Looking forward to seeing where this is going. That Acker interview clip was awesome.
A little disappointed with the Samaritan plot up to this point, though. This show needs to relax on the cartoon villainy. I was a little disappointed with the Season 3 finale having Greer drink everybody's milkshake, and I'm pretty disappointed with Samaritan opening its mouth to announce to the world that it's a cliché Evil ASI. I thought the show was better than that.
I can still appreciate what the writers are trying to do thematically, especially with the parallels between the digital world and the street level stuff (Samaritan and Dominic both being ambitious upstarts trying to overthrow the established order) and I do think it's cool that there's an ASI in the fight trying to maintain order and protect humans, but the execution this season has left something to be desired. It's good, but I'm not feeling it as hard as Season 3 so far. That conversation between The Machine and Samaritan especially deflated a lot of the tension for me. They could have pushed that into much more interesting territory; Samaritan's worldview should at the very least should be compelling, and not so obviously "evil" from the moral perspective of our heroes. It takes the wind out of some of the earlier dialogue this season, such as Finch's speeches about the "nature" of AI, or questioning the ethics of their actions in the tablet-for-every-kid episode (it's no longer an ethical problem at all when Samaritan twirls its mustache). But we'll see what the writers have in store; the endgame could justify this and make it worthwhile.
