Yeah, I kind of agree with the thoughts in the last two posts. It was a
good finale, but not great. I enjoyed it just fine, but wasn't blown away. And that's fine.
I thought Sam's speech was...just okay as well. At first, I felt like the social justice stuff was a bit too hamfisted. But by the end, I actually thought it worked, and there were a lot of important things said. Yeah, it was a bit preachy, but the points really were good ones. I think the problem, if any, was that it was a bit clunky and didn't really work as a dialog. Sam's speech, in and of itself, was good. But the dialog between him and the senators as a whole needed more from the senators. It kind of felt like:
-Sam makes a good point, then pauses.
-Senator either says something weak and pointless or doesn't say anything at all.
-Sam: "Um...well then...er...I'll keep talking then..." [takes a bit to wind up, but eventually makes another good point, then pauses]
-Senator either says something weak and pointless or doesn't say anything at all.
-Sam: "Um...well then...er...I'll keep talking then..." [takes a bit to wind up, but eventually makes another good point, then pauses]
Etc.
Anyway, just nitpicking a bit. Again, I enjoyed it.
There were some good ideas laid down early on, but I wasn't really hooked. The show started off "good, but not great," but kept getting better and better. I felt episode 5 was outstanding. And then the finale was a step back down, which led to some of the underwhelmingness if it.
But one more important thing that kind of goes along with the pacing, clunkiness, and slight underwhelmingness:
I don't feel like I had enough time/reason to care about some of the characters and ideas in the show, not enough the have the impact I think they were going for. Some interesting ideas for sure, but not developed enough. Maybe it would have felt better paced at nine or 10 shows, not just six.
Part of what you are feeling might be because of the length of the series. But there is something else at play as well that you might not be aware of that definitely left me feeling like there were some ideas that didn't get fleshed out as well as maybe they should have given what they were going for. So here's the deal: Principle shooting was basically done pre-Covid. Once the pandemic and resulting lockdowns happened, they made some major changes to the story. For example, there was supposed to be this entire thread of a mysterious virus, possibly unleashed by the Flag Smashers. That was supposed to have been what killed the matriarch whose funeral was so pivotal in the early episode. But given what was going on, the squashed that whole storyline. And there were some other things they changed as well. But the problem was that they were limited in their ability to do a lot of reshoots. So they did a lot of editing in post, and added in other dialog that wasn't originally there (where you don't actually see anyone talking, and they just add the voice). That partially explains some of the clunkiness and the fact that some things felt underbaked a bit. I'm not really sure they NEEDED to change any of that. But they felt they needed to, and we got what we got as a result. And I think the final product is still really good. But it did suffer a bit due to those circumstances. And given all that, I'm willing to give them a pass. As with pretty much anything in the MCU, it's still TONS better than the vast majority of superhero/comics-based movies or shows we got at any point prior to the MCU.