There is an absolutely marvellous story at the heart of this epic sprawl but my goodness what a slog. This could have been four emotionally pulsating episodes and just goes on wayeeee too long.
I get the commercial reality of spreading heavy fixed costs over more episodes/ more content but this frustrates me.
Understandable, though for my taste there is enough story there to fill 7 episodes. I‘m on my first rewatch right now and I could just spend so much time in the atmosphere and with these characters. What I love about this show is how much it cares about its characters
It’s a fantastic drama and I may be quibbling but I just think it maybe dragged across the final episodes and I wonder what a more condensed narrative might have looked like. The shows i keep returning to like True Detective S01 /Succession / Chernobyl /Breaking Bad seem to move beautifully through the story with no flab. Superb performances all round though and what a journey.
I don’t think you can cut down any of the episodes and keep what the show IS. If you cut it down to four episodes you end up with a relatively by the numbers crime show with maybe an added twist towards the end.
But you lose the dive into the characters that make up the town and their depth. What makes the show different is that it treats every character like a person who has a life, with one central character study. I’d argue if it was four episodes and just focused on the crime, there’s no way people are talking about it 4 years later.
Absolutely fantastic performances and richness around sense of place. But less has gotta be more.