re: "Monsieur Spade" limited series (6 episodes) on AMC with Clive Owen

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Don't watch any HBO shows, then. It's used so often--especially "f&^%"--that it's very distracting. I feel like they have a quota. They want to "remind" you that you aren't watching regular TV. Even if it doesn't fit. Loved Deadwood..but it was plainly obvious there. For some reason it didn't bother me in The Sopranos, because I believed a bunch of poorly educated gangsters/guidos would talk like that. I don't really buy it in the current season of True Detective. I didn't notice a single thing out of the way in Spade. Very restrained. Doesn't bother me in a Dre track. Very much bothers me when you don't believe people really talk that way.

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One of my favorite movies is Lebowski, and in self-referential fashion they had “the stranger” ask the dude if he had to curse so much. I watch Tarentino films and have no problem with the language (sorry mom) because that’s what it is.

It just didnt feel right in the story about Sam Spade.

I watched episode 3.

The idea that this is the same Sam
Spade from the Maltese Falcon is really getting stretched thin. I think of an
iconic role like Bond where different actors brought different takes to the character,
and wonder if I look differently because Sam Spade is so tied to Bogart…but I’m
not sure that’s it.

The plots are getting way very intricate and mysterious-
but seemingly not in a “compelling” way.

For now I’m sticking with the series. It’s only six episodes and I’ve invested in 3. It’s “ok” but I’m hoping for better.

Episode 4 showed some signs of improvement. There are still “too many things going on” and not necessarily in a good way. We have the main storyline of Sam Spade, Brigid O’s kid and her estranged father; the mysterious kid who everyone’s tied to for no apparent reason yet, the club owner and her husband with his dying father…who wants same spade’s vineyard; the neighbor British woman and her painter son who look like spy’s; and probably a few I missed. These don’t look like classic noir plot lines either where some are misdirection and some come together, but just seem like a big mess.

They had a few “Sam spade” moments, including when he interrogated the French soldier, but overall those moments seem forced to sell the character rather than consistent. I also dislike the profanity (call me old school, but it’s not in keeping with the character).

Anyway, two episodes left that I’ll watch.

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…the neighbor British woman and her painter son…

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My wife and I are sure this “British woman” is played by a transy biological male.

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I had been really enjoying this but man what a bummer of a season finale. Just a random lady you've never seen before shows up with 10 minutes left in the series and just bosses every one around and determines how everything is going to go. Such a lame ending to an other wise really good show. Let's have a big mystery with tons of players and angles only to have some random person show up at the last minute with the authority to overrule any government and just decide what she wants to do with literally everyone. So odd and just didn't fit the show at all.

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I have to pretty much agree that the “ending” was totally off for the idea of a program called Monsieur Spade. I mean, he’s the guy who should be putting everything together and explaining it.

In addition, having it be a person who just came out of nowhere and was seemingly all powerful makes you question why things went on so far in the first place if she was around.

Overall, I thought the show would have been “ok” as a standalone
story. I appreciated the times that Clive Owen and the dialogue was able to capture “Sam Spade”, but more often than not it fell flat. The profanity became worse as the show went on, and really hit rock bottom when he told the British agent at the end to go “frick her crumpets with a cricket paddle” or something to that effect. That was totally out of character for the always cool Sam Spade.

Part of me wouldn’t mind a second season, on the hope that more of the real Spade would return, but I think I’d be disappointed again.

Overall, when I look at this it reminds me of time travel movies (Back to the Future, Hot Tub Time Machine) where they get all of these cliches of the period together which aren’t exactly in the order they occurred or connected they way they are presented - selling the “vibe”rather than “accuracy”. I think this series was about packaging several “vibes”‘together rather than making a good story about the continuing adventures of Sam
Spade.