Z Nation Finale: The End of Everything?

[pigtailed_goddess]

I'm not super positive. This was an emotional reaction from me.

This gives me a desperate craving for fix-it fanfic. How am I supposed to want Netflix to save you show, when this is what you define your end as? Every other season gave us a better and more caring finale to the characters and the plots they were pushing and one had people jumping off cliffs and spaceships y'all. 
 

Like the rest of the latter episodes this season this one was badly written, badly paced, and sadly, for a real first imo, badly acted all around as well. It's like nobody put effort in.

 

Cooper's return and Warren's secret were hokey and lacked any emotional resolution for Warren. Our main character!

 

The villains were one-note and given too much focus and just fucking annoying. Licking your lips is not character. They are also not even connected to Zona so WTF was all that Florida zombie set-up. 

 

Also this is how unresolved plots of Zona, the blends, Final Mercy goes out? Also also... Hector? The cheese wheel? *cries*

 

Red is a non-character with no interesting personal feelings or story to contribute. 

 

Doc got no development. They reused the scene of TenK and Doc talking, the same one from last episode, for a hint of emotional drama without any reason. Too lazy to notice?

 

Kaya and son were missing from the end. 

 

Addy was just there. 

 

I'm so disappointed. I think perhaps the most frustrating thing is I do love this show and the characters, and weirdly am ok with it being stupid I guess is the word, or more like a mish mash of ideas on a shoestring budget, but this year, the idea was interesting, the plot and characters are there and workable, and for the first time the execution, the effort, was what seemed to really fail. 

 

It was even poorly shot The scene where Warren and co take the bad guy's guns; Tell me that didn't look half-arsed. All the absent extras and empty hallways to run down. The blue light room. WHY?

 

I can't even with the voting still being a thing...They were at war! Why is the resolution between talkers and humans taking place off screen when it's the crux of your season?

 

I want it done over. Keep everyone but Pandora and the hackers and the Canadian stereotypes, and just focus. Show George's backstory, with Warren, with Dante, with democracy. Show the divide between talkers and the living, and the mutual fear of inhumane survival. Show Murphy and his powers and his blends and his ambitions and have Sun Mei and her desperation for a fix and have Warren and her survival instinct and TenK and his losses, Doc and his optimism. This is all already referenced or on-screen, focus on it.

 

The saddest thing is it's not a big change that was needed. This isn't a failure because an actor/character was gone or a set didn't work. The structure of episodes, or sets, or locations or who they've got cast, keep it the same and if you just focused the writing/direction, it would work. 

 

Like, I was explaining the finale to my mother this morning and in details it's perfectly fine. I don't get it.

 

I'm re-watching on Netflix as soon as I can to see if it helps. I would love a mini-movie type thing, because I love these characters.

 

I liked that Murphy ate his own cure and therefore controls it. Oh the scheming devilish possibilities; Until Warren kicks his ass.

 

I liked George's white jacket. 

 

Everyone's ending seemed happy and I liked that. 

 

There is nothing about this season to retcon or that would make it hard to pick back up and explore. Just do it well and with care.

 

 

 

 

 

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Comments

[sdwolfpup]

I agree with a lot of this. I thought it was better acted (and loved some of the shots I recall), but emotionally it left me empty. All the things I wanted to see, the things they'd spent all season building towards, got left out so we could deal with the stupid battery plan. Final Mercy, which they brought up in the third to last episode, never even got mentioned or figured out! Zona had no connection beyond Estes came from there, and we got so little character relationship moments that the ones we did get which were basically all new characters I wasn't invested in, I was mad about. (I get the show wants us to think Warren has this potential with Cooper and, like, I'm happy for her? I guess? But I do not give a c R A P about Cooper and I hate that her happiness rests with a man she just met and that we barely got to know.)

I really loved this season when it started, like more than maybe any other season, because I was so sure it was going to do all the things they'd been building towards. But ultimately their execution of the things that mattered most to me just never came to fruition. I didn't hate any of it (except the batteries), but I'm really disappointed. Maybe moreso now because we're not getting another season. (We might, of course, but it doesn't seem likely.) I didn't want to be disappointed. I'd rather be angry.

[pigtailed_goddess]

And it's not that Estes' convo about the battery vs talkers rights isn't even bad, but it comes up at the last moment, and ignores the more important stuff happening around that convo, aka the morality of it, in favour of the fight scenes with Pandora.

I really liked Cooper, because Kellita has chemistry with everything, but thought he was better served as a one off. I don't see her going back to be with him, so the emotional angst, it doesn't fit. Their door closed when he lied to her. Him explaining her plot twist was fine, but him being a potential idealic home away from home, no. She's gotta help George and keep Murphy on his toes.

I'm so disappointed, not because it's an end; I've not really thought alot about the Z Nation world having a definite conclusion, and so it seems there are always stories to be told or imagined. Z Nation has always given me a joy when watching at it's potential and it's heart and exploration of itself. I'm so disappointed because this is the first time that the potential just didn't land and like you said the start of this season, the ideas were really good this year. It's more of a mourning for why with all it's got going for it, it didn't work this year.

[sdwolfpup]

ignores the more important stuff happening around that convo, aka the morality of it, in favour of the fight scenes with Pandora

Right! Like there are so many great seeds and threads in this season and they never got appropriately watered or tied together (pick your metaphor!) and so it feels...non-cohesive.

I don't see Warren going back with Cooper either. His being a "non-joiner" is a dealbreaker for her, I would think. She wouldn't live like that. Idk. I agree that I'm just disappointed that this season wasn't what i thought it could have been, even while it had some glimmers of greatness.

[viridian5]

What a disappointing end to the show. Dropped plotlines everywhere. I'm adding to your list Sarge's death. I didn't have much of a connection to her, but the show posits a love triangle with 10K and Red, then has her die saving their lives... then she just vanishes completely, with no one giving her a thought ever again.

Seriously, we find out that Warren is actually undead and has been all season but the show somehow didn't make us feel anything about it.

[pigtailed_goddess]

Yeah, I'm hoping rewatch improves my outlook towards this season's plot execution.

I was really saddened by Sarge's death. Not so much on account of a love triangle but because I felt 10K and the group didn't really grieve. But then he's silent about his losses too. I don't know how I feel. I liked her, but we've suffered character losses in the show. It was a good death.

I've never really warmed to Red. Her and 5k's introduction in season 3 always felt like a one off. She's a very surreal character with her outfit and weapon and odd duck brother. I don't get her. She's the GF of 10K but her own thoughts and traits and reactions haven't worked into a person I get and she's gotten very little interaction or character building with the others or an inside look into her mindset even.

Warren's undead status begs another season of exploration.

[viridian5]

I didn't care so much about the love triangle as for the fact that the show was visibly setting her up for something then dropped her completely, loose ends dangling, and none of the group thought of her ever again. None of them, not even for a moment.

Apart from her introductory episode, Red is more of a plot device than a person. She was there to be 10K's girlfriend, that became her only character, and as you said she's barely interacted with any other member of the group. Her being a hallucination that helped 10K stay alive in some episodes was merely a literalization of it.

Murphy's kind of undead (how undead keeps varying), Warren is undead, 10K is still semi-undead (at least if that bit at the beginning of the season about how really, really slow his heart rate is means anything)....