>>99456116The first three episodes can be looked at in different ways, either as one long episode or three different ones, but they still felt like Samurai Jack.
They go along the lines of what you could expect from the original seasons; long silence, fast paced action, barely any dialogue, mostly visual storytelling, great focus on backgrounds, both goofy and dangerous villains...
Aside from the increased level of violence and darker themes, it was still traditional Samurai Jack.
As a self contained story they worked fine.
However, the rest of the season had to change its tune somewhat, since it had a strict plot to follow in order to tell a story. And it wasn't a particularly metaphysical one that allowed for long pauses, silence and no dialogue, it was a relatively simple but very traditional kind of story. It required characterization, exposition, focus of multiple characters... Thus, they could not treat it like the original seasons. However, Genndy didn't bring back Samurai Jack to turn it into a regular action cartoon with familiar characters; he wanted to stick to the original's identity as much as possible.
So, we got a story that combined a traditional narrative with a episodic formula, a blend in which didn't really work. That's why it all feels so off, while the first three episodes, which stay focused and on point are so outstanding, not accounting how well directed, animated and written they are.
This is coming from someone who really enjoyed season 5 and wasn't too pissed off at the ending.
tl;dr The first three episodes are Samurai Jack while the remaining 7 are a blend in of SJ and a regular action cartoon
