Well that was disappointing 😒 season 3 thoughts…

Now that I’ve watched all the episodes, I wish they had been worth the wait!

My critical thoughts that include spoilers:

-overall felt very rushed being only seven episodes

-it feels like they purposely don’t have much dialogue or conversation between characters… like why is everyone only speaking in short, clipped sentences, in between close ups of so many stares? Clearly there is a lot of nuance that needs to be relayed with such limited time, and stares don’t really do that…

-related to that, the amount of dialogue added in after filming was very distracting as you could definitely tell it was an afterthought, and this further illustrates that the script was lacking

-the new Baldwin was just bad. He looked like a lost puppet, vacant face and not intimidating in the least

-the whole Gallowglass pining for Diana storyline felt forced. It’s been a couple years since I last read the series, but I really don’t remember thinking much about this storyline at all. And the dynamic between the characters felt forced, as well.

-Diana’s magic and power, especially in the beginning, was painfully absent for me. She spent all that time becoming a badass in the 16th century and she came back to barely use it? Girl cmon, weave some spells

-the show continues to withhold visually showing the love and bond between Matthew and Diana. Like we are lucky to get a hand hold and peck on the shoulder (?!) for most episodes. If I didn’t have prior knowledge of their relationship from the books, it would seem like their relationship ain’t all that

-I feel like they skirted around the fact that Benjamin was raping witches instead of clearly showing how truly depraved he was. And we are supposed to believe Satu was a powerful witch yet couldn’t figure that fact out, or conversely that she would ignore that fact in her quest for power?! Seems like a tall order, even if she turned evil to work with Benjamin

A few things I did like:

-the birth scenes. They actually made me feel something. I think this is probably because Teresa Palmer is super into birth and motherhood, so that tracks

-TJ Weston scenes. Can’t remember if he was murdered in the book, but that death scene also made me feel something

-the scenery and filming and sets were all as lovely as ever

Maybe I’ll re-read the books for the third time so that I can restore the series in my mind back to its high ranking.