Don't get me wrong, I like the show. I kinda love it, in fact, despite its flaws. But this is precisely the kind of an episode that, I am positive, led to its cancellation. Yes, it is badly written, and no, it doesn't deserve the rating of 9/10 that it has right now. Honestly, I am not sure it is even worth of the 6/10 I am giving it.
Let me try to explain. There will be spoilers.
OK, now I know what African-Americans feel when they see blackface comedy. Now I can understand. Born and raised in Eastern Europe, I was somewhat appalled by the way Eastern Europeans were shown in this episode. Every single negative stereotype you can think of is here. With few exceptions, Eastern Europeans are presented as vindictive, malevolent, sexist, stupid pigs. Yes, even the "good guys" among them. It seems to me that the writers went for a fictional country to avoid offending someone, but that just doesn't cut it. Eastern Europeans are just not like that. At least the ones that I know. And, by the way, yaks are not Eastern European animals. They live in the Himalaya mountain.
The other and more important problem is with the plot holes. There are too many of them. The basic idea is actually very nice, but then we are presented with the King of Urkesh - he is shown to be a nice, likable old man... and then we are told that he is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. We are told that he has ordered that thousands of people be tortured or killed. We are told that, in short, he is worse than Stalin. It seems that the writers couldn't decide if he was a good man or an incarnation of Satan himself, so they went with both. Then there is the crime itself, which is not just unrealistic, it is downright impossible to commit. You can't just buy some polonium-210, and if you manage to do that, then you are definitely not dumb enough to leave your fingerprints all over the crime scene - which is exactly what the culprit had done with his second attempted murder. And there are other plot holes as well, but I will not waste your time with them.
That being said, there are enough good moments to justify watching this episode. The acting is as good as ever, and it is visually pleasing. I don't regret watching it.
Let me try to explain. There will be spoilers.
OK, now I know what African-Americans feel when they see blackface comedy. Now I can understand. Born and raised in Eastern Europe, I was somewhat appalled by the way Eastern Europeans were shown in this episode. Every single negative stereotype you can think of is here. With few exceptions, Eastern Europeans are presented as vindictive, malevolent, sexist, stupid pigs. Yes, even the "good guys" among them. It seems to me that the writers went for a fictional country to avoid offending someone, but that just doesn't cut it. Eastern Europeans are just not like that. At least the ones that I know. And, by the way, yaks are not Eastern European animals. They live in the Himalaya mountain.
The other and more important problem is with the plot holes. There are too many of them. The basic idea is actually very nice, but then we are presented with the King of Urkesh - he is shown to be a nice, likable old man... and then we are told that he is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. We are told that he has ordered that thousands of people be tortured or killed. We are told that, in short, he is worse than Stalin. It seems that the writers couldn't decide if he was a good man or an incarnation of Satan himself, so they went with both. Then there is the crime itself, which is not just unrealistic, it is downright impossible to commit. You can't just buy some polonium-210, and if you manage to do that, then you are definitely not dumb enough to leave your fingerprints all over the crime scene - which is exactly what the culprit had done with his second attempted murder. And there are other plot holes as well, but I will not waste your time with them.
That being said, there are enough good moments to justify watching this episode. The acting is as good as ever, and it is visually pleasing. I don't regret watching it.