Can't discuss this series without discussing "spoilers", so hang on, here goes.
Interesting concept in Season 1 - can an Americanized expatriate son of a bloody Middle Eastern dictator manage to bring some western- values based humanity to a forlorn country long used to abuse by its autocratic rulers - first his father, and now his own brother?
In Season 1 the answer was "maybe?".
In Season 2, all of a sudden this Americanized son and brother of a brute was leading a "revolution" and a hero to his downtrodden countrymen and women? Uhhh, no, that's simply not very plausible.
And by Season 3 the series arc suddenly became the Americanized protagonist now fully Tyrant-ized, brutalizing his own people and fanatically pursuing tribal vengeance at the shrewish urging of his own Tyrant-ized wife, now focused solely on killing the killer of their daughter, no matter the cost to any other person on earth.
Sorry, I didn't much believe the noble American revolutionary leader and I sure don't buy the full circle transformation into bloody Middle Eastern tyrant - either of Barry or his seriously demented American born wife
Through the second half of Season 3 I found myself wishing someone would just take out Barry's evil you-know-what wife ... to save Barry, his son, and his entire nation the bloody outcome sure to result from the path of never-ending vengeance.
And I also found myself wishing that the producers and writers could have come up with a more nuanced Barry character and not the complete submissive idiot that he turned out to be, fully whipsawed by a combination of his wife, his terrorist nemesis Ihab, and, well, his entire situation. Not that I wished instead that Barry would somehow become a Middle Eastern Super Hero and teach all those Middle Easterners how to live like a good American ... but rather, I wanted Barry to have some sense of humility, to recognize his own limits, and to understand that absolute power corrupts absolutely (after all he had his family history to prove that), and to realize when he was in far over his head.
I sympathize with the desire to exact revenge after a senseless bloody killing of a dear family member, but stupid is as stupid does. Pretty much every single decision that Barry made in Season 3 was worthy only of someone dumber'n a box of rocks.
After Season 2's semi-ridiculous story line, in Season 3 I was hanging on in hopes of a turnaround that would get it all back to something resembling a thoughtful treatment of Middle Eastern culture clashing with western values ... instead, I'm done.
Interesting concept in Season 1 - can an Americanized expatriate son of a bloody Middle Eastern dictator manage to bring some western- values based humanity to a forlorn country long used to abuse by its autocratic rulers - first his father, and now his own brother?
In Season 1 the answer was "maybe?".
In Season 2, all of a sudden this Americanized son and brother of a brute was leading a "revolution" and a hero to his downtrodden countrymen and women? Uhhh, no, that's simply not very plausible.
And by Season 3 the series arc suddenly became the Americanized protagonist now fully Tyrant-ized, brutalizing his own people and fanatically pursuing tribal vengeance at the shrewish urging of his own Tyrant-ized wife, now focused solely on killing the killer of their daughter, no matter the cost to any other person on earth.
Sorry, I didn't much believe the noble American revolutionary leader and I sure don't buy the full circle transformation into bloody Middle Eastern tyrant - either of Barry or his seriously demented American born wife
Through the second half of Season 3 I found myself wishing someone would just take out Barry's evil you-know-what wife ... to save Barry, his son, and his entire nation the bloody outcome sure to result from the path of never-ending vengeance.
And I also found myself wishing that the producers and writers could have come up with a more nuanced Barry character and not the complete submissive idiot that he turned out to be, fully whipsawed by a combination of his wife, his terrorist nemesis Ihab, and, well, his entire situation. Not that I wished instead that Barry would somehow become a Middle Eastern Super Hero and teach all those Middle Easterners how to live like a good American ... but rather, I wanted Barry to have some sense of humility, to recognize his own limits, and to understand that absolute power corrupts absolutely (after all he had his family history to prove that), and to realize when he was in far over his head.
I sympathize with the desire to exact revenge after a senseless bloody killing of a dear family member, but stupid is as stupid does. Pretty much every single decision that Barry made in Season 3 was worthy only of someone dumber'n a box of rocks.
After Season 2's semi-ridiculous story line, in Season 3 I was hanging on in hopes of a turnaround that would get it all back to something resembling a thoughtful treatment of Middle Eastern culture clashing with western values ... instead, I'm done.