Goodbye, Pastor Zadman. The end of the series The third season of "St. Mike" was a disappointment - perhaps against the background of the first two, which became a natural continuation of each other, or maybe because, like many films and TV series, its production interrupted the lockdown. But the same natural transition between stories did not happen.
First of all, the story in the third season is more chaotic and chaotic. If previous seasons showed us the re-education of a “bad” guy who became a pastor of the Catholic Church, then in this case the story is aimed at a denouement. Pastor Zadman - Mike - from the very first series begins a confrontation against the queen of the mob. Not to say that everything revolves almost only around this - as usual, the pastor interacts with parishioners who have their own problems, tries to improve relations with the girl and generally does the same things as before, but now only with a real threat in the form of serious detractors.
The first two seasons earlier in the review I dubbed warm and lamp. In the third season, from the cute guy, played by the actor of Russian origin Daniel Donskoy, it seems, only reddish hair remained, but the look has become more tense and in general it gives the impression of a man very tired of everything. The season is limited to only 8 episodes. Thus, the season is devoid of its former charm - it is a completely different story, where all attention is switched to crime as much as possible.
First of all, the plot suffered. The arches of the characters and the number itself are reduced to the maximum. Many of the hanging guns in the series did not shoot. There is a strong feeling that the project wanted to close as soon as possible. The series had problems with logic before and in general the narrative was more balanced at the level of a fairy tale story, but it was still interesting to watch. Here the story is narrowed to several storylines, some characters are thrown out as unnecessary. We will never know how a number of important characters will react to Mike’s reincarnation.
That's not what I wanted. I want as many people as possible to know who Mike is. I want the whole village to thank him for the things he's done, and he's done a lot. I wanted him to be a pastor because, as I wrote earlier, he was as convincing as he could be. As it turned out, a number of characters were one-day heroes, although initially they did not seem so. There was a feeling that the hero himself was not given enough time to reflect on what was happening and realize how much he gave the place where he fell by chance and how many fates he changed, and how he changed it.
The fact is that the town of Leiterberg became, in fact, one of the main characters of the narrative and there is a feeling that he was never given credit. When viewing the first two seasons, it was thought that the series could become an elegant metaphor for the return of residents of large cities to small ones long before they flourished, not only because of the fresh air, but also because of the simplicity of morals, the strength of moral principles and persistent mutual assistance. There is a friend of the main character wanted to leave this backwater with all her might, then Mike seemed to have found his native home. And despite his attempts to leave, he had to find comfort. But, apparently, all this remains only a fantasy of the reviewer.
Initially, this project attracted me precisely with a good plot, excellent acting work - even minor characters - as well as excellent picture quality. The focus on crime may seem like a logical conclusion to the story, which, in fact, revolved around this. But in the end, everything ends in confusion and in fact does not give us answers to the fate of the protagonist and his companions.
Sadly, the end of the project with such potential was not the most impressive, but it is worth thanking the creators for being able to complete the project with the conditions of the pandemic.