She could've met a new guy, she could've been with the journalist, Woodrugh or Ray could've survived and teamed up with her to blow the case open, I don't care. I just think it's boring to reduce her to a mother-of-the-hero's-child figure, and find the father-son symbolism super contrived and overdone.

"Women are pure/men are sinners" isn't a construct I find particularly compelling. Sounds like you think I want all women to be good guys; I just want female characters who are as interesting and independent as the male characters.

I love a good, well-developed, multi-dimendional, interestingly motivated female villain. I'm criticizing the lack of originality and agency of Pizzolatto's female characters.

I'm not saying your standards are lesser, just that they're different. If you're not sick of seeing characters of color die for the sake of the plot, queer characters who can't get beyond their self-hatred, and women confined to being wives and mothers "doing right by their men," then our standards are different.

Nah. Sorry my standards for representation and original storytelling aren't the same as yours.

I know this can be a frustrating thing to say in a context where we're analyzing a narrative but I just don't really care about Pizzolatto's intentions. Whether as a writer he thought Ani was doing it for herself or not, whether he sees her as the show's "true" (ha) protagonist or not, as a viewer what I'm left with…

I would've done away with the whole Ray/Ani romance (and child-bearing) and I would've had her fight for the truth for her own sake and for the greater good, not as an accessory to the men's story (to clear their names, for their sons, etc.).

Yes, he said they were "plastic."

He thought he could climb the trees.

Weirdly positive review for a finale that wasn't better than the rest of the season and mostly consisted of long chase/fight/death scenes interrupted by unambiguous, spoken plot explanations.

I understand that that's kind of its M.O. but I wish the show would be a bit less about people stabbing each other in the back over and over again. It's clearly Joe's "thing," so all right, but when other characters keep doing it again and again (especially the "I'll lie and pretend that I agree with you/that…

I wasn't offended so much as bored by the show tapping into those old, predictable tropes.

I also thought the piles of "movie money" Frank was putting on the table looked particularly fake; the texture was off, and the pile itself wasn't the same color as the top bills. Actually wondered how a 'prestige' HBO show like this one could end up with such unconvincing props.

Torn because Paul's death was really the only emotionally interesting moment so far this season, but then this episode managed to live up to the glorious cliches of "black people never make it," "let's kill the gay ones as well" and "oh, why don't I have the female protagonist throw herself at the male protagonist…

This would be really interesting if the show was some other producer's creation, like those cinematic universes. As it is, it's Pizzolato's (who was a novelist, not a producer, before the show) little writerly baby and I doubt he'd let anybody else touch it.

I liked this a lot, and I'm a bit bemused that Ignatiy gave it a C+ while Double-A Dowd gave it a B+ on this very website when it screened at Sundance.

She might not have known it was him but he knew it was her - her username was CHowe or something.

This show loooooooves its cinematography. And it's all the better for it.

As someone who spends virtually more time on TV sets than off them I can vouch for how well they built this world - the trailers, the craft tent, the walkie talk, the way everyone was dressed, the grips hanging in their truck, the set dec people never working fast enough for the producers, the new PA who "copies" what…

Really have to disagree with this "beat-by-beat intricacy" stuff - I found that battle messy and confusing and really unevenly paced and the geography of the hill and the village and the harbor remained unclear for most of the sequence. I was bored.