Volume 8: The Hanged Man

TOTDY is a pretentious, self-indulgent, narcissistic,navel-gazing, misogynistic, slow-moving mess that does look great but offers nothing in the way of plot, character development, nuance, real tension or, indeed, meaning. It's what happens when a studio (Amazon Prime) just hands out money to a self-professed auteur without any restrictions. So far, so bad.

From this point on, TOTDY is just plodding down its tedious path without variation of tone, and no real twists. Some people felt the need to compare this show to BREAKING BAD. This is NOTHING like Breaking Bad. BB offered continuous twists and turns, shocking plot and character development, meaningful dialogue and standout performances. Instead, all TOTDY delivers is robotic acting by all the leads - no emails from Sir Anthony Hopkins, sorry!, tone-deaf dialogue (delivered robotically, too), no twists, no development, no nuance, nothing but pretty visuals and a bleak, albeit inert tone. And it's getting progressively worse, especially since *all* of the more colorful supporting characters are beginning get the axe, leaving behind only empty faces. Fans of meaningless violence can again rejoice though.

You've made it to this point, so don't give up. Are the two remaining episodes better than this ponderous drone? No, they're worse. As far as the final episode is concerned, *much* worse. But if you give up now you will just have wasted about ten hours of your life with no pay-off. Does TOTDY *offer* any pay-off? You can guess ...

As another user has pointed out- this is nothing like Breaking Bad, because TOTDY is not even trying to be something like BB. If you are still comparing this show to something that is aesthetically, tonally and thematically completely different, then you are probably not doing a good job at paying attention.

Episode 8 is another absolutely jaw dropping episode. NWR is presenting us a major shift in its plot progression, ending this chapter with something I truly wasn't expecting. The visionary images are mixed together with gory and gritty violence, a violence that is present throughout the whole universe of TOTDY but has its peak here. Upsetting stuff, however beautifully crafted.

Holy crap, man. That was...something, alright. Such brutality, violence, and depravity. And probably many more descriptive words that escape me, not just having to do with the latter three in a similar enough sense. I love it. That's definitely messed up, but I do.

As unlikely and unconventional as it is and would be, I wish there were more shows and movies showcasing this sort of thing, in every possible way. It can be to try and tell the audience that what's going on is very messed up or whatever, or it can be done simply for entertainment purposes. A very depraved sense of entertainment, I guess, and most people would likely think.

But I don't care, interesting enough. I'd like it if that were the case or if it was the case, or if it will be the case. Not in an overall sense but a more utilized sense. There's just something about it. Something more enticing, enthralling, engrossing, entrancing, engaging, and so on than the traditional normality that mostly everything in both television and films is.