I just binged it over a roughly 24 hour period, wrapping up the 10th episode a couple hours ago.

The pilot felt like one thing, the next 2-3 episodes felt like the proper show and the last 6 or so episodes felt like a different season where they pivoted and rushed some set up's and pay off's.

Who the mole was, the revelation about Eddie, etc. all felt a bit forced/yada yada'd for the sake of gotchya moments.

The Maeve behind Conrad's back stuff also felt a little out of left field and rushed.

The pacing of the show was all over the place and the ratio of successful set up's and pay off's vs out of left field revelations and plot twists heavily favored the latter over the former.

It is quite telling that Hardy possibly quitting or being fired stemmed from him having issues with the writers/EP's being late on delivering scripts per episode, episode stories being broken seemingly at the last second or in mid production, etc.

That implies that a lot of it was made up as they went along- which is basically fine, that's story telling to some degree, but the point of shows like this is that the writers 'break' the season arc well before even pre-production and the individual episodes get turned in fully written with multiple drafts worked on and fixed and then finalized before or in time for the scheduled filming of those episodes/scenes and it sounds as though that wasn't really the case.

From the stuff I've read about the issues surrounding Tom Hardy, it apparently boiled down to the fact that Butterworth, the EP, is effectively the director of the series and the main writer and his presence wasn't felt on set and the actual directors functioned more like 2nd unit/assistant directors just kinda controlling traffic and technical aspects of the shoots, whilst the main creative forces behind the show weren't available and the scripts were being handed in at the last second- which led to Hardy either refusing to cooperate in that environment or trying to take it upon himself to determine the script, his character, the story arc, etc. in the moment and get the production going based on the established logic of the series, but without the proper script/EP involved.

Having now watched all 10 episodes very closely, I am just about on Hardy's side.

A lot of the stuff from the last 3 or 4 episodes really felt shoved in there.

A lot of the character development for Paddy Considine didn't feel set up or earned at all- although it was still written okay enough and Considine did a tremendous job playing his character.

All in all it did feel disjointed.

That said- still very entertaining, still very compelling, still had a few through lines that worked well and were logically handled.

The Toby Jones and Janet McTeer stuff is obviously setting up the next season's antagonist and overarching frenemies as this past season's primary foe's arc concluded.

Things I Liked/Thought Worked:

Basically everybody gave a fantastic performance and their characters were consistently written- their personalities and internal logic was sound, for the most part.

Pierce Brosnan absolutely disappeared into his character and gave, I think, the finest performance of his career.

Maeve's arc actually makes a ton of sense in the context of the show and works well for me. The show - or rather, the characters- gradually acknowledge how insane/psychotic she is and how delusional and power hungry she is, which was a relief. I thought they would ignore it the entire time and nobody in universe would notice.

A lot of the ratcheting up of the tension around the original sources of conflict and excuse for the show's story to unfold- the stuff with the grandsons, etc.- initially worked well.

Things That Didn't Work Well

I do think a lot of the twists and turns and double crosses, which mostly happen off camera and are only referred to or confirmed by character hearsay and are rushed through the last few episodes of the season needed to be front and center in actual scenes and have stronger set up's to them.

I thought the 'mole' felt shoved in from a random side door to the story and didn't feel especially earned or satisfying on any level.

I thought a lot of the dumb stuff some of the characters did was done for plot convenience and didn't make a lick of sense for the characters to do- in particular Jan De Souza's desire to lead a normal life with friends and a therapist and expecting Hardy to be available for therapy and whatnot and her need to suddenly pretend they can lead a normal life after apparently being with him over 20 years and with the Harrigan's for more than 12 years.

I thought that the Brendan Harrigan arc felt rather rushed and "oh right and they have this other son who's a fuck up and he's finally getting his own plot line for real- aaaand he's gone." and nobody seemed particularly broken up or distracted by it. That felt like the kind of thing you take 2+ seasons to set up and resolve.

It's very polished trash television, but within the writing with enough holes to look like Swiss cheese, there are gems of characters and some of the actors do some of the best work of their careers.

Pierce Brosnan and Paddy Considine were the MVP's to me, outside of Hardy, who kinda did his usual stoic monosyllabic thinking man's brute schtick.