, 2006

I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.
With mindless action movies, plot happens, but it's incidental to the violence and explosions and such. Rectify is on the opposite end of the same spectrum. What I'm saying is it sounds like you were looking for a plot-driven murder mystery and that just isn't this show.

blue squares
Sep 28, 2007

I never gave a poo poo about who actually killed Hanna so honestly I don't know why I didn't like this season. But I didn't.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
I liked this season and the finale but I do see where blue squares is coming from. I really do feel like it's the weakest season of the 4, and the fact that McKinnon had planned for 5 seasons really showed here.

Like, it's not about "who really killed Hanna", but I definitely wanted to see more of how Trey and Paulie deal with this new information. Hell, do a season 5 that doesn't even have Daniel in it!

I also really hated the ending scene, that whole character was a mistake and if they wanted to do a romance subplot for this season they already had Tawney on deck, and if it had been her and Daniel in the field at the end it would have probably made me cry buckets.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

blue squares posted:

It just had almost no surprises. Everything that the first episode set up came to pass in the most unexpected expected way possible. Also, the emotional stakes for the characters just felt a lot weaker.

Like, this is a legit good criticism of the season.

blue squares
Sep 28, 2007

precision posted:

they already had Tawney on deck, and if it had been her and Daniel in the field at the end it would have probably made me cry buckets.

Yeah this would have made the season great for me. I really liked them together (and not in a shipper way, I just thought it made compelling drama)

A CRUNK BIRD
Sep 29, 2004
I thought it was cute how the open ends of the title filled in in the opening credits of the finale. Well, catch ya later.

savinhill
Mar 28, 2010
This season had some great moments amongst a lot of stuff I just did not care about. It also has nothing to do with the murder/mystery line of argument people are putting forth. There just wasn't hardly any dramatic tension for me to care about this season and then when there was something I thought was interesting, it would quickly be dropped in favor of more low stakes and unentertaining navelgazing. The other seasons had me heavily invested in almost every scene, this one I was just mostly apathetic towards. Overall, I think the only major plot that I truly enjoyed and cared about this season was Teddie's journey towards being a fully awesome dude.

savinhill fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Dec 16, 2016

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
But....again, navelgazing is this show's entire thing.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Escobarbarian posted:

But....again, navelgazing is this show's entire thing.

Season 1: Daniel gets the poo poo beat out of him, falls in love with his brother's wife, performs the best scene in all television when describing a prison rape. A man kills himself for mysterious reasons. Daniel goes on a goat-stealing trip with ?Satan?

Season 4: Literally nothing happens.

Like, it almost feels like you're being obtuse or getting some sunk cost fallacy here. This season was undeniably good, but when compared to seasons 1-3? It was a real letdown. I might even be tempted to think that it got canceled before the "final fifth season" because the scripts were going downhill.

And to argue the other side a bit, you know, it's totally possible that season 4 went this way on purpose, but I think Ray McKinnon just couldn't stick the landing and went with things that are purposefully vague and overly wistful, rendering the most basic arguments against this show more valid.

Seasons 1-3 I watched every episode in rapt attention. This season, there were MANY scenes where I would check my phone or tab out and check SA because I just wasn't that involved.

Considering I'm the person who's been saying since literally day one that this is the best TV Show of All Time, you gotta admit there might be something to the fact that people felt let down.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
Also the quality of the navelgazing is what's in dispute here. Daniel/Kerwin scenes in season 1 were soul destroying and fascinating. Daniel having ambiguously mumblecore romance with Definitely Not Uma Thurman... not so interesting!

Ted Jr. and Amantha really owned this season though. And Bobby Dean, in his small role, was quite good. His mom too.

Escobarbarian
Jun 18, 2004


Grimey Drawer
nah it was good

MrBuddyLee
Aug 24, 2004
IN DEBUT, I SPEW!!!

Ubiquitous_ posted:

Gonna miss this show a lot.
When the final episode ended, we decided that we were gonna miss this family a whole lot. You don't feel that way all that often with TV shows.

Despite the season being predictable and slow-moving, there are moments that will endure. Janet washing Ted's back, Amantha watching the sunrise in a satellite dish, Daniel realizing he had the capacity to aspire to good things, and pretty much everything Teddy, from chillin with the inflate-o-guy to the moment he selflessly gave Tawney what she needed.

And Kerwin and Daniel cruising NYC in an El Dorado. Just beautiful.

MrBuddyLee fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Dec 17, 2016

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames

Escobarbarian posted:

nah it was good

Ahem:

precision posted:

This season was undeniably good

Ubiquitous_
Nov 20, 2013

by Reene
I think there's a lot of hyperbole in saying this season was bad, or weak. There was a lot of great scenes, and the overall ending is cathartic, if open-ended. The real tragedy is that there will likely never be another show like this again -- something as slow-burning and requiring so much attention and investment doesn't get four seasons outside of a channel like Sundance.

Tawney and Daniel's last conversation broke me. It invoked their incredible moments in prior seasons very well.

wide stance
Jan 28, 2011

If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then he will do it that way.
I can't believe how bad season 4 was. It went from the best show on TV to a sappy after school special.

Nothing interesting happened. No character development. The new characters were awful, unplausible hollywood inventions. There was even a scene where everyone happened to be watching the local tv channel when the breaking announcement occurred :lol:

The fact that I sat thru 8 episodes of complete trash shows how good seasons 1-3.

I've never seen writing quality nosedive so severely.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
I dunno, nothing in season 4 was as bad as the filler in season 2, though season 2 ended up being awesome once it got past the filler.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
Also, I feel like this is a solid recommendation: if you dig on this show, you may dig on musician Will Oldham, aka Palace/Palace Music/Palace Brothers/Bonnie "Prince" Billy. "The Letting Go" is the title of one of his albums.

Check it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYVTkUTHENg

whos that broooown
Dec 10, 2009

2024 Comeback Poster of the Year

precision posted:

Also, I feel like this is a solid recommendation: if you dig on this show, you may dig on musician Will Oldham, aka Palace/Palace Music/Palace Brothers/Bonnie "Prince" Billy. "The Letting Go" is the title of one of his albums.

Check it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYVTkUTHENg


"I See a Darkness" is a classic.

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

wide stance posted:

I can't believe how bad season 4 was. It went from the best show on TV to a sappy after school special.

Nothing interesting happened. No character development. The new characters were awful, unplausible hollywood inventions. There was even a scene where everyone happened to be watching the local tv channel when the breaking announcement occurred :lol:

The fact that I sat thru 8 episodes of complete trash shows how good seasons 1-3.

I've never seen writing quality nosedive so severely.

Ubiquitous_ posted:

I think there's a lot of hyperbole in saying this season was bad, or weak.

MOVIE MAJICK
Jan 4, 2012

by Pragmatica

kittenmittons posted:

"I See a Darkness" is a classic.

Like this show, i can only listen to that song if I'm fully prepared for a cry.

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Miss Lonelyhearts
Mar 22, 2003


Oh lovely, just now seeing the new season is out. Thanks for this

Miss Lonelyhearts fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Feb 10, 2017

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