#that just feels like a pointless plotline that is taking up time that could've been spent on other things

[greyedian]

MAN I'm seriously so sad about season 2. Bc I wish act 2 had the same emotional impact on me as it appears to have on so many others. But rn I'm just somewhere between unable to care and actively annoyed by some of those writing decisions. Seriously the more I think about it the less I like it.

[clericsandpaladins]

I find Season Four to be quite interesting in that the Duffers have confirmed that originally it was meant to be the last season, but they had to split it for the sake of pacing. Season Four is less of it's own season and more of the set-up for Season Five and that tells us a lot about the plots in Season Four.

I've seen a lot of people argue about the purpose of the California and Russia plotlines considering that they are so disconnected from what we could call the main plot, which is Vecna. But the Duffers are NOT bad writers. They had an extra six months to work on and revisit their scripts. Everything in Season Four was very intentional, which is why I choose to give the California and Russia plotlines the benefit of the doubt. Do they seem pretty pointless? Yeah, right now they do. But when you think about it, we are only seeing half of the story here. Season Four and Five were meant to be ONE season.  Hopper's prison break is only half of the story, we don't yet know the true purpose for reviving him and spending so much time getting him out. We needed to get Hopper away so that El could spend this season continuing her ongoing arc of self-discovery and independence. What we don't know is why we need Hopper back and that's the question I think will be answered in Season Five. You don't kill and revive characters for no reason because it takes away the stakes in your story. By doing that, you're making your audience less invested in the safety of these characters because they KNOW there are no consequences. So then why did the Duffers spend a quarter of Season Four getting Hopper back, despite it's irrelevance to the plot until the very end where they help to defeat Vecna? That's the question that Season Five will answer. The California group go on a big road trip trying to find El. Seemingly the only purpose for this is to be able to find El so she can get to the pizza freezer and help Max, making the rest of the stuff they do pretty irrelevant. Right? Wrong. Because, once again, this is set-up. We are only seeing half of the story the Duffers wanted to tell. So then what is actually happening in this plotline? Certainly nothing much with Jonathan. But what we do spend most of this plotline doing is showing the development of Mike and Will's relationship. They start off awkward, they argue, they have heart-to-hearts. The majority of this plotline is dedicated to showing us how Will and Mike interact and behave around each other. You know how it all ends? With a chekhov's gun in the form of Will's painting and his veiled love confession. If the Duffers are indeed good writers, then they have to address this is Season Five, once again showing us we are only seeing half of the story.  Because of the chekhov's gun, we know that Will's feelings for Mike have to be addressed in Season Five. If they aren't, then what was the point of the painting in the first place? We didn't need it for Mike to confess his love to El. El dying should've been enough for Mike, but it wasn't. Will reminding Mike of what happened in the van is what lead to his love confession. The painting has a purpose, it just hasn't been addressed yet. Similarly, if this emotional arc with Mike and Will ends with no change in their relationship, then what was the point? There was no need for Will to be in love with Mike to show his queerness. They could've introduced a new love interest for Will like they did with Dustin and Robin. But they didn't. Will's inevitable confession to Mike needs to result in a change for the California plotline to have a purpose, otherwise the narrative wasted all that time building up to nothing. Not to mention the fact that Will is the key to tying up Mike's arc. Mike feels like he isn't needed by El and this is a major insecurity for him. He spends most of Season Four worrying about this and so in order for his ending to be satisfying, we need to resolve this insecurity and prove him wrong. Yet, Season Four ended with El realizing she had value as a person outside of her super powers and that she doesn't need another person to feel whole. She is her own superhero. But you know who does need Mike? Will. In conclusion, these plotlines aren't useless. They are set-up. EDIT: I wrote this at 2am lol. Wish I would've waited and edited the post a bit but alas 2am thoughts are never edited.

[steveharrington]

https://youtu.be/HZOppCkC5UM

what do you think of this?

i think some good points were made! and also some bad points were made! i will break it down sorry if this is long but i love talking about st as you all know and this guy packed a lot of discussion into 10 minutes!

good points: he's absolutely 100% right about jonathan and joyce losing their Point in the story. it's so so so obvious specifically with jonathan that he was written and conceived to serve the plotline that revolved around his family, and when he's taken out of those relationships he's basically.....nothing. i've never seen anyone point out how jonathan didn't really need the nancy/steve plotline in s1 because it only really diluted his A plot centered around will before, but it's so true. i also strongly agree with his point about the russia storyline and how taking the characters out of hawkins and trying to bring in the world at large is a big mistake. it's one reason why i felt the russia plotline in s4 specifically was so hard to watch and literally had me wanting to skip every time the scene cut to hopper/joyce/murray because like.....why should i care about this! im invested in whats happening in hawkins, in vecna, and like the california plot okay fine it's tangentially related to hawkins and it brings back brenner etc but the russia stuff just feels so far removed and pointless. also he's so right about the tone of s3 feeling off specifically with scoops troop and how they tried to make a very serious dark plotline into a slapstick comedy.

bad points: the story is not all about will. sorry i will never buy into and subscribe to the whole "it starts and ends with will" thing and that's not even me being a hater, that's just me watching season one and understanding that el is just as relevant to the story as will. the author of this video essay sets up the s1 storyline and concept for the show as a whole as if it was Only ever supposed to be about will going missing and the results of that, which completely ignores the fact that we still have an entire parallel dimension and government sanctioned child testing lab to talk about? if the story was only about will going missing, it didn't need to be about supernatural elements at all. it could've literally just been will getting lost in the woods. but will's disappearance is the entry point for our characters into the upside down, and once they're aware that it exists, it can't just be nicely tied up in a little bow at the end of s1 and everyone moves on with their lives. i will never understand the "stranger things shouldve been one season!!!!!" argument because like how on earth can you expect joyce to get her kid back from the parallel dimension that also ate another teenager, with the lab that tortured a child still operating in their town, and just be like oh okay its over? HUH? like there's no further implications to discuss, no consequences of these discoveries? will went to hellworld and hid from a monster and he's just fine now that he's back home? we're just gonna all ignore it? whew sorry anyways im really defensive over s2 and i hate the suggestion that it's like hastily cobbled together just for the sake of a sequel when really it's such a rich season full of necessary and fascinating further exploration into the UD, the effects it had on the characters, the trauma they endured, etc.

new paragraph but still talking abt the bad points. i also don't agree with the assertion that s4 ended with everything tied up nicely and all the characters having closure. in fact i really don't understand how anyone could reach that conclusion (sorry to the author of that video essay if ur out there) like how can you watch the s4 finale and think "yeah everyone's pretty much good" like hello? eddie's death traumatized dustin and im sure there'll be conflict over the decisions made that led to it, max is literally in a coma, lucas still hasn't received any sort of closure or resolution irt any of his experiences or feelings, will still feels alienated within his friend group and tied to the UD, el still views herself as a monster, nancy/steve/jonathan are an absolute mess with no resolution either relationship-wise or just like personal storyline-wise. even if you don't care about these characters, or you feel like they were never important, the show can't just drop them into oblivion and leave each of their storylines unresolved. and that's what'll happen in s5.

also saying the agent orange speech was the best aspect of the russia storyline is um.....interesting. to me its not "bringing hopper back to his emotional roots" its a very lazy rehashing of the story arc he already overcame i.e. blaming himself for sarah's death and feeling like a black hole. like we already did that. and now we're doing it again

all in all i think the general thesis of the video is very correct--s5 is not going to be very good. the writers have written themselves into a corner, many of the characters have ceased to serve any function, and the non-stop action that the duffers keep teasing is going to feel like a different show and probably not play to the strengths of the series, which is character work and dynamics. and also he's right aliens is the best sequel ever <3

[the-ace-with-spades]

I've had mixed feelings about this season of 9-1-1...

Some of the issues about this season are, I'm pretty sure, caused by how short it is and the pacing being messed up for a lot of plotlines there.

The first two episodes felt overstretched to me, like the whole cruise bit could have been fit in two episodes instead of three - the third cruise ep was better but that's because it was oversaturated with characters and side plots and you couldn't compress that much of it. The first two just felt very slow and had put a lot of boring exposure on Lola and Norman that didn't really parallel the struggles Athena and Bobby had that well in my mind. 9-1-1 was always really heavy on narrative parallels in episodes (rescued people's dilemmas paralleled the crew's personal problems and guided them to have a look inwards into their own lives - it's quite common in procedural dramas and serves well if done with heart) but this time it feels very disconnected and mismatched.

Buck's arc was mostly good, very in character and paced in a way that didn't feel very rushed - stuff happened fast but it still felt realistic and natural. I do think it could've been done more in depth and show Buck's thought process more in some occasions but it wasn't bad.

I didn't like the wedding episodes as much as I thought I would (Jennifer and Kenneth were brilliant acting wise tho). I have a big problem with how Maddie's relationship with her and Buck's parents is treated in the show (mostly I don't think 'the united front' was really there as much as the writers tried to push but that's a typical depiction of 'parents are always going to be your parents no matter how shitty and deserve countless second chances' that you see in media and never like) but the idea of a huge wedding for Maddie and Chim seemed so out of character for them and the hospital wedding was also less private and romantic than what I'd imagine for them. I didn't like the bachelor party bit, it seemed very pointless to me and took some time from Chim's story that could give it a better pacing. Not to mention the depiction of encephalitis was very jarring as someone who actually had treated patients with encephalitis...

Eddie's arcs are... well, a bit ridiculous this season. Marisol has zero depth from the beginning, adding that whole almost a nun background didn't make it better. It might be just me, but in the scenes where Eddie is alone (not with another main cast member) he almost seems to be lacking personality?? Like his behaviour feels like a plot device more than something that matches what we could see of him beforehand?? The Catholic guilt took the worst turn possible with the whole nun bit, there's so many ways you could show Catholic guilt without making it about something as shallow and impersonal as having sex with an ex almost nun. It's literally not related that much to what Eddie's Catholic guilt (that is implied to have existed for years in him) would relate.

Kim is a whole other thing. Not an affair but still feels like an affair. The most unrealistic, farfetched way to deal with guilt and resentment for your dead wife ever. People don't just meet doppelgangers of their dead wife and decide to use them to deal with their issues and said doppelgangers don't just agree to it and find it normal. It's just some messed up way to push Eddie into that direction faster but it's just taking away the complexity of Eddie's feelings about Shannon and pushing it into a couple of short scenes that seem like they were taken out of a bad soap opera.

Mara's story line is...ugh. Look, foster kids in TV are my pet peeve. Especially troubled foster kids and the way people treat them and how people treating them is portrayed. Karen wanting her rehomed the minute she showed troubled behavior took away a lot from her for me, even if she retracted later, this just shouldn't be the first instinct of a foster parent and should not show. The way how they portrayed the whole investigation of Mara's past also pissed me off - this is not how it'd look in real life, so many of the foster parents just don't know what happened to the kid and have to work on figuring it out with the kid, on earning their trust by putting actual work into the relationship than just playing a detective and finding out how they got 'messed up'. Denny is literally having the most empathy out of all of them and that's just so bad. The way Mara magically opened up in such short notice and seems to be now an angelic child that trusts Hen and Karen completely is also something so jarring.

Involving a councilwoman into it all felt like such an overinflated way to stir trouble again. The realistic problems foster parents and adoption parents face are much more mundane than a whole ass politician suddenly deciding to run a vendetta on Hen. Hen and Karen are lesbians and black, Hen works a demanding job with long hours. CPS could get fussy about such a small thing as a teacher that is not the most tolerant reporting them for late pickups or forgotten lunches or even someone from social services Mara isn't making enough progress fast enough. The adoption judge themselves could be biased towards them and make the process difficult. There's so many ways it could have been done without involving the councilwoman and the incidents Hen's been either cleared off charges or acted with the protocol. That is, in my opinion, a cheap way to make it a conflict that is relying, emotionally, on hating the villain only (the councilwoman) and not showcasing the real struggles Karen and Hen could actually have, which would take time to expose in plot.

I did like Bobby's episode(s). A lot. Amir, as a character, is well rounded as well, it's just that any time other characters interact with him, they just seem to be acting so illogical and out of character - this is mostly about Maddie and Athena, I can understand why Bobby would act the way he does. I think Bobby is by far one of the best explored characters in the show and they didn't mess it up this season like they've done with the rest - the rest feels actually a bit two dimensional almost.

On another note, this season feels like a drama rather than procedural drama. I barely remember any rescues and emergencies and the ones that happened were really short and uncomplicated and brought almost nothing into the episodes.

[shasta-reese]

Finale Part 1 (6x19)

I can't believe this is the last time I'll be writing an episode critique for Supergirl, it feels surreal. But nonetheless I have thoughts and I will voice them. For once I am writing this while watching the full episode so I can do this chronologically for once, I already know what happens from watching clips on Youtube but there might've been scenes that weren't available so here ya go, one last ride:

- Lex is a great villain but I still hate that he's stuck around for so long, personally I would've liked his arc to have ended in season 4 as more of character to highlight Lena's character development. Instead of this Lex/Nyxly bullcrap they put on. I also hate that we have Nyxly as the main villain for the season and she's great but somehow they force Lex into her plot. Just wished they left Nyxly as the solo villain of the season

- You know ngl kinda wish they went through with letting Alex kill Lex with her bare hands lol.

- I get Alex and Kelly's mindset of doing whatever it takes to get Esme back obviously but in getting Esme back by giving up the Totems would've been pointless cuz the first thing Nyxly probably would've done with the All Stone would have been to kill them

- I do appreciate that Nyxly really doesn't have any intention to hurt Esme in any way. She just wants the totem and its unfortunately connected to Esme. Like the whole episode she's trying to make Esme as comfortable as possible and preventing Lex from hurting her, it was nice (yes I understand she kidnapped Esme but you know what I mean)

- I really don't understand why they introduced the Lex/Nyxly romance arc since according to what we've seen, everything that Lex stands for is opposite to what Nyxly stands for. It also shows that that Lex doesn't really know Nyxly at all considering he keeps proposing things that Nyxly would never do (eg. hurt an innocent child, trust any man who has hurt women). Also how far in the future is this Lex from?

- Like they say this Lex is from the future but did he live in the future? or is he our present day Lex who went to the future and saw his future self with Nyxly? And if he's from the future then where the fuck is present day Lex? Also they said he had 31st century tech which also doesn't make sense cuz that's 10 centuries from now so it's impossible for Lex to still be alive then. Nyxly might be cuz she's an imp but still, idek did I miss something?

- Seeing Lena and Andrea interact is always so interesting because they are essentially childhood friends. It's such a shame that they never fully utilised their relationship in the plots. It would've been so relevant with Lena finding out she has magic and Andrea also having magic, Andrea being isolated, making terrible decisions is like how Lena was in S5. They could've leaned on each other and rebuilt their friendship like we thought since that scene in 5x19. But all we got were like 2 bland phone calls and 2 pep talks from Lena to Andrea. Truly a waste of talent considering they had Julie and Katie playing the characters.

- I fricking love Lillian (as a character, she's a horrible person). Just her laugh at the prospect of Lex being in love is exactly how everyone else reacted when they revealed the plotline. Ah Lillian, how I love how you tower over your ego-maniac son.

- Hey Nyxly, babes how 'bout we not traumatise Esme further by telling her your dad was a mad man who tried to slit your throat as a child, huh? thank yew

- Man, Chyler in that armoury scene was great, just the pure emotion of it all makes me wish we had more scenes at this level of intensity.

- God, Brainy and Nia really have my fucking heart :')

- Lol the Three Fates just reminds of Charlie from LoT. I miss them

- Alex and Kara arguing just makes me mad cuz like yeah Alex, Kara's plan might not work but handing over the Totems will also likely be the cause of your deaths cuz Lex would kill you all without a second thought. No plan is a guarantee but seeing as how Lena could still use magic at the bridge, ya'll could've thought of a plan eventually. Also Alex telling Kara she would never forgive her if something happen to Esme is a little bit of a low blow

- Lillian and Nyxly meeting was sure... something. Also thank you Lillian again for emphasising that Lex is incapable of love which makes the whole plotline make absolute zero sense. I do love Lillian manipulating Nyxly so effortlessly, just one convo and she was able to mess her up lol. Really shows how good Lillian is at manipulation.

- I'm in by no means an expert here but pretty sure basically knocking out the sun for SIX MONTHS is NOT just a small drawback

- Lena once again seems to be the only person who is speaking reason and yet again is ignored. Do you hear her Kara? Do you? Yes you have to do something but this ain't it

- How much is Lex paying that man to still be his butler? Like, I get it you need a job but surely there are other rich, white men who need a butler who don't want to destroy the universe.

- Honestly I thought after the scene where Nyxly puts herself between Esme and Lex that her arc would end differently. I feel like at that point Nyxly could have returned Esme even without getting the Love Totem, because in that moment we saw that Nyxly is capable of caring for someone else. But who knows...

- Seeing Lex get "dumped" and read for filth was so satisfying

- Another thing, didn't they say that at the bridge all powers and tech wouldn't work but they still used tech and Nia had her powers??? Did I misunderstand something?

- It's honestly hilariously bad writing that they were fully ready to air strike Kara with the military but when Kara stopped using the sun and said sorry, they were just like 'oh okay, all good I guess, bye Supergirl'. Also how are they continuously evading any type of repercussions from the government? Like they've been causing so much chaos and property damage to the city the whole season, how are the Superfriends getting off scot free

- I know its supposed to be serious but I can't help but laugh a little at them basically playing hot potato with the All Stone. This fight was still better than the final fight in 6x20 though

- I really wish Lillian died saving Lena instead of Lex but its still in character for her to save any of her children tbh

- Love how they just never explain why Nyxly and Lex become lizard people after using the All Stone 🙃. Way to waste your money to CGI that, it was just unnecessary they served zero purpose

- But thank you SupergirlCW for Lena witness yet another parents death, let's just add that to the long list of trauma Lena already had. For fucks sake, Lena really had to witness both of her mothers' deaths huh. I know she's not dead yet but still

- Orlando's speech was great :)

Well that's the end of this episode. Personally I feel like this was what 6x18 should've been, a build up to the finale and not part of the 2-hour finale. It's not that bad of an episode if you overlook some obvious plotholes like the whole bridge thing. I initially wanted to write this for the entire 2-hour finale but this way too long already so I'm posting 6x20 separately. So that's all for this ep.

Goodbye, for now.

[old4sa]

Sorry To Bother You had a lot of interesting ideas, cool lighting and colors, some nicely set up framing, the costume design was fun, the design of the [spoilers] was kind of neat, but it desperately needed more editing to shorten it up and focus the plot. It was all over the place thematically and the pacing was bad.

Jokes dragged on for way too long, especially for a dark comedy where the surreal and upsetting aspects should be what's played for laughs more than dragging out a scene where two characters are dancing around being annoyed with each other. Just so much was dragged out to unnecessary lengths, meanwhile for the amount of movie that is there, it isn't clear enough in its purpose.

It didn't need so much focus on the middle managers, they should've been stepping stones for Cassius to rise to the top, they could've easily been reduced to a single character. We didn't need two scenes where he rides an elevator and they do the joke about the pin number being super long. Could've cut the scene where Cassius went in the VIP room at the bar. I also feel like the white voice and the [spoiler] should be for two different movies. The white voice puts the focus on race, but the [spoiler] and the focus on unions changes it to more class based and exploitation, but the movie then doesn't doesn't examine the race/class interplay past the characters verbally talking about race in a scene or two. It like doesn't link the two plotlines well at all.

Also the union leader trying to get with Cassius' girlfriend is such a pointless decision for the story, why would you undermine this character that represents the union by making him a douchebag adulterer who only wants health insurance at work because he has an STD, like what? If the direction of your story is pro union, I don't think that part can be played for laughs.

I was hoping for a payoff. There were times where I felt like it was building to something bigger, the picture he put up wherever he went, the football team was this recurring thing... Just a very distracted, disjointed movie. Kind of bummed about it because the conversation introducing the idea of the white voice is intriguing and the music whenever spoiler transformations were taking place reminded me of Us. But the big reveal happens and he's getting threatened with a gun except he's not and they're friendly and he gets to leave and warn others, all the momentum from the reveal just stops instantly. And then he goes on that stupid show where people get beat up so he can reveal to the world what's going on, so I guess that's the payoff for them showing that show over and over, he goes on it I guess. Every scene with that show should've cut it and he could've gotten the word out some other way. It doesn't really matter.

Make a movie about the white voice where it takes him over or he becomes corrupted by its power, it has a hypnotic quality and he can do whatever he wants, or the more he uses it the less sure he is that it's him speaking or maybe something speaking through him? Or cut out the white voice, he rises through the ranks of the business and sacrifices more of his friends and humanity to do it until he's at the top and he isn't phased by the spoilers because he's sold his soul too much, so we see how monstrous he's become by accepting the money, but one final thing is able to bring him back and question it. But doing both and struggling to make either impactful is disappointing.

I don't know, my thoughts aren't well organized but I only care because I think it had potential. I wanted to see where it was going, but tighter editing would've at least made the dual plots not feel quite so unwieldy. Simultaneously too much story to cover in one movie and not enough, they made the two plots super flat and didn't focus on either.

[greyedian]

eh fuck it, rbing to add my tags bc for once I'm somewhat confident in my takes, so I'm not hiding them in there lol (it's kinda long and rambly tho I do apologize. I'm still collecting my thoughts about it all)

#act 3 come through please 🙏 #I don't think it can salvage some of the things I have contentions with but still... please... #don't ask me about the silco vander flashback with jinxs + vis mom #or the bizzare choice to do so much of the storytelling through this weird music video format they've got going on #completely stripping it of the weight these plot beats could've had if they were... normal scenes #and also missing the point of how the music was used in season 1 and what made it so effective #bc it was complementary to instead of replacing the storytelling #seriously don't ask me about these things I will spontaneously implode on the spot

#whyyyyy would they recontextualize season 1 like this with that flashback #to me it kind of ruins the character dynamics and themes in s1. it just makes me so sad you have no idea #also what even are they doing with Jinx rn for real #aaarghhhh just... so many things that are making me scratch my head

#also I'm so terribly sorry but I could not care less about Isha sorry lol #like i get that its sad conceptually but she was such a non-character that i struggle to feel impacted at all #same with sky tbh. i thought her role in s1 was alright but there is so much emotional weight put on her now #in terms of her relationship to Viktor but that was barely established so it's weird to have her around #and clearly you're supposed to care but they haven't given me much reason to #isha and sky were non-characters just there to die to further the development of other characters #they didn't really have anything going on on their own and that's just a type of character and plot device that does nothing for me

#also i thought the war between zaun and piltover + internal struggles in zaun bc silcos gone would be the main focus #but that stuff seems so sidetracked rn

#also sorry i dont like what they did with vander and warwick either. that man should've stayed dead lol #it honestly just makes his death feel less impactful and i dont know what this is supposed to do for the story or the themes??? #that just feels like a pointless plotline that is taking up time that could've been spent on other things

#i just... i could go on like this for a while like there are so many things that just puzzle me #it's so weird considering how tight and thematically consistent season 1 was #let's see where act 3 goes but... i kinda have a bad feeling about it ngl #obv im glad others are enjoying it and this is just my opinion! also a lot of this is probs just my personal tastes anyway

MAN I'm seriously so sad about season 2. Bc I wish act 2 had the same emotional impact on me as it appears to have on so many others. But rn I'm just somewhere between unable to care and actively annoyed by some of those writing decisions. Seriously the more I think about it the less I like it.