The Official Good Television Thread

Oh, didn't realize that was out. Thanks for the notice.

Anyone watch the latest season of Better Call Saul? Season recently ended and I don't think I've seen anyone talk about this season here at all. I thought it was fantastic, but in an understated way - nothing in it quite as dramatic as the courtroom showdown last season, but every episode has been impressive as hell. I love the organic storytelling, where developments that seem like obvious setups don't pan out to anything but quietly weigh on characters' minds, and the level of care put into mundane and/or peripheral things (like everything to do with the excavation subplot.) It's probably the only show I can stand to watch on a week-to-week basis because even if nothing much happens in a particular episode the show's so goddamn finely crafted on every level that I'm still satisfied.
 
Spent the past 2 months watching Marvel Netflix shows. I still need to watch Luke Cage season 2 and the new season of Daredevil. Iron Fist has a new season but season 1 was so horrible that i was surprised it even had a second season. I'd rank the shows like this:

Punisher
Jessica Jones
Defenders
Daredevil
Luke Cage



























































































































Iron Fist
 
The show always struggled to resolve, the last season especially. The characters were becoming redundant (except Chris, who was still developing) and weren't growing. Moreover, the later seasons had more and more of the poorly executed psuedo-arthouse crap (i.e. the dream scenes, which were borderline unwatchable). Unfortunately, both of those flaws were epitomized in the cop out last scene. Whatever, I need to rewatch the first two Godfather movies to clean my palate and remind myself of what good story telling and character development looks like.
 
I don't even know where to begin to address how wrong you are. Let's take the character development thing. One of the major themes of season 6 is Tony getting countless opportunities to change (including an actual NDE, which is often a powerful inciting event for personal growth) but basically deciding to take the easy way out and continue to be more or less the same sack of shit that he's been for the past five seasons. It's pessimistic but also meaningful and cautionary. As for the other characters in the show, most of them are middle-aged and set in their ways. Should they all change just because it's the final season? Even then there is plenty of meaningful character development; Vito coming to terms with his homosexuality and trying to get out of the mafia life, Melfi beginning to understand that her therapy may be doing more harm than good, etc. I wonder what character you think should have developed more, but didn't.

The series doesn't even end in a particularly unresolved place. The final scene is unresolved, yes, but there's plenty of closure in the last few episodes and there's enough information provided in the season as a whole that you have a pretty good idea where every character's at by the end.