I agree with all of that, LOL.
My friend who turned me onto the show five years ago-—just wouldn’t shut up until I watched-—was so disgusted by the end of the series that she was just, “All I need is for this show to be over.”
About Pope-—yeah, the showrunners never seemed to know what direction to take him in. It was back and forth, like you said. I’ll be honest, I got tired of his endless harping, and there are some jerk/villainous characters I absolutely love (Simcoe from TURN being a current one). Pope, though, had no redeeming features for me, no humor...he was just a PITA. Then they just made him cartoonishly evil.
And what was up with Anthony going along with Pope....just because Weaver took his gun away? What?
My husband was going on about the primitives killing the queen’s daughter with spears, apparently with no problem, and it took modern day Americans five years to get a grip.
Too bad Mystery Science Theater isn’t still around.
Pope did have one point: everybody did just accept Mason’s yarns at face value, and nothing bad ever happened to them. Heck Tom even got a wife upgrade thanks to the invasion, Anna was way hotter and nicer than what we saw of wife 1.
And then Anthony unPTSDs in a snap.
Joel Hodgson (main guy from MST3K) does rifftrax now, basically the same thing but it’s audio only so you play it while watching the movie (keeps him from needing to get the rights). Maybe if enough of us request it he’ll start doing Falling Skies riffs.