A good finale. I guess I did wanted a bit more of black and white in this show. The portrayals are great, the satire is good, but I think it needed just a bit less, just a bit less, of gray areas. Like, don't give any triumphant tone to a finale where all the rich people get away with everything.
Just to clarify, I think it's a great way to end, in a sour note, just make that sour note a bit more obvious (focus, soundtrack, etc), and not end with the liberating tone of the white kid going for his dream.
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@funger92 I liked the ending. The whole thing really. Felt real. The teenage boy is the only character that really showed any growth. And maybe Rachel a little too. A good example of how dicks continue to be dicks. Looking forward to another season with different guests. Felt very sorry for Belinda. Not surprised, but still sorry.
HOLY SHT! Ha that was insane! That person was on my list of possible victims but I never imagined it went down like that!
So who do we think won in this Armond vs Shane conflict? Cause yeah Armond is dead but Shane is gonna have to live with the fact that he killed him! and if this series does something is literally show us that white rich americans are good at moving on from inconvenient stuff BUT we also see Shane’s flaw is holding on to stuff and throwing a tantrum like a big baby, so he’s never getting over this, Armond is gonna hunt him down in his nightmares, so if you ask me Armond won! I hope that gives him peace in the beyond
I loved this show so much, I loved that it was subtle but captivating, and like some of the other comments mentioned it focused on the gray areas, and I love gray areas cause that’s life! I’m always complaining about shows being so focused on right vs wrong but that’s so unrealistic! Like with Tanya and Belinda, did Tanya owe Belinda to become business partners? :asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol:Nope:asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol:. Did Belinda have to be so compassionate, helpful and go out of her way to help a guest? :asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol:Nope:asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol: and she should never (unless they are in danger) cause that isn’t her job. Was Tanya in the wrong getting Belindas’s hopes up about a business? :asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol: Totally:asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol: Was Belinda kinda trying to take advantage of a clearly mentally unstable woman? :asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol:Totally!:asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol: So I loved how this show makes you have an internal debate about who or if someone’s in the wrong.
What I didn’t love of the show was that sepia filter! I hate when filters are used in shows/movies; and I feel like Jennifer’s character didn’t interact that much with the other guests, she just had the boat scene with Shane and Rachel, but she was missing a connection with the Msomething family. Also I would love for Tanya to come back in the next seasons and that’s totally realistic cause we know her relationship with Greg isn’t gonna last so she’s repeating the cycle, and she’s gonna come back but this time with his ashes. Oh and for next season I hope Lani comes back too!
I wonder what happens with Quinn, my guess is the family don’t even notice he stayed till they arrived to California? (I think that’s where they live?) so then the parents go back to get him and then they make a deal about him coming back next summer or going with them to that one trip but then coming back and finishing high school, regardless I love that he had this grow as a person and found this new love to life! I’m envious of him!
And I guess the one thing didn’t make sense was the Msomething family booking a single suite instead of booking a two bedroom suite, so the parents had a room, the girls another one and Quinn could’ve slept on the sofa bed, we know money isn’t an issue (but I guess this was on purpose for plot purposes)loading replies
@aars26 agree with everything in this post
Shout by Agnetė
Gihun really could've helped the officer, we don't even know what he wanted from Gihun and now he just looks like an apathetic asshole
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@agnetebu he did help him didn’t he? By telling him where the pickup was and he is following? I think that’s what was happening. I will know more as I keep watching…
It was just a matter of time someone would start killing the others. Of course, if it means more money.
What I find almost more interesting than the players themselves is whatever is going on with the staff and managers. We clearly have more people on the inside than just the detective. Who's the staff members bringing people to the doctor? Old players? People who didn't stay anonymous? I don't see many chances for them to be talking to each other and making big plans. Wondering greatly how they came to get together in the first place. And why. So they took an eye off of one of the players? Huh.
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@kyria-crosszeria I’m wondering if the detectives brother is a dead player or is he one of the staff… I guess I will keep watching.
What's in the damn photograph?!? :question:
Hope Siobhan gets her own spin off. Just kidding, can you imagine. :laughing: Episode 7 will finally answer the question on everyone's mind: will Siobhan go to Berkeley!! I know she is the only way Mare can deal with her grief that she has been avoiding but Siobhan's storyline feels like filler, and her scenes are bad. I start scrolling on my phone whenever her side story starts up.
Mare going out to arrest a suspect with no backup like she didn't just lose a friend and colleague last week? :rolling_eyes: I'm kinda annoyed that she hasn't learned her lesson.
That bathtub scene was unnecessary. Definitely a cheap suspense scene. I know it's to show Carrie is not ready and she will need Mare and her mom's help to raise Drew. I get it, but still it's was a little too much.
When the penultimate episode of a murder mystery ends with the protagonist saying, "X character was the killer", I feel like it's safe to say that X was not the killer. John is definitely hiding something. He knew Lori would tell Mare. He is pinning the murder on Billy. I think in the next episode John is going to kill his brother and frame it as a suicide. John has to the baby's father, and the murder weapon is Mare's fathers gun that is stashed in the attic "where no one goes anymore".
Kate Winslet and Jean Smart are an amazing team. All of their scenes, comedy or drama, are :fire:.
Is it possible that Guy Pearce is just a normal and regular dude Mare met at a bar? Hmm. There must be a reason a random stranger shows up in the plot.
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@cutecruel agree with all these points! Exactly what I am thinking. I will find out how right it all is when I put on the last episode now.
I was ok with them including the pandemic in the storyline but at this point it is like they are not sure what to do with it anymore. We get all these moments where the pandemic is emphasized and then others where it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, like Kate choosing that specific moment to confront Marc or Randall deciding to travel and find out about his mom!
Now about that whole Kate/Marc story, the show gave us glimpses here and there and really took its time teasing us about Kate’s past but never divulging all the truth, and now it seems the reveal and resolution were rushed. Kate suddenly decides to confront Marc (during a pandemic nonetheless) and after one talk with him, she is suddenly free of an abusive past that has taken years of her life. She never even spoke about it! I mean good for her but how realistic is this? In one episode, she is triggered to remember her past, tells Toby the truth, stalks Marc, confronts him, and then done, chapter closed!
I still don’t like the whole Randall’s mom story but I am kind of curious to see what will be the reason for her not looking up William or her son all these years?
Kevin calling Randall for advice really got me all teared up… BUT what is going with his storyline? The whole disagreement between him and Madison really came out of nowhere! It is not like she suddenly discovered that he is an actor, and Kevin really doesn’t travel that much! Specifically, it came right after she pushed him to accept the location change of his latest movie. Why can’t you just sit and talk and maybe come to some agreement, like she can stay with the kids in LA and Kevin can travel back and forth when needed. One line that cracked me up though was when she told him “you come from a family of great speech-givers.” :joy:
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@tago1987 if they are including current real events (pandemic, blm) then that means next season (which I’m not up to yet) must include the capitol and sept 11 in the 20 years earlier story.
Phil is becoming too annoying. makes the whole show annoying.
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@ferdioss came here to say this. Trying to keep going because I love the idea but man Phil is annoying. Almost unwatchable.
I will genuinely be surprised if the father is anyone other than Jesse.
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@callmeco my guess is it’s the guy from Australia. If the show ever gets cancelled, they just bring him back in at the last minute…
I still don’t like the wife. She’s so annoying.
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@minibutmighty I don’t like any of the characters. I don’t find this show enjoyable at all.
Shout by Janet Moses
After the 3rd episode, I quit. Just not into this show. I did try.
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@mosesmsj same. I tried my best. And just noticed there’s more after this season so no. Can’t keep going.
That is a big boy. Indeed it is. What I don't get is does he really think he'll get away with it? The unit will surely find out and arrest him and he'll never see his wife. He is not thinking clearly. I don't know is Shiv is bad. I'm confused. Anyway, it's still a good show
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@aid45 I thought it would be bigger :person_shrugging_tone1:♂
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[9.5/10] They got me. They really did. I believed that Saul would do it, that he would find a way to lie, cheat, and steal out of suffering any real consequences for all the pain and losses he is responsible for. I believed that he would trade in Kim's freedom and chance to make a clean break after baring her soul in exchange for a damn pint of ice cream. I have long clocked Better Call Saul as a tragedy, about a man who could have been good, and yet, through both circumstance and choice, lists inexorably toward becoming a terrible, arguably evil person. I thought this would be the final thud of his descent, selling out the one person on this Earth who loved him to feather his own nest.
Maybe Walt was right when he said that Jimmy was "always like this." Maybe Chuck was right that there something inherently corrupt and untrustworthy in the heart of his little brother. This post-Breaking Bad epilogue has been an object lesson in the depths to which Gene Takovic will stoop in order to feed his addiction and get what he wants. There would be no greater affirmation of the completeness of his craven selfishness and cruelty than throwing Kim under the bus to save himself.
Only, in the end, that's the feint, that's the trick, that's the con, on the feds and the audience. When Saul hears that Kim took his words to heart and turned herself in, facing the punishments that come with it, he can't sit idly by and profit from his own lies and bullshit. He doesn't want to sell her out; he wants to fall on the sword in front of her, make sure she knows that he knows what he did wrong.Despite his earlier protestations that his only regret was not making more money or avoiding knee damage, he wants to confess in a court of law that he regrets the choices that led him here and the pain he caused, and most of all he regrets that they led to losing her.
In that final act of showmanship and grace, he lives up to the advice Chuck gives him in the flashback scene here, that if he doesn't like the road that his bad choices have led him, there's no shame in taking a different path. Much as Walt did, at the end of the line, Saul admits his genuine motives, he accepts responsibility for his choices after years of blame and evasion. Most of all, he takes his name back, a conscious return to being the person that Kim once knew, in form and substance. It is late, very late, when it happens, but after so much, Jimmy uses his incredible skills to accept his consequences, rather than sidestep them, and he finds the better path that Kim always believed he could walk, one that she motivates him to tread.
It is a wonderful finale to this all-time great show. I had long believed that this series was a tragedy. It had to be, given where Jimmy started and where the audience knew Saul ended. But as it was always so good at doing, Better Call Saul surprised me, with a measured bit of earned redemption for its protagonist, and moving suggestion that with someone we care for and who cares of us, even the worst of us can become someone and something better. In its final episode, the series offered one more transformation -- from a tale of tragedy, to a story of hope.
(On a personal note, I just want to say thank you to everyone who read and commented on my reviews here over the years. There is truly no show that's been as rewarding for me to write about than Better Call Saul, and so much of that owes to the community of people who offered me the time and consideration to share my thoughts, offered their kind words, and helped me look at the series in new ways with their thoughtful comments. I don't know what the future holds, but I am so grateful to have been so fortunate as to share this time and these words with you.)
EDIT: One last time, here is my usual, extended review of the finale in case anyone's interested --
https://thespool.net/reviews/better-call-saul-series-finale-recap-saul-gone/loading replies
@andrewbloom not sure if this thought crossed your mind but I had a thought… could Saul mentioning that prison and how he hates it and doesn’t want to end up there all be part of another elaborate trick in which he knows something about this place that will allow him to easily escape and disappear? After Kim’s visit I had the thought that she has given him something they had previously figured out that he can use to get out of there… wouldn’t surprise me… I guess you can interpret this ending a couple of different ways…
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[9.5/10] They got me. They really did. I believed that Saul would do it, that he would find a way to lie, cheat, and steal out of suffering any real consequences for all the pain and losses he is responsible for. I believed that he would trade in Kim's freedom and chance to make a clean break after baring her soul in exchange for a damn pint of ice cream. I have long clocked Better Call Saul as a tragedy, about a man who could have been good, and yet, through both circumstance and choice, lists inexorably toward becoming a terrible, arguably evil person. I thought this would be the final thud of his descent, selling out the one person on this Earth who loved him to feather his own nest.
Maybe Walt was right when he said that Jimmy was "always like this." Maybe Chuck was right that there something inherently corrupt and untrustworthy in the heart of his little brother. This post-Breaking Bad epilogue has been an object lesson in the depths to which Gene Takovic will stoop in order to feed his addiction and get what he wants. There would be no greater affirmation of the completeness of his craven selfishness and cruelty than throwing Kim under the bus to save himself.
Only, in the end, that's the feint, that's the trick, that's the con, on the feds and the audience. When Saul hears that Kim took his words to heart and turned herself in, facing the punishments that come with it, he can't sit idly by and profit from his own lies and bullshit. He doesn't want to sell her out; he wants to fall on the sword in front of her, make sure she knows that he knows what he did wrong.Despite his earlier protestations that his only regret was not making more money or avoiding knee damage, he wants to confess in a court of law that he regrets the choices that led him here and the pain he caused, and most of all he regrets that they led to losing her.
In that final act of showmanship and grace, he lives up to the advice Chuck gives him in the flashback scene here, that if he doesn't like the road that his bad choices have led him, there's no shame in taking a different path. Much as Walt did, at the end of the line, Saul admits his genuine motives, he accepts responsibility for his choices after years of blame and evasion. Most of all, he takes his name back, a conscious return to being the person that Kim once knew, in form and substance. It is late, very late, when it happens, but after so much, Jimmy uses his incredible skills to accept his consequences, rather than sidestep them, and he finds the better path that Kim always believed he could walk, one that she motivates him to tread.
It is a wonderful finale to this all-time great show. I had long believed that this series was a tragedy. It had to be, given where Jimmy started and where the audience knew Saul ended. But as it was always so good at doing, Better Call Saul surprised me, with a measured bit of earned redemption for its protagonist, and moving suggestion that with someone we care for and who cares of us, even the worst of us can become someone and something better. In its final episode, the series offered one more transformation -- from a tale of tragedy, to a story of hope.
(On a personal note, I just want to say thank you to everyone who read and commented on my reviews here over the years. There is truly no show that's been as rewarding for me to write about than Better Call Saul, and so much of that owes to the community of people who offered me the time and consideration to share my thoughts, offered their kind words, and helped me look at the series in new ways with their thoughtful comments. I don't know what the future holds, but I am so grateful to have been so fortunate as to share this time and these words with you.)
EDIT: One last time, here is my usual, extended review of the finale in case anyone's interested --
https://thespool.net/reviews/better-call-saul-series-finale-recap-saul-gone/loading replies
@andrewbloom it’s good that it can be interpreted different ways. For me the flashbacks show he is incapable of change and the colour in the cigarette shows that there is still a spark from his past is not yet extinguished…
Jesus... what happened to this show ??
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@eleon holt didn’t seem as holt-like this episode. A bit over the top.
I love the way Amy finds out the gender haha best bit of the episode. (But as many other comments said: gender reveal things are dumb).
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@waltandmartha closely followed by the second best bit of the episode: the blindfolded “cleaning” of the kitchen hahaha :joy:
I don’t even know why I went through the whole season without liking a single episode. I guess after my Brooklyn 99 binge I was just excited to see Melissa Fumero in something but this show just isn’t good. The characters are bland, the writing is way too reference-ridden, the plots are formulaic and worst of all, the jokes don’t land 99 out of a 100 times.
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@tadici 100% agree. This is the exact same reason I watched, I just finished 8 seasons of B99 but this was just such a let down. I feel like it started showing promise mid-season but then went bad again.
Tremendous episode, both among the show's funniest ever -- the kids together are pure gold, but the humor is firing on all storylines, really ("He's still just kinda walking around, but with a slight sense that he might kill someone. It's like Jaws if everyone in Jaws worked for Jaws." lmao) -- and also just so complicatedly, emotionally bruised, as in that whole karaoke room scene.
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@pongpeng “like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus was a hit man”
Definitely not what I expected, but it was still interesting.
But wouldn't time have kept resetting in a loop since Nixon got elected, so travers goes back to win, but then he drops existing so Nixon wins, but then Nixon indirectly causes the robot uprising, etc.
Ah well, it probably doesn't matter.
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@caleb-p-a46bc3b5-e62b-451e-be32-7a7dbd4058b1 yes I was thinking this. It hurt my brain.
The regular characters are so boring so I loved the evil doctor :joy:
It amazes me that 10-15 years into the apocalypse they still have medicine & medical supplies :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
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@tasa24 and electricity. And pretty sure petrol would be stale by now.
