"STAR WARS! STAR WARS! COME AND GET YOUR STAR WARS!"
— Darth Pavlov

The series suffers as a whole from attempting to squeeze an elephant into a Volkswagen, but some episodes, like this one for instance, generate as much drama as ticking boxes on a GoT "To Do" list would.

Meh. Too much story, not enough time to tell it, resulting in all too many dangling threads and what amounts to no more than a compilation reel of cliffhangers. In other words, not particularly effective drama. C+ at best.

Did you know Kool-Aid comes in 91 flavours?

The musical montage is amongst the hoariest of TV contrivances. They could just as easily have been singing to "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" since it aims for the same fatuous effect.

I agree; managing to retain suspense over 45 minutes via cross-cutting narratives is quite an accomplishment. I should extend a nod to the composer as well.

Shyamalan and the cast acquitted themselves quite well on this one, me thinks.

She's also responsible for kickstarting most of those obnoxious musical montages too. I can't abide the musical montage.

As far as the "Mexican nonsense" goes, I think you may be overlooking the rather obvious nudge and wink it makes to the telenovela genre it takes for inspiration.

Can't publish, seems I just ate the proof. Oops.

I can't help but agree; the writing is wildly uneven. It occasions to be either deft and understated or maddeningly over earnest if not eye-rollingly maudlin.

SPOILERS!!!

The show's narrative is too expansive for a measly 10 episode run to incorporate so many characters and far flung storylines in any dramatically meaningful way. It's very much like watching an abridged version of a 22 episode run for foreign distribution. Still, production values are high, there's the occasional, well…

And sparkle ponies! Don't forget the sparkle ponies.

Mmm… roasted corpse.

Anyone else besides me hear the theme song from The Neverending Story playing out?

For future reference:

Most of it.

While Bernard Herrmann rolls in his grave contemptuously.

Bang on, lad.