So, what did we think of the finale? ?????
I hated it, as I think we all know at this point and I really cannot fathom how the same group of people who gave us the masterpiece of 1.01 – 3.07 thought that finale was a good idea.
Mia’s death was awful and if they don’t reverse it I won’t be watching S4. She’s the face of the show, she’s the very first character we meet, she’s the one S1 centres around. I love the other characters but I don’t see how they can do this without her. Honestly it feels like a real kick in the teeth for the writers to do this after making us root for Mia for three whole seasons. We’ve watched her suffer and struggle and honestly it kind of disgusts me that SHE has to be the one to lay her life down to change her oppressors. Why can’t she live to see the change she inspires? Doesn’t she deserve that? Plus, it would be way more powerful to leave us with a message of hope rather than despair.
I know some people have argued that it was necessary for the plot or the culmination of her character but NO IT WAS NOT. If you’re killing one of your main characters for the sake of the plot that is a very bad thing. The culmination of Mia’s character should be her being able to live in peace and safety after helping her people obtain freedom.
And another thing – the show is essentially about the Elster and Hawkins families at it’s core. Yes, it has expanded since S1 but those two families are the ones who have held it all together, and Mia has been a large link between both those units. That is why I have tuned in every week. I want to see those characters grow and develop, I want to see more of the family dynamics. If I didn’t care about them I wouldn’t have watched past the first episode. One of the things I’ve praised about the show over the years is the emphasis on character development and relationships, the way the characters drive the plot rather than the other way around, but I didn’t see that last night.
In a way, I’m not only mourning for Mia but also for the show I thought I was watching. I thought I was watching the story of two families growing and developing and changing the world together but now, I’m not so sure.
If Mia stays dead Humans will no longer be the show I fell in love with and I’ve not fully processed that yet.
Looking back at the whole season, I don’t even know if I can agree with “the masterpiece of 1.01-3.07″. Weren’t there already some moments earlier this season that didn’t really fit or seem to make sense?
Everything around Laura’s choice was poorly written. That whole scene was ludicrous, but most especially in the choice made.
I was waiting to see if it would be further explained but its function was apparently only to set up Laura needing redemption and not much else. In the end even Stanley and Sam were fine with humans.
And I still dislike Karen’s death. The writers’ ideas of characters existing for specific reasons and journeys and not as people is exactly what leads to the kind of plot-first focus @annavolovodov mentioned. Karen died to wring some emotion from the audience and to get Sam over to the Hawkins.
The reveal of Anatole the big bad happened and then what happened? Oh, he was a fanatic because of religion and ultimately it was false and Max killed him, the end. Talk about pointless! Not to mention, Max’s own “journey”, with the writers admitting they wanted to see what he’d be like when tested and not stay so likable and how his leadership would work. So…how did his leadership style work? What happened in the end? What do we know about Max now? Given he was the first to eagerly open the doors of the railyard after the synth assault fine passed, he didn’t even stay the pragmatist they pretended he was becoming.
To return to the finale, ugh, Mia’s death. How is a character who’s sacrificed all her life sacrificing her life in the end make any kind of character defining logic? What writer decides, well, she always sacrificed, so she must die in sacrifice. That’s a very poor arc actually. And aside from the unfair, the arrogance of thinking they they had no more plot for Mia when they could have literally done anything with her.
I can’t overlook that both Karen and Mia were essentially mothers sacrificing. And for what! They essentially glossed over the fact that Mia the martyr did actually nothing to resolve anything. Candlelight vigils? I’m sure green eyed synths across Britain were moved to see one night’s worth of thoughts and prayers for a government sanctioned attack and massacre. At the very least her death should have inspired a revolution. But the writers seemed to want to take stories from oppression but not actually see them through. In the end what did her death do? This doesn’t all come down to, oh, you killed a character I liked. This episode and some major threads leading to it just weren’t written well.
There was one more thing this season I wasn’t sure about, Niska at the end of the penultimate episode. And the finale only doubled down on the weirdness of attempting to explain it. Niska didn’t go through any kind of faith based journey at all? She was always intensely pragmatic and loyal and her growth and character journey was in growing her circle of trust. The jump from her chasing the synth who was able to hack into her mind to a religious person wasn’t just badly done, it wasn’t done at all?
The finale had Mia’s pointless death, Niska’s badly done transformation, Neha inexplicably caught out and disappeared halfway through so that Neil could be the hero, and Mattie apparently forced to carry a magical hybrid baby. Definitely not a masterpiece of an ep.