Astounding! I cannot believe how good this show is. I've seen the first three eps released. Elisabeth Moss is breathtakingly brilliant, mesmerizing, expressive. Indeed, the entire cast is fantastic including Alexis Bledel (aka Rory Gilmore) who puts in the performance of her life. There are two interwoven plots, one happening in real time, the other in flashback, and both are equally compelling, the latter resonating eerily with current events. I'm not exaggerating when I say this show is one of the best of the best. If they can keep the same level of excellence for all ten eps, then this will surely be the show of the year!
I don't mean for this to sound like a threadcrap, apologies if it comes out that way. Has anybody read the book, and if so, does the series thus far follow the "background over plot" that the first 100 pages of the book do? I liked the concept of the book but I thought it was executed horribly, with too much emphasis on setting and not nearly enough on story. I would imagine that a popular series would bend more toward conventional storytelling to keep people interested instead of the hyper-realistic "in real life, loose ends don't get tied up neatly" approach that the book took. I'm fairly interested in watching just to see how the story would benefit from an actual ending (when and if it eventually gets there).
I can't speak to the book, or even to what it is about. Prior to watching the first three eps, I'd assumed it was some kind of Amish tale, mainly going by the various publicity pics. So I wasn't too enthused to start watching. However, once I did start watching, I was gripped right from the start and pleasantly surprised about what the story was actually about and how it developed. The last scene with Alexis Bledel in ep3 chilled me to the bone. I'm very plot and character focused when it comes to entertainment, and I can say that this show has both in spades (so far at least). You won't be disappointed by the opening triple.
Thanks. I really liked the idea of the book but I didn't like the book at all. But then, I like character-driven narratives and by virtue of the story, that was virtually impossible, so it had an uphill battle for me. But I just found it to be slow and tedious. The book introduced characters as though they were going to be important, but then when they finally show up again 200 pages later they're relegated to the side, just "this person is still alive". I discussed it with someone who did enjoy the book and they said that in real life, not everything gets wrapped up nicely in a pretty bow - but if I want real life, I'll open my front door, and I don't really like real life which is why I stay inside most of the time and immerse myself in stuff that's better than real life. The biggest "real life" thing is the ending. I'm not going to give away the plot elements, but the ending was so un-book-like that I genuinely thought the author was forced to submit an unfinished work for publication. There were so many things that I wanted to see followed up on - including literally the biggest driving force in the entire plot, which had only just started to become uncovered - and the book just ended. Yes, it was realistic. In real life you don't always know what happens. But damn it, this isn't real life, this is a book and if it weren't for these annoyances it could be a really interesting one. But, as with the real world, we may never know. With the amount of attention TV show endings get nowadays, it would be literally impossible for them to release the book ending on the show without mass social-media hysteria. That's why I'm curious about the rest of the show. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it was a Hulu exclusive, and I cannot tolerate advertisements (nor can Hulu tolerate ad blockers), so I guess I'm going to sit this one out and maybe catch it when it leaks to YouTube or something.
The book is a literary classic that's required reading in a lot of schools. I read it in college and was blown away. It's on the level of 1984 or any of Vonnegut's work, IMHO. This kind of religious fanatic dystopia didn't seem too far off from where I grew up. Atwood is my wife's favorite author, we're both really looking forward to the show. Glad to hear it's so good!
As a Canadian about 10 years ago, I would occasionally say I felt like I was living in a Margaret Atwood Nightmare (our PM at the time was one Stephen Harper). Today that would be an understatement. I had read the book several decades ago, and re-read it a couple of years ago. I am looking forward to following the new series. A movie was made about the story in 1990, but I have not seen it.
The book is brilliant, a classic; and has parallels in current US policy that obviously can't be discussed here! The 1990 film with Vanessa Redgrave was OK but a little too soap-opera-y! Looking forward to the new adaptation but there's been no announcement of a UK screening yet, so I'll either have to wait or look elsewhere.
But the story deals with pretty weighty topics rooted in an exaggeration - no matter how small - of reality. It's bound to come up and in my opinion it's being handled very well so far.
Maybe I'm just too used to "satisfying" endings, whether happy or not, but I still think that the ending was either a giant middle finger or a complete rush job - not sure which. Again, I don't want to spoil the plot, so I'll keep this as vague as possible - I really wish the subplot involving the picture went somewhere. It felt like such a driving force for the character. But when the ending came along, it wasn't even mentioned - not even as "now I'll never get to know what happened", not even a fleeting thought. There were a few more things like that which felt like they were building to something - a Chekhov's gun, if you will - but they never ended up being mentioned again, to the point that I forgot they were even part of the story until someone else brought it up. As for the post-script, it was so drastically different, and it came right after that ending, that I couldn't really focus on it, but I do remember it stated that at least some of the events took place in Syracuse NY, which I found to be hilarious; if the events did indeed take place in Syracuse, then this isn't a fictional tale of an alternate universe, this is just a non-fictional, journalistic report of life in the city. I've lived in and around Sorexcuse for most of my life and some of the stuff that happened in the book is like a sweet dream of freedom. Ending: either half-assed or taunting, post-script: depressingly hilarious. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention, what's the deal with not using quotation marks during flashbacks? It's really annoying and numerous times I thought a character was speaking when something was being described. If there was meant to be an obvious visual distinction between the two, I would have put the dialogue in italics or something. It just made the actual reading a chore.
I still wouldn't say it was taking the thread in a massively political direction. Had you not mentioned it, I doubt it would have even been noticed.