DISCLAIMER: The first section are my spoilery thoughts of the episode. The second section is about the season as a whole
After getting my hopes up by the great 9th episode, this conclusion felt like a letdown. Smiths arc in this episode is very disappointing. Basically everything is confirmed to be orchestrated by the OberSTGruppenFührer (I forgot his name already lol, Hayndrich or whatever), and this takes all the charm off of this nearly season-long arc. I mean the Resistance at this point feels like a complete and utter joke, they cannot raise but 10000 yen, but a random dude with a random sell to some rich dudes pulls in 80000 yen? What the hell?! The best they got are the two leaders from SF and Canon City for an operation of this magnitude, whereas at the beginning of the season there were a lot links in the chain, the attack on Smith was carried out by a bunch of men, not to mention the first scenes with Joe, a whole workplace was on with resistance... Juliana in this episode was really annoying. Going from OMG Joe is a Nazi who will kill us, we MUST escape to putting Joe on the ship they were supposed to leave with?! There simply was not enough development of their relationship in the season, hell, they characters were not shown and expanded in a satisfying way. Frank is the most well written of the protagonist trio, and I am very surprised by this statement, given the first half of the season this really surprises me. Also the arc of Kido was really stupidly ended. He was ready to stab himself, when his apprentice walks in with the proof? What?! Shouldn´t he announce that he has failed, and then commit sepuku? If he had already announced his failure, he should carry out the act... That scene was very forced. And for last but not least: the shameless cliffhanger ending scene with Tagomi makes zero sense, was not foreshadowed in any compelling way, it really is just a shocker, you can almost hear the creators saying: interested what is happening? Come back next year! Well, I will, but I am disappointed. If the second season will not improve considerably, I will not follow through with all four seasons.
This was a rather mediocre season. The premis of the series is quite interesting, and luckily the first few episodes do not do a lot of exposition dump, the infos are rather well fed to us, mostly show dont tell (particularly true with Pacific States scenes). After the more plot- and mystery heavy first 4 episodes the pace is somewhat slowed down (which I don´t mind personally, I loved to explore the life in the New America), and by the end of the season speeded back up. Yes, the pacing is weird, but the charm of the Pacific States is undeniable. The cherecters are a bigger problem. Juliana and Joe are both very hollow, Frank gets better as we go along, Tagomi, Smith, Kido are exceptionally good. I hope thet the writing of the characters improves, because either the plot or the characters will need to carry the worldbuilding (which is the main highlight of season one, but will cannot be done solely for the sake of worldbuilding). So overall: lot of potential, execution needs improvement.
After getting my hopes up by the great 9th episode, this conclusion felt like a letdown. Smiths arc in this episode is very disappointing. Basically everything is confirmed to be orchestrated by the OberSTGruppenFührer (I forgot his name already lol, Hayndrich or whatever), and this takes all the charm off of this nearly season-long arc. I mean the Resistance at this point feels like a complete and utter joke, they cannot raise but 10000 yen, but a random dude with a random sell to some rich dudes pulls in 80000 yen? What the hell?! The best they got are the two leaders from SF and Canon City for an operation of this magnitude, whereas at the beginning of the season there were a lot links in the chain, the attack on Smith was carried out by a bunch of men, not to mention the first scenes with Joe, a whole workplace was on with resistance... Juliana in this episode was really annoying. Going from OMG Joe is a Nazi who will kill us, we MUST escape to putting Joe on the ship they were supposed to leave with?! There simply was not enough development of their relationship in the season, hell, they characters were not shown and expanded in a satisfying way. Frank is the most well written of the protagonist trio, and I am very surprised by this statement, given the first half of the season this really surprises me. Also the arc of Kido was really stupidly ended. He was ready to stab himself, when his apprentice walks in with the proof? What?! Shouldn´t he announce that he has failed, and then commit sepuku? If he had already announced his failure, he should carry out the act... That scene was very forced. And for last but not least: the shameless cliffhanger ending scene with Tagomi makes zero sense, was not foreshadowed in any compelling way, it really is just a shocker, you can almost hear the creators saying: interested what is happening? Come back next year! Well, I will, but I am disappointed. If the second season will not improve considerably, I will not follow through with all four seasons.
This was a rather mediocre season. The premis of the series is quite interesting, and luckily the first few episodes do not do a lot of exposition dump, the infos are rather well fed to us, mostly show dont tell (particularly true with Pacific States scenes). After the more plot- and mystery heavy first 4 episodes the pace is somewhat slowed down (which I don´t mind personally, I loved to explore the life in the New America), and by the end of the season speeded back up. Yes, the pacing is weird, but the charm of the Pacific States is undeniable. The cherecters are a bigger problem. Juliana and Joe are both very hollow, Frank gets better as we go along, Tagomi, Smith, Kido are exceptionally good. I hope thet the writing of the characters improves, because either the plot or the characters will need to carry the worldbuilding (which is the main highlight of season one, but will cannot be done solely for the sake of worldbuilding). So overall: lot of potential, execution needs improvement.