I gather that one commonality of the show with the graphic novels (which I haven’t read) is the “God is an arsehole” theme.
Guilt. Not only over the people he’s killed over the decades, but over the incident that occurred just before he was turned into a vampire,
in which his friend was slaughtered by the English while Cassidy hid and looked on.
It’s a beautiful show to watch. The story is extremely comic-booky but that’s not always bad.
I’m disappointed that this season spent so much time with the three of them apart. What I liked most was when they were talking and sniping with each other, so what did they do this season? Split them up the whole friggin’ time! Dammit! THE. WHOLE. FRIGGIN’. SEASON!
Probably my favorite times were when they were in the car, with Cassidy BS’ing about baby’s foreskins being used in face cream, etc.
Last couple of episodes have been enjoyable, though. Still look forward to every new episode. Can’t believe, with the bags and bags of Cassidy foreskins they carved off, they never made a face cream from them. Seems like a missed opportunity for a callback.
Oh and not to be critical or anything but I didn’t like that Satan was a character from another tv show (Your pretty face). That kind of broke the story a bit.
Herr Starr gets around quite quickly too. And that’s not even getting into the whole “climbing through the planet” thing.
Because - and this is a running theme - God (in the show) is a total dick. Petty, vindictive, irrational, unjust - God’s whole shtick is that he wants everyone to love Him unconditionally no matter how much Hell (literally) He puts them through. He talks about free will but ignores it when it suits His fleeting purpose.
In the book, God “arranged” for Genesis’ conception in the hope of getting something big and powerful to love Him in that way - and then runs away because He’s scared of it. I suspect that’s going to feature prominently in the final episodes.
They did a whole scene on that very thing, complete with fake beauty product commercial. I mean, I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine the scene in Bensonhurst with the saw.
You didn’t; in fact, it’s shown every week in the opening credits (behind Joseph Gilgun’s name).
Crap. I remember the auto-circumcision setup they had, but not anything about the fake commercial. I’ve been falling asleep a lot lately, and I wouldn’t have seen it in the credits because I never watch the credits. Thanks, I’ll go back and see if I can find the scene again.
This season, IMHO, has been very un-even to say the least - I get the story they are telling, or trying to tell - but it simply isn’t as fun as season 1 was. We are watching because we want to see how it plays out and since “this is it” - but if it were’nt for it being the final season, I can’t honestly say we would not have dumped it about 2 episodes in this season.
I liked Season 4…except for the last episode that I thought was kind of talky and preachy (I guess it’s in the name of the show) and choppy.
Yeah, final episode wasn’t what you would call “good.”
Well I enjoyed it. Yes, there was a lot of talking required to power through all the loose ends left to be resolved but for the most part I thought it was as concise as they could make it. I’m not sure about the fight between Hitler and Jesus, amusing though it was (and allowed Jesus to avenge the Jews in a weird way) and the “gunfight” in Heaven at the end seemed superfluous, but Jesse got to best God even without his powers, Tulip remained badass to the end and Cassidy got really the best ending he could get under the circumstances. Plus the world didn’t end, which is nice.
I also think it was Mark Harelik’s best episode. That scene in the trailer with the new creations was pure gold.
A major problem for providing a satisfying ending in a story in which characters-who-die-go-on-living-essentially-unchanged in an afterlife, is: how do you get to any sort of poignancy or finality or sense of closure?
Still, it was a valiant effort to tie up loose ends. I won’t hate on it. I just think they failed to solve the ‘afterlife exists and you go on living, pretty much the same as before’ aspect of the fantasy world-building of this particular franchise.
It’s what happened in the comics.
I don’t remember God shooting back in the comics - I thought it was a one-way transaction after a bit of blustering - but I’ll have to go recheck.
Speaking of afterlives, I did wonder what happened to Hitler. I mean, he was already dead before he got strangled - did he, like the demons, pop back into existence somewhere or end up in Hell again or is he dead-dead?