Well for me it is simple, the specials are lackluster in comparison to the series. They go into a story of a superhuman one-dimensional character and his bland female assassin love interest.
We get another moment of Claire Stanfield being the one dimensional badass that he is as he fights the lesser Ladd or Graham Specter. We were already given the ending to the battle before the fight ever began. Graham, was defeated by Ladd Russo, and Ladd in the series was defeated by Claire hence there was no tension to this fight of theirs. Claire is still the crazy demi-god killer he was from the show and there is no sense of development from the series itself even with this love story, not even closure on the will they won’t they relationship of Chane and Claire. The series does so much better overall, where over a course of 13 episodes we get both a crazy ride and an intertwining plot of great characters. The specials try to do it in 3, and let’s be honest their focus wasn’t at all as interesting as the series. The series had the Flying Pussyfoot, mob wars, immortals, a great comedic duo and an intertwining plot that would make Tarrantino shed a tear of joy. The specials have a by the numbers love story, with a new character that needed more time to step out of the shadow of a psychopath much more interesting than himself.
The specials do add more to some characters I agree and if we were arguing these specials to other specials they would win. The thing is we are comparing them to the actual show, which in all due respect the show just completely knocks it out of the park. It underplays a lot of characters making them feel more like cameos than anything else. Where is the fun? I wanted to see Baccano in the specials not the Notebook’s estranged cousin in law. The series does show snippets of love stories, but they do not override the story. The special’s story is a lot more one note than you think in the essence of converging storylines. It is primarily about the story of Chane if anything and mostly everything involved plays into that fact except for the few random scenes. There was a lot of potential to this special to be something unique and a transitional period for a lot of moments, but it focused almost entirely on the love story with the ending fight being nothing short of a guy just flailing around his wrench for a minute than stopping. That fight is a perfect representation of how this entire special felt, a tease to the main course that has yet to come out onto the dining room floor. Trying to tie in so many aspects in the show actually made the final episode crowded and of course it left a lot of what will happen moments, but at the same time it needed to in order to be relevant to the series and not some run around lackluster love story. |