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Post by notacrook on Jul 2, 2017 22:50:18 GMT
First few episodes were fantastic, but it really slipped from there. The characterisation of Chandra was almost insulting.
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Lubezki
Based
the social distancing
Posts: 4,332 
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Post by Lubezki on Jul 2, 2017 23:19:02 GMT
No doubt the standards slipped as the season went on but never to a degree where I said "Wow this really got bad." Still kept me on tenterhooks and Riz Ahmed really brought his A-game to this role.
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Post by FrancescoAbides on Jul 3, 2017 19:00:36 GMT
I found the show to be very frustrating (I will suppose that is the point)
They could have used more Michael Kenneth Williams, because he is pretty damn good. Chandra was unbelievably "dumb". Riz Ahmed´s performance was fantastic tho, clearly the MVP (after the Cat). I liked Turturro´s too, as always, but I think the "redundant" writing didn´t help his performance, at all. There were fine supporting performances from Bill Camp and Jeannie Berlin, for instance, altough they were underused. The writing slipped a little bit, after a great start. I just wanted to see more, because the premise and the potencial of the show were promising. Still, a show worth watching, it left me with a feeling of bitterness and ambiguity, a fine social critique.
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Post by Allenism on Jul 4, 2017 0:13:25 GMT
Totally. I don't think I've ever watched a show that went downhill so quickly and dramatically as this one did during its limited run. The writing at its worst was positively jaw-dropping in how broad, heavy-handed and unrealistic it was, and this consistently undermined the efforts of a uniformly stellar cast (well, barring Karan and Berliner) and Zaillian's moody, atmospheric yet clear-eyed direction. Ahmad is fantastic in the lead role and it was good to see Turturro sinking his teeth into a role worthy of his "dramedic" talents, but man oh man did the writers go out to the lunch on this one.
In light of what followed, it was probaly best for the pilot to be first and last episode.
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Post by DeepArcher on Jul 4, 2017 4:24:46 GMT
It was mostly disappointing to me because of the promise showed by its pilot. That first episode is easily one of the best from all of last year. It totally gripped me with its gorgeous and haunting visual style and tense directing. After that, it steadily hit the decline until a somewhat redeeming finale. It was fine, but followed very generic story beats and never did much worthwhile. Also, Chandra's character is among my least favorite ever, and she was almost totally ruinous to the second half of the season.
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Post by bobbystarks on Jul 5, 2017 17:28:29 GMT
Chandra is the DUMBEST FUCKING CHARACTER OF 2016. It's been almost a year and I still hate her.
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Post by stephen on Jun 4, 2018 17:47:12 GMT
I finally got around to watching this series. Turturro was seismic; I could see shades of Pacino in his performance but it felt like such a fully realized creation. Ahmed was great, but there were times that I really didn't like the route they were taking with his character, and he suffered a bit for it. Bill Camp, Glenne Headly (RIP) and Michael K. Williams were both superb as usual. A few complaints:
1. Yeah, the whole Chandra thing really didn't work for me. Amara Karan was very good but I couldn't buy for a second that she would fuck up as royally as she did here . . . and she didn't even get busted for the drug-smuggling thing. I actually was expecting, and hoping, that Naz would have to get his mother or father to smuggle drugs in for him in exchange for the dad being able to buy back his medallion's share. And that was what was going to destroy the family unit more than simply having Naz's mother not believe him completely. As for Chandra, I was hoping that her big fuck-up was that she simply put him on the stand, and that in doing so, she threw away a shot to win and got punished for it by Headly, rather than risking disbarment.
2. The glimpses we had of Stone's home life with his kid and ex-wife were nice, but I wanted more. Especially when we saw how his son treated him when he tried to visit him at school.
3. Not enough of Naz's family, in particular his brother. I feel like there was so much they could've done with them, especially when you've got Peyman Maadi crushing it every time he's on screen, and Poorna Jagannathan broke my heart every time she showed up.
All in all, very strong performances and confidently written . . . but it felt way too restrained at times.
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