by UnregisteredGuyNamedEric Tue Dec 25, 2012 1:29 am
These final 2 episodes of S1 are so satisfying. The whole season is one of the biggest swings from cringe-y, uncertain dramedy into catharsis and excitement I've ever seen on a show (in only 6 episodes).
Especially the slow revelation of Geoffery. He's never precisely redeemed socially, except that he proves to be able to communicate through Shakespeare more directly than any other person on the show can communicate with anyone else. The slow dawning of this is just so much fun.
It started back in ep 3 (I think) when he taught the guy on the Corporate Team Building Exercise to speak through the play what he couldn't in his everyday life. But while that was both fun and a little cheesy, it was just a set-up for the connection Geoffery makes with Jack, who nearly everyone else sees as shallow. But Geoffery sees Hamlet in him.
The Episode 5 performance montage of the play, when it all comes off, is such an exciting, moving peak and a payoff of everything that's come before. The sense of protagonists beating the odds has maybe never been as tangible in a show for me, because I didn't really see it coming and then it hit me all at once.
After it, Episode 6 is a more bittersweet but equally as touching final chapter. Everyone seems at peace, at least for a moment. The "three monologues"approach to Hamlet is pretty cool, too.
I like Jack and Kate, probably as much as I like any Slings & Arrows couple, and especially by episode 6. I can't say Holly entirely worked for me. The show has room for a somewhat hysterical villain, but she goes a little too far IMO and is finally never much more than shrill and manipulative. Then again, her scenes with Richard are fairly entertaining, and I like basically any time Mark McKinney's onstage.
On rewatch, almost everything in this season is both enjoyable and functional for the overall story, themes and emotions. But that basically goes for all 3 seasons of S&A.