i wanted to hate adam scott going into it, but adam the actor seems to disappear the mark the character comes to the foreground pretty quick
Just got myself up to speed with Season 2. Very much enjoying - some phenomenal performances, and the whole thing is a step up for sure in terms of its 'confidence' and execution. Slightly worried that, in S2 being "bigger in scope" than S1, it's giving them more things to tie up. Season 1 felt a lot tighter in terms of its ambition and the story it was trying to tell - here, it feels like the world is a lot bigger; I just hope they can satisfyingly bring everything together. And a la Lost, some of the intentional weirdness seems like it's 'weird for the sake of weird'. Like, introducing the whole new MDR team in Episode 1 only to remove them ... I get the point was Mark won't work without *his* team, but it didn't really land for me, and felt like it was trying to be 'out there' & disorientating. On which note, not sure why Mark/Helly/Dylan now don't pull a similar stunt, and say they won't work unless Irv is allowed to come back? Last gripe: Whereas it made sense, I guess I didn't like that Reghabi knew Gemma was still alive, and was going to tell Outie Mark anyway. For me, it's retroactively detracted from the Season 1 finale: the Innies' plan to take over their Outies' bodies for a spell unwittingly yielded Outie Mark realising his wife was still alive - but if Reghabi was just going to tell Outie Mark anyway, that's a little annoying as a viewer. But absolutely buzzing for the second half of the season.
The thing that needs to be remembered between Season 1 and Season 2 is the fact that Season 1 was like one of the first shows to start back up filming during the pandemic. So I do wonder if that impacted the world building/bigger in scope aspect or if they truly planned to have Season 1 be more contained before opening it up.
I think of all the things in season 2 to think of as being weird just for the sake of being weird, the new team is the least deserving of that. Like there are goat farmers. That’s not weirder to you?
I have no issue with the goat folks I just feel like if you’re gonna pick out something “weird for the sake of weird” new coworkers isn’t one of them.
The new team served a role in the story. I can see being a little taken out of the story though by the extra-textual element of casting interesting known actors. That sorta puts the idea in the audience’s mind that these new characters are here to stay and then, after they get abruptly canned, you go “you got me, Ben Stiller!” I think it’s fun but it is def more meta than they usually get.
It’s ok for people to have gripes not everything has to land the same with everyone. I thought both the new team and the goat people was head scratching but a show like this I am waiting for it to come back around
For me I'm just super into the ride so like, bring on goat people. Whatever haha. I'm actually enjoying the weird lies Lumon tells innies like that Kier could fly, or that a pretty average waterfall is the largest on the planet. Just bananas unnecessary lies.