"We're Poisoned. All of us."
The show has come to an end, and the last scene did feel appropriate, Harry standing on the ledge, deciding to find another way to live, we don't know what the future holds for him but it was okay. I have to say I always enjoyed the cases a lot more than I enjoyed the characterization of Harry Ambrose, and that might have swayed my opinions here but without caring about him some things just didn't hit, and though there are different opinions on this, I feel like the show went out on a low.
The family drama was interesting, the power this family held over the town made for an interesting dynamic, but this family member everyone decided to forget about, the way it was all resolved felt like a stretch, and the moment where Ambrose gets the truth felt unearned. He's good at pushing people but the last scene with Percy's father was definitely not good enough for me, maybe it was the writing, maybe it was the performances but I just wasn't sold on it.
There were a few moments of causation that The Sinner is known for that were good, but they weren't nearly enough, and the fight with the Muldoon's and Bo Lam wasn't grey enough, it only made me think the whole family deserved to rot in jail, no gray area anywhere. And the injustice of the Lam's situation was interesting but it didn't feel like the focus of the season, which I'm not sure but it might have made it better. Maybe they could have replaced the ritualistic implications which led nowhere and given them more screentime, I really don't know.
Maybe it was their intention to make us love Percy so much that the final mystery would have us conflicted but it definitely didn't work on me, and it was definitely on the writing there, there were so many ways to make it feel a little grayer, but stopping a fight with a gun was just too much for my brain to empathize. Percy said she'd poisoned the family but it didn't feel like they were so great before, besides, there's a line between bad luck and smuggling people, and that felt unearned, too.
It's a shame this is the note it had to end on but I've loved this show and thankfully each season can be enjoyed as a standalone. Season one was incredible, and I might be in the minority here, but I also adored season three, might have been the themes, or the performances, but I was obsessed with it, and that won't be taken away. I think four seasons is a pretty good run, and though this might not say anything good about the show, I just don't care what happens to Harry next. Too harsh? What about you? Was this a good enough conclusion? Which was your favorite season?
"So, you think the world's a better place now because of what you did?"
