🔫 Mirzapur lost me this season

I watched the new Mirzapur season in one weekend. I started Friday night and finished Sunday around 2 am. I loved the first 2 seasons, so I wanted to stay caught up with the story. By episode 4 I was checking my phone. That never happened with the earlier seasons. My tea went cold twice and I didn't notice, which tells you something about how it went. The early seasons had one clear problem driving everything. You always knew what these people wanted. This time there were too many small stories, and I kept forgetting who was supposed to matter. I had to ask my cousin who a certain character was, and he said he'd forgotten too. A few big moments came and I felt nothing. Earlier, the same kind of scene made me sit up. The acting is still good. A couple of the actors can hold a scene with only their face. But good acting on thin writing is like a nice plate with little food on it. My friend Salman disagrees. He says the story is just growing up and getting slower, like life. We argued for 20 minutes outside the shop and neither of us moved. Maybe I expected too much. When a show starts great, every new season has to beat a memory. I'll still watch the next one if it comes, because I want to know how it ends. Probably I'll complain again. Some of you must have a view, so tell me if I'm being harsh. Did anyone finish it and love it? I'd like to know what I missed.

I wonder if it's just the pressure to keep a hit going. I watch these late after work here in Houston.

The acting saved it for me. There was one scene near the middle where two people just talked in a room. I forgot to check my phone for 10 minutes, which almost never happens to me. That scene worked because of the faces, not because of the lines they were given to say.

Too many characters and not enough time, that's how it felt to me. A few storylines just got dropped. I kept waiting for them to come back to some of the side stories and they never did. A shorter season would have kept things tight. Cutting is hard when a show is this big, though. I'll still watch the next one, but I might skip the slow first couple of episodes again.