#gene and jean should have been on par with the swedes even if not as iconic as hazel and cha cha

[tiredthespian]

I don’t normally post negativity about things that I like because honestly it can be exhausting (and I barely post at all as-is lol), but I just need to get my thoughts about TUA off my chest after that finale…

I honestly just don’t know what to think about season 4… watching it after rewatching 1-3 was an Experience for sure. My grounding thought through my rewatch was how strong the theme of “we are better for having loved, even if it all ends” was—even throughout some of the things I didn’t like about season 3, that theme was always there. It’s always the Hargreeves family. It’s all love. So when I saw the trailer for season 4, I got really emotional because to me it seemed like finally confronting the truth and grief of Ben’s death was going to be the key to everything, but honestly having finished season 4 I feel like his story got kind of brushed over even if it was the whole cause of the apocalypse this time…. Like I feel like they didn’t really give him a proper ending even after all that, and Jennifer just felt like a plot device even though I really wanted to love her. She just felt like a generic MacGuffin.

I don’t know what ending I would have preferred, and I understand that after everything just giving all the characters what they wanted wouldn’t necessarily be any better writing than what we got, but idk SOMETHING could have been different. Ray and Sloane were just brushed over completely, and Dave and Sissy weren’t even mentioned, even though they were all such vital characters to the growth of Allison, Luther, Klaus, and Viktor, respectively. And no, I wasn’t expecting everyone to be together in the end. Part of the bittersweetness of their stories is that their time together was only temporary—that’s a facet of TUA’s storytelling. But another facet of the previous seasons is that those losses are FELT. Dave’s loss drove Klaus in season 2, Ray and Claire’s loss drove Allison in season 3, Sissy’s loss and finding Harlan again drove Viktor in season 3. So why didn’t Sloane’s completely unexplained disappearance seem to have much effect on Luther in season 4??? Why don’t we know why Ray left???

Also playing “I Think We’re Alone Now” over the final scene was so uncalled for. It could have been the perfect song for the final scene if the final scene wasn’t that. Now, a song we associate with the Hargreeves siblings being free is associated with them being gone. Free from the endless apocalypses, sure, but also literally never having existed, never having loved or been loved, which again, is the Whole Point of the show in my opinion. At least Hazel and Agnes get to still be in love ffs.

Also self-sacrificing moves that don’t feel consistent with character growth just don’t jive with me. I’m getting Magicians flashbacks.

Anyway, I’m just tired now. I was vibing with the first couple episodes even though they felt different than previous seasons, but then it all sort of fell off. I wish they’d done more with the subway and the Five diner, given the siblings stronger individual arcs, and had more of those classic TUA fight scenes to fun music.

On the bright side, I can always just rewatch seasons 1-2 lol.