Season 5 Is Not Z-Nation anymore
[A lot of spoilers following, obviously]
This is a plot-hole ridden, overly-political, preachy, uninspired nightmare.
George's character and acting is as credible as Buscemi when he blends in as a cool kid. Seriously, a pain to watch this pretentious garbage.
I was really looking forward to this Season, I loved 1-4 dearly and I paid for most of them full price, but this one season now really ruined everything. 10k is ruined, Red did nothing. Sure, Warren, Murphy and Doc were funny as always and the acting superb. Addy adds nothing, a lover for her is added out of nowhere and insta-killed two seconds later (no one cared). Another episode filled with native american tropes, just this time much worse. Seriously, what happened?
The horrible writing can't be compensated by any sort of acting. Did they fire all writers? Also the directing got horrible, often characters are misplaced from camera shot to camera shot. Often characters hide in plain sight but are yet are just not seen by anyone (not talking about the scene where this was an actual joke). The main characters do not seem to even care about getting killed, captured, or seen. They do not even carry guns anymore most of the time. Almost like they know they have a plot armor around them, it just feels so stupid.
This whole season just made so little sense within the world of Z Nation that I could not enjoy it. Where is all the creative episodes where characters get into unexpected and interesting situations? Where is character development? Murphy plotting things? 10k and Doc getting into crazy situations and bonding? Instead everything that happens only happens to drive the plot forward. One moment 10k cares about Red, the next moment Sarge dies (and no one cares afterwards) and he doesn't give a crap and walks off, only to come back in the last episode and care about Red again. And so much is about Dante, yet when they finally get him it becomes completely irrelevant, there is no revelation, nothing, instead his wife gets shot in a stupid standoff, because suddenly the Z Nation gang does not have any weapons when they need them ever apparently, and all of Murphys blends are just gone. Of course Dante just gets killed the next second, and just like with Sarge, no one cares and no one speaks about it afterwards anymore. But they sure had time to add these 15 minute scenes of rambling on about irrelevant stuff every now and then in the episodes with George in the spotlight. Where did all the blends go btw, they looked so hard for Murphy and then... they did not even come to defend him ever. And were gone. And Red and Mei just reappear out of nowhere, no explanation is given what happened to them in the meantime. Lazy. Also you just gotta love how everyone cares so much about the pointless election, yet all those supposed good guys kill the entire militia as if those did not have a family or friends or a chance to be convinced to the other side. Is this supposed to show us what George the do-gooder really is about?
And the spotlight in this season was always on the most boring and irrelevant character of all, who was just shoehorned into this season: George. The first main character that really makes no sense at all and is completely one-dimensional gets all the spotlight in pretty much every episode *golf clap* what a great decision. In general, the motives of the characters, good or bad, are really not plausible a lot of times, nor is the story, or anything else. This all just boils down to lazy uncreative writing, just as if no one really cared about Z Nation anymore. It really makes me sad to see Z Nation end like this. Well, I guess they gave it mercy.
Posted Apr 9, 2019, 11:50 PM UTC
I didn't mind George actually, but was for most of the season was really capitally miffed about how they handled Sarge.
When they started having Sarge be fine with 10k and Red hooking up, even helping them, I assumed that they'll give Lily her own ark. Yet, nope, as soon as it was accomplished they wrote her off and didn't give as much as a flying fuck. The only person who got to mourn her was Red, who knew Sarge for a few days. They had George mourning Dante more than Sarge...
Which brought me to speculations.
Like, Georges role was fine, yet it would have been possible to have Sarge filled in. Who last season was shown to be actually quite ready to go 'murica and protect the president (until that president proven to be an utter genocidal moron). Stepping up to run a small colony, might have been an interesting idea.
Tho, Sarge could have as well filled in the shoes of Dante. Whos role was essentially "being Georges Sarge". Would have been an interesting dynamic, and would have come with a greater investment for how things finally turned out for Dante. Plus, at least Dante got more mourned than Sarge. So she would have had that.
It doesn't help that I personally think that 10k and Red got all of the chemistry of two rocks and that they didn't give Red much of anything to do (Felt she was mostly kept around as a reward for 10k).