Finished. I really enjoyed the series overall.
Massive spoilers ahead.
- Frank and Childan had decent endings.
- Abendsen I assume is walking through the portal to find alt-wife. Decent ending for him.
- Juliana was the center character, but so boring. Virtually everyone else was far more interesting than her.
- Joe Blake's death caught me completely off guard, and yet was totally fitting. Love it.
- Tagomi's ending was disappointing and visually strange. He was a major player in S1-3 and he was my third favorite character in the show. But he was quickly killed without much meaning. Also we don't even see his face--it's as if the actor was no longer available, not even for a few minutes.
- The writing for John Smith was so, so good. The writers had me wrapped around their finger with me always hoping John would redeem himself and have a redemption arc. But time and again there were opportunities for redemption, and every single time he either missed them or turned away from them. In S4 when he knocked off the entire German high command, achieved autonomy from Berlin, and had his #2 tell him everyone is his command would support a revolt from Nazism, he finally had everything he needed and no excuses instead. And instead he became the second coming of Hitler. John sees a version of himself where is happy, his wife is happy, his son is alive--and yet his thought is to kidnap Thomas and bring him to Nazi world, the world that literally killed his Thomas.
- Helen Smith's writing was also fantastic. The scene where the older daughter questions and then calls out her parents' inhumanity was perhaps my favorite in the whole show. Helen, like her husband, also didn't seem to know how to stop. But at least she tried, several times. I love her lines at the end in the train, where she says if Thomas is alive with another Helen, then he should stay with that other Helen. And our Helen wouldn't want that Thomas to even see what she and John were like in this world, because she was ashamed of what they were. Together, John and Helen were my two favorite characters.
- The BCR is introduced suddenly out of nowhere. They are a major player, even more powerful than the PSA resistance. Then BAM, BCR has kicked out the empire, rule the PSA, and mount a defense against the Reich. What the heck? They should have been introduced a lot earlier, or at least hinted at and talked about. It really felt like an afterthought.
- Kido's son in America is also introduced out of nowhere, and he is suddenly an incredibly overwhelming factor in Kido's story. Like the BCR, he also should have been introduced earlier, or not at all.
- S4 was unevenly paced, like the writers were notified halfway through that the show was cancelled. First half they are introducing new major elements. Last half they are trying to wrap everything up.
- I did not care for the ending. The writer's explanation "its open to interpretation" is meant to be thoughtful and open. Some times that works for me, but in this case it feels cheap and lazy.
My preferred ending:
Off screen, world #2 had been developing their own portal in secret. They become aware of incursions from "Nazis from another Universe" and have been planning to send their own agents and/or soldiers to fight back and assist the resistance with defeating the Nazis.
On screen this is seen at the end of the show as soldiers coming through the portal. Show Americans at first. Increase the impact by panning over and showing Soviets walking side by side with the Americans--two bitter enemies in the cold war coming back together to help defeat a historical evil a second time. Then increase the impact yet again by showing Germans (West and East) coming through to help defeat Nazism, fully rejecting what their own previous generation had created in their world.
Yes my ending is sappy, cliche, too Hollywood, and completely unrealistic (the US would not share access to the multiverse with the Soviet Union). Nevertheless I prefer it to a bunch of well dressed...tourists?...with looks of wonder on their faces, seemingly ignoring the wreckage and the dirty, armed, wounded, resistance solders they walk past.
Some questions:
- What was the desert netherworld about? The one that Juliana saw in visions while meditating. It seemed to hint at the ending with the travelling tourists, but I don't understand the point or meaning. Juliana wasn't travelling to an alt world because her body remained in place.
- What did the stack of parallel lines in the hexagon shape mean? Juliana sees this drawn in the netherworld sand, and later we see the lines again carved in rock near. The show makes a point of reminding us this is the same thing she saw in the sand earlier, so it seems important. Sure, I understand that parallel lines relate to parallel worlds, but that this point in the show we already know that there are parallel worlds. Alternatively, if this vision was shown early in S1, it would have been a great hint at things to come. But this late in the show it seems redundant, so is there some other meaning I am missing? Who carved it in the rock, why, and what does it mean?
- What the heck happened to Ed? It seems the writers just forgot about him. Or did I fall asleep for a few minutes and miss his ending?
