With the way this show has always subverted expectations and thrown genre & boundaries out the window, I wasn’t expecting a by-the-numbers final season at all. Bill Hader deciding to go full auteur mode in this final season & direct all the episodes was a very clear sign of that. Hader’s previous directing credits for this show were always probably the most surreal, outright insane, WTF episodes the show has aired. To be clear, Hader absolutely directs the hell out of this thing. You’re not gonna find a better directed season of television this year I’m willing to reckon. But he also frequently takes this final season into odd & unfamiliar territory in a way that I could see as polarizing to some. There’s a major twist halfway through the season that made it very clear this show wasn’t gonna end in a way that left everyone satisfied. Personally, I loved it a lot. The final season kicks into high gear, becomes the darkest it’s ever been & the scariest it’s ever been, but still has bits & pieces of comedic zaniness as a perfect form of levity. And the main actors absolutely understood the assignment & frequently knock it out of the park. And given this show’s penchant for frequently making fun of Hollywood (especially in this final season), the final scene of the final episode makes a whole lot of thematic sense when you think about it, even if it will probably leave some viewers scratching their heads. Because this final season constantly swings for the fences, there were certain aspects I was unsure of even if they left an intriguing impact. Which is why I hesitate to give this a perfect score, I feel like I need to rewatch this final season to get a better feel for those specific points of the show. So for now a 4.5 will do. But as a whole, this season was a great sendoff for one of tv’s most daringly bold experiments.