A Series of Unfortunate Events

I finished the Netflix series today. It was kind of thrilling to go into a final episode of a show and have literally no idea what to expect. When the entire premise of a story is that things will always go sideways, your best efforts will inevitably backfire, and happy endings are a myth, how do you manage the endgame in a way that's narratively satisfying without betraying everything that came before?

It's a hard problem, and I wouldn't say they managed it perfectly, but overall I was happy with it. ( Putting a spoiler behind the cut. )

I kind of want to watch the whole thing again, with all the information, to see how it all hangs together. Definitely I prefer it to the books. I read the first six, and found them somewhat repetitive. And you basically don't learn anything at all about the conspiracy, which is the most interesting part of the story to me, until right at the end of book 6, which was too late to keep me reading. ( More spoilers, pretty vague. )

The cast is fantastic, as is the production design. It's not a show to watch if you aren't up for something gray and moody -- the aesthetic pervades the entire series, and it's super effective. But if you are, and can tolerate scenes of child endangerment, I definitely recommend it.