The Path (TV Series) Mercy (2017) User Reviews

Mercy

[bobcobb301 · 6/10 · 30 April 2017]

This episode was a bit of a break from the norm: Eddie and Sarah getting along, Cal being humble, but these deviations from what we've seen all season felt out of the blue and it felt like we were being betrayed for buying into the stories this year.

The ending finally set the stage for the Cal and Eddie battle we were hoping for, we just have to wait a year to get it.

I don't know, overall I wasn't very impressed with the finale.

Season Two

[zkonedog · 3/10 · 4 July 2019]

After the first season of "The Path", I had both hopes and fears for the show. The "hope" part centered on the incredible cast and acting performances. The "fear" portion? Even in the solid first season, the show was carried by that acting. Plot-wise, it had a tendency to meander. Unfortunately, the fears outpaced the hopes in this Second Season, as the show merely treads water without any direction.

I think the biggest problem with "The Path" at this point is that the best parts of the show were always carried by the tension between Cal (Hugh Dancy), Eddie (Aaron Paul), and Sarah (Michelle Monaghan). However, all the really good material was burned up from that triangle in Season 1. So, what is the path (pardon the pun) for the show to continue the greatness?

Well, the "path" should be to double down on story/writing, but instead the show chooses to stick with the same formula, but just less of it. The Eddie/Sarah/Cal scenes are still great...but they are few and far between. The bigger problem is that the other material isn't pulling its weight. Hawk (Kyle Allen) had a very interesting plot line in S1, but here in S2 he almost turns into a pathetic character (one that is easy to hate instead of anything complex). Also, there is an added focus on Abe (Rockmond Dunbar), which has always been the worst part of the show (too police-procedural-ish for my tastes). They even try to give Abe a backstory to make us care, but it feels incredibly forced. Also, all the other ancillary characters in the Compound just aren't interesting enough to hold viewer interest.

So, despite my love for the first season of this show, I didn't even make it all the way through this second effort. After 6-7 episodes, the plots hadn't gone anywhere, the characters seemed to be stuck in loops, and it became a chore to watch. Unless a major re-structure happens, I think this will be the end of "The Path". They had some good stories to tell and parallels to make with organized religion, but once all that good material was used up in S1, nothing has worked since.