Anyone else? Just finished the season and need to vent. It may be off to a slightly uneven start, but the last episodes are incredibly fucking epic. And DARK. So, so dark. It's basically like GoT, if you replaced the dragons, shitty "exotic" locations & bland filler characters with actual things happening, more mud & Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, except it's Tom Hardy and he eats human flesh. Totally the guy with whom I would get on a boat to America..!!! But seriously, it's amazing.
Initial reviews were promising and it's good to hear an SBer's approval. 1st season sitting on the DVR. Maybe this will give me the incentive to start running through it. Will report back.
@smurph Do report! What I loved about the first season is how it's actually the first chapter of what has apparently been conceived as a three-part saga - and after seeing the first, I for one cannot fucking wait what they come up with for the next part of the journey. Delaney is so far beyond redemption that he'll inevitably drag everyone around him down into their own personal hell. One character's fate in particular really got me... Spoiler Poor, poor Brace. I hated him for being the typical quirky Oirish sidekick at first, but jeez... Way to end a character arc in utter tragedy.
It was such an odd kind of show. Dripping with atmosphere and incredible acting from lots of different people. At the same time a few episodes seemed to go by with almost nothing happening or being explained. It's as though Hardy decided ahead of time to not dumb anything down for the audience which I think is great but a few times I got a little lost myself. I did find myself amazed a bunch of times that they managed to put this show on a regular cable channel as opposed to HBO or STARZ or something. Overall it really was beautiful and possibly the best period piece I have ever seen. Spoiler Maybe I was way off but I thought Brace had a happy ending. Sitting in what was finally his own house having fun petting his dog knowing the son of the man he killed forgave him and maybe getting to live for himself finally. Maybe I like dogs too much. I felt horrible for the daughter of the brothel owner though. I liked her character and wanted her to escape with everyone else.
^^ Good points. I've heard it called "slow-moving", but I felt the pace was actually a step back into the right direction of telling a thought-out story as opposed to delivering weekly spectacle. The Peaky Blinders spillover ("Oooh me god, it's a dead man among us!") in the first couple of episodes bothered me way more. Hate to make the comparison, but the first time I tried to watch The Wire, I barely got through the first couple of episodes; I still feel it only picks up momentum towards the end of the first season, but the pay-off is immense. Come to think of it, maybe the comparison isn't that far off, considering the portrayal of politics and economy in Taboo... Spoiler I think ambivalence (in this case) is a sign of great storytelling & can see why you would perceive it that way. After all, there was that brilliant "Please, tell me this is mercy" line, although I felt Brace sounded pretty demolished... The bitter irony to me was that after always having been (madly) loyal to the point of "mercy-killing" mad Delaney, sr., he still ended up alone (well yeah, except for the dog) in that place full of probably not too good memories. He seemed to be the only character who would have probably even embraced ("mercyful") death at the hands of Delaney for killing his father, yet he was one of the few who got to live... Kinda hard to tell in a world populated by characters plagued by varying degrees of insanity; loved Jonathan Pryce's outburst: "ALL of this is insane!!!"
Love the comparison to The Wire. I had the joy of watching Taboo the same way as The Wire meaning I didn't have a chance to start until the seasons were over. So when one episode seemed slow or confusing I could go straight into the next with no wait at all. The Wire felt like a period piece as well since I started it years after the whole series had ended and so much of the old technology from the beginning no longer existed like payphones on every corner of every street. Spoiler I agree totally that when he realized he wasn't going on that boat he looked crushed but that final scene in the house was such a contrast to the beginning of the show. He wasn't drunk, it was daylight and the house itself looked clean and well kept. He was smiling and happy when he was scratching the dog's belly. I think his tale ended happily. All that guilt must have been crushing him for years. He finally had no secrets to suffer with and no one to feel responsible for so he went and got a cool dog to play with.
