‘The Bastard Executioner’ finale review: Is this vengeance?
If there was a major concern and criticism that we had throughout much of the first season of FX’s “The Bastard Executioner,” it was that for most of the season, it didn’t feel as though the stories were connecting enough for our liking. Luckily, it feels like this changed in a most desirable way on Tuesday night’s season finale. Was it enough for you to redeem the disconnect? That is something that will depend heavily on who you are.
Let’s start here with the craziest / most awesome part of the entire night: The Dark Mute setting himself on fire and then running around on a killing spree. Is he actually dead? We have no idea, but this battle involving Team Wilkin / Annora / a whole motley crew of people who never expected fighting Robinus (now gone) and his men proved to be worth the wait. We still don’t think Annora is as connected to anything as we’d like, but at least we understand her relationship to Wilkin more than in the series’ formative years.
Speaking on relationships, Lady Love and Wilkin are official now, right? Jessamy tried to mess things up as much as possible, including spilling the beans in front of Leon about his true identity, but to no real avail. Nothing’s standing in the way of Love and Wilkin for now, but we figure that if there’s a second season, Milus is not giving up this charge just yet.
Probably the big, interesting surprise of the entire finale, at least to us, was seeing that neither Wilkin nor Toran decided that Leon or Locke needed to die for them to find vengeance. They discovered it in other means. While at first this may feel almost incomprehensible given where we started, it was an evolution into non-violence. It was an executioner not feeling the immediate need to execute. We feel like in a way, Wilkin and his story went full-circle.
While we think there is certainly more to this story, Tuesday’s finale could serve as a fitting end to the show. we can imagine Wilkin and Love having a reasonably happy life, with at least some of his demons kept at bay. We don’t quite know if the show ever met our expectations, but it ended on a solid note with action, crazy moments, and a little romance rolled into one. Grade: B.