Having finished the excellent first two seasons, I dashed straight into a binge on the third. This season began slowly, and faded slightly at the end, but was notable for the great performances of Carrie Coons, David Threwlis, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Ewan MacGregor, who all led the show, supported by a strong cast.
A show like this will always carry the burden of successful previous seasons as we embark on the latest one. Season 3 begins with a chilling Stasi interrogation in East Berlin, in 1988, a Kafkaesque scene of absurdity and injustice, fraught with absolute terror for the victim. This nightmarish scene stands alone in the season as a metaphor for what Emit Stussy (Ewan MacGregor) and Sy Feltz (the wonderful Michael Stuhlberg) face when VM Varga (David Thewlis) enters their world, and takes over their business.
Varga represents big business crooks. At the end of season two we see the gangster Mike Milligan moved from street work to an office. It could almost be Mike who turned up brief Stussy and Feltz about their new roles in their own business. Meanwhile, Stussy's envious brother Ray (also played by MacGregor) makes a botched attempt to have a precious stamp stolen from Emmit's house. The bungling burglar loses the address and visits and cruelly kills the wrong Stussy.
The strands of these stories take a while to merge, but finally they coalesce after diligent work by two female cops, Gloria (Coons) and Winnie (Olivia Sandoval).
My caveats with the opening episodes are that it takes a while to show us that Varga isn't just a small hustler with only two henchmen. And all three living in the container of a big truck? Really? Why? None of this sat well with me. It seemed contrived. It moved slowly, until the middle episodes, when the pace quickened and the full extent of the trap became clear.
Ewan MacGregor handles the roles of both brothers with virtuosity, and the tragic scene where the brothers finally quibble over the elusive stamp is a classic. Ray's girlfriend Nikki (Winstead) is then cut adrift without him, but rather than fall apart, she becomes a chilling agent of vengeance.
Another nice continuity with the first two seasons is the arrival of Mr Trench, and for the last couple of episodes we have a game of cat and mouse, where Nikki pursues Varga and Emmit, and the two female cops pursue everyone. The endings were all slightly predictable, but not unsatisfactory, especially when we watch the clock run out on Varga.
Other reviewers have felt that his ending is uncertain, but I felt that he'd been abandoned.
But even still, there were a few implausible things: Sy - having been earlier forced to drink something foul - is forced to drink a cup of tea which is obviously poisoned. He leaves the scene and drives off, but doesn't stop to empty his stomach? This not only had me scratching my head, but feeling also that it was just not credible. The result of this was disappointing, to say the least, but it also precipitated a pause in the show, just when things were hotting up.
We also had an unnecessary scene straight out of Twin Peaks, set in a bowling alley, which interrupted the tale, and the next scenes are three months later, which causes us to reset our expectations.
I didn't mind the Twin Peaks-ish intrusion - it even had the actor Ray Wise, who'd appeared a few episodes earlier - but it let a bit of air out of the balloon, and the season never really recovered after this, in my opinion. Nikki and Trench were on the run, but via a Deus Ex Machina, they were handed the keys to a getaway car.
Overall I enjoyed it, but it lulled too often to be comparable to the first two seasons...
A show like this will always carry the burden of successful previous seasons as we embark on the latest one. Season 3 begins with a chilling Stasi interrogation in East Berlin, in 1988, a Kafkaesque scene of absurdity and injustice, fraught with absolute terror for the victim. This nightmarish scene stands alone in the season as a metaphor for what Emit Stussy (Ewan MacGregor) and Sy Feltz (the wonderful Michael Stuhlberg) face when VM Varga (David Thewlis) enters their world, and takes over their business.
Varga represents big business crooks. At the end of season two we see the gangster Mike Milligan moved from street work to an office. It could almost be Mike who turned up brief Stussy and Feltz about their new roles in their own business. Meanwhile, Stussy's envious brother Ray (also played by MacGregor) makes a botched attempt to have a precious stamp stolen from Emmit's house. The bungling burglar loses the address and visits and cruelly kills the wrong Stussy.
The strands of these stories take a while to merge, but finally they coalesce after diligent work by two female cops, Gloria (Coons) and Winnie (Olivia Sandoval).
My caveats with the opening episodes are that it takes a while to show us that Varga isn't just a small hustler with only two henchmen. And all three living in the container of a big truck? Really? Why? None of this sat well with me. It seemed contrived. It moved slowly, until the middle episodes, when the pace quickened and the full extent of the trap became clear.
Ewan MacGregor handles the roles of both brothers with virtuosity, and the tragic scene where the brothers finally quibble over the elusive stamp is a classic. Ray's girlfriend Nikki (Winstead) is then cut adrift without him, but rather than fall apart, she becomes a chilling agent of vengeance.
Another nice continuity with the first two seasons is the arrival of Mr Trench, and for the last couple of episodes we have a game of cat and mouse, where Nikki pursues Varga and Emmit, and the two female cops pursue everyone. The endings were all slightly predictable, but not unsatisfactory, especially when we watch the clock run out on Varga.
Other reviewers have felt that his ending is uncertain, but I felt that he'd been abandoned.
But even still, there were a few implausible things: Sy - having been earlier forced to drink something foul - is forced to drink a cup of tea which is obviously poisoned. He leaves the scene and drives off, but doesn't stop to empty his stomach? This not only had me scratching my head, but feeling also that it was just not credible. The result of this was disappointing, to say the least, but it also precipitated a pause in the show, just when things were hotting up.
We also had an unnecessary scene straight out of Twin Peaks, set in a bowling alley, which interrupted the tale, and the next scenes are three months later, which causes us to reset our expectations.
I didn't mind the Twin Peaks-ish intrusion - it even had the actor Ray Wise, who'd appeared a few episodes earlier - but it let a bit of air out of the balloon, and the season never really recovered after this, in my opinion. Nikki and Trench were on the run, but via a Deus Ex Machina, they were handed the keys to a getaway car.
Overall I enjoyed it, but it lulled too often to be comparable to the first two seasons...