One of the few seasons I’ve seen that manages to be massively overrated and overhated at the same time. It’s not as good as some people claim, nor is it as bad, it’s pretty good and that’s it. It peaks shockingly high with episodes like TWOTL, Digestivo, and Dolce, but also has embarassing lows like episodes 2-4 and episode 10, and that inconsistency is what brings this down into the show’s weakest season. The main factor for that inconsistency in my opinion is the complete disregard for realism and the removal of the gritty atmosphere that the first two seasons had. Gone are the episodes with consequence and realism, and instead the writers chose to make just about every character immortal and immune to any sort of pushback for the insane decisions they make. Nobody learned their lesson from Mizu, and its events ultimately meant nothing since none of the characters even sustained so much as a slightly inconvenient injury. The person who suffered the most was Chilton and that’s just because now he has an ugly blotch on his cheek, and he got his injuries in a random mid-season episode, what the fuck kind of decision is that? Couple that with the bizarre and poorly acted new characters like Chiyo and Francis, and batshit crazy plot points, and you get a very mismatched set of episodes that are unrecognizable from what the show used to be. Of course evolution is ok, but that evolution into something more mystical and strange didn’t amount to anything. And that’s what makes this season a failure in my eyes, most story decisions amount to nothing. Alana and Jack being here made no difference, Chiyoh’s introduction and development made no difference, Chilton’s surprise reappearance made no difference, MIZU-FUCKING-MONO made no difference other than a brief location change for Hannibal, 90% of the story is just random scenes that don’t correlate to anything at all. And somehow, despite so much fluff and stupidity, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. So objectively this season is pretty fucking shit, but even after my long negative rant, I liked it a lot and TWOTL has left me so happy so 🤷‍♂️ I’ll give it a low 3.5