Now at the halfway point of Season 2, I am the firm belief that it will not be as good as Season 1. There's a lot going on while at the same time nothing is really happening to move the plot forward. Each episode has had it's share of filler, but this one takes the cake! This episode might actually be worse than the mediocre S2 premiere. While the acting for the most part is still top notch, the storytelling is incredibly slow and random and a lot of this season has felt like filler. It used to be that the past subplot was the best and tightest storytelling, but now it's just as bad as the present day storylines.
First, there's this random, undercooked subplot between Misty and this magical new character Crystal, who didn't even exist in Season 1. There's no way that this girl was with the group all of Season 1 and no one ever called her out on her odd behavior. What was she doing, hiding in the woods or something? Misty and Crystal had all of like 1.5 scenes this season before the writers had Misty reveal her big secret about destroying the plane's black box to keep them stranded, Crystal turning on her, then Misty going psycho and forcing Crystal off the cliff and killing her. Why should anyone care about this random girl that literally only had significant scenes with Misty? And they only ever had ONE real scene together. After an entire season of building up and developing Jackie and Laura Lee as characters for them to have tragic, impactful deaths, the writers create this annoying Crystal character with no depth, then just kill her off halfway through the season with the cliche of her backing away while on the edge of a cliff. Incredibly lazy writing. Their whole exchanging secrets interaction right before Misty's big reveal was cringe, talking about stuff that sounds more like how writers THINK teens interact with each other than how they actually do, trying hard to ingratiate these 2 already weird characters with cheap toilet humor. It felt like I was watching 2 teens from a Nickelodeon show. Also, what was all that kissing each other's hands after revealing secrets nonsense, especially since they were doing it while dumping excrement?
To the other past stuff, what did Shauna think she was going to accomplish running off into the frozen woods by herself? Did she think she and her baby had a better chance in the middle of nowhere with no food of shelter? How was she going to deliver her baby by herself? Then there's Lottie with all this "feel the wind, feel the trees" nonsense. And after almost an entire episode of being silent, Javi finally decides to talk by throwing out some vague reply to Ben about some mystery woman telling him what to do. The show is being purposefully obtuse just to drag everything out and make it more mysterious than it really is. Something else I've noticed about the show this season is it's "meta'" commentary on itself, like that background girl jokingly saying that Javi is a ghost, which mimics all the outlandish online fan theories about this series. It's like these writers have started breaking the 4th wall and slowly turning this show into some parody of itself. And while I've noticed a lot more profanity this season, this episode took it to a whole new level! Every other word out of the characters' mouths was swearing. It reminded me of Season 1 of The Leftovers where half the dialogue felt like profanity. It's like modern writers think swearing somehow makes dialogue sound more realistic. Speaking of, the 90s dialogue is starting to sound suspiciously modern. They are adopting 2020s slang for the 90s timeline which is making it not feel like the 90s anymore. All of the incredibly naturalistic and era-appropriate dialogue from Season 1 has all but disappeared in Season 2 in favor of constant profanity and obnoxiously self-aware humor.
Second, to the adults. What is going on with Adult Tai's sleepwalking/split personality subplot? Every episode this season, she just walks around in a daze, looks in a mirror, then her alter ego tells her to go to the next pit stop. Hardly compelling storytelling. And after a season and a half of anticipation of Tai's reunion with Adult Van (admirably played by the talented Lauren Ambrose from Six Feet Under fame), I was underwhelmed by their interactions in this episode. A couple of episodes ago, Tai's alter says "go see Van" then in this one it's "go see Lottie". Then there was that weird scene of Lottie hypnotizing Nat and the latter revealing something about the darkness following them back to civilization. THIS is what the writers are resorting to for their storytelling, some supernatural force bringing all these women together? They've just completely abandoned their grounded, gritty plot of these adults suffering from the PTSD of their traumatic wilderness experience in favor of the supernatural. Are we supposed to believe that at the same time that Misty is conducting her search for Nat using her smarts and concrete investigative techniques that this mysterious force is just telling Tai where to find Nat using voodoo? And that the incredibly pragmatic Nat is now a believer in the supernatural? The show is going full supernatural and it feels forced.
And to cap off the adult stuff, Shauna's subplot with Callie and this annoying undercover detective (who looks like he belongs on a 70s TV cop show) is the worst writing of the adult storylines. Callie just conveniently finds out he's really a cop seeing his credit card bill at the bowling alley. Why would he use a card under his real name? Why not just pay cash for everything? Then she goes to her parents revealing she's been dating said cop, they concoct some dumb plan to make him think Shauna is really having an affair with Randy and not Adam, which shouldn't matter since there's already proof she'd been seeing Adam a ton during Season 1. I don't know, maybe she has MULTIPLE lovers! Lol And to cap it all off, the cops do exactly everything Shauna thinks they will do by breaking in to their room and checking for proof they had sex. It's like this subplot was written for a CW show.
And the episode as a whole was just too many subplots packed into an hour, with not a single one of them amounting to anything important. To make things worse, I think this episode had the worst ending of the entire show so far. At the halfway point of Season 2, I can safely say that this show is nowhere near as good as it was in the first season. The acting is the only thing saving it and that's not good enough. It needs an actual coherent plot and good writing (which the show had in Season 1). And the showrunners are supposedly going to stretch this story out to 5 seasons. Not only can I not see 5 seasons, but I can barely tell where they are going with Season 2.
First, there's this random, undercooked subplot between Misty and this magical new character Crystal, who didn't even exist in Season 1. There's no way that this girl was with the group all of Season 1 and no one ever called her out on her odd behavior. What was she doing, hiding in the woods or something? Misty and Crystal had all of like 1.5 scenes this season before the writers had Misty reveal her big secret about destroying the plane's black box to keep them stranded, Crystal turning on her, then Misty going psycho and forcing Crystal off the cliff and killing her. Why should anyone care about this random girl that literally only had significant scenes with Misty? And they only ever had ONE real scene together. After an entire season of building up and developing Jackie and Laura Lee as characters for them to have tragic, impactful deaths, the writers create this annoying Crystal character with no depth, then just kill her off halfway through the season with the cliche of her backing away while on the edge of a cliff. Incredibly lazy writing. Their whole exchanging secrets interaction right before Misty's big reveal was cringe, talking about stuff that sounds more like how writers THINK teens interact with each other than how they actually do, trying hard to ingratiate these 2 already weird characters with cheap toilet humor. It felt like I was watching 2 teens from a Nickelodeon show. Also, what was all that kissing each other's hands after revealing secrets nonsense, especially since they were doing it while dumping excrement?
To the other past stuff, what did Shauna think she was going to accomplish running off into the frozen woods by herself? Did she think she and her baby had a better chance in the middle of nowhere with no food of shelter? How was she going to deliver her baby by herself? Then there's Lottie with all this "feel the wind, feel the trees" nonsense. And after almost an entire episode of being silent, Javi finally decides to talk by throwing out some vague reply to Ben about some mystery woman telling him what to do. The show is being purposefully obtuse just to drag everything out and make it more mysterious than it really is. Something else I've noticed about the show this season is it's "meta'" commentary on itself, like that background girl jokingly saying that Javi is a ghost, which mimics all the outlandish online fan theories about this series. It's like these writers have started breaking the 4th wall and slowly turning this show into some parody of itself. And while I've noticed a lot more profanity this season, this episode took it to a whole new level! Every other word out of the characters' mouths was swearing. It reminded me of Season 1 of The Leftovers where half the dialogue felt like profanity. It's like modern writers think swearing somehow makes dialogue sound more realistic. Speaking of, the 90s dialogue is starting to sound suspiciously modern. They are adopting 2020s slang for the 90s timeline which is making it not feel like the 90s anymore. All of the incredibly naturalistic and era-appropriate dialogue from Season 1 has all but disappeared in Season 2 in favor of constant profanity and obnoxiously self-aware humor.
Second, to the adults. What is going on with Adult Tai's sleepwalking/split personality subplot? Every episode this season, she just walks around in a daze, looks in a mirror, then her alter ego tells her to go to the next pit stop. Hardly compelling storytelling. And after a season and a half of anticipation of Tai's reunion with Adult Van (admirably played by the talented Lauren Ambrose from Six Feet Under fame), I was underwhelmed by their interactions in this episode. A couple of episodes ago, Tai's alter says "go see Van" then in this one it's "go see Lottie". Then there was that weird scene of Lottie hypnotizing Nat and the latter revealing something about the darkness following them back to civilization. THIS is what the writers are resorting to for their storytelling, some supernatural force bringing all these women together? They've just completely abandoned their grounded, gritty plot of these adults suffering from the PTSD of their traumatic wilderness experience in favor of the supernatural. Are we supposed to believe that at the same time that Misty is conducting her search for Nat using her smarts and concrete investigative techniques that this mysterious force is just telling Tai where to find Nat using voodoo? And that the incredibly pragmatic Nat is now a believer in the supernatural? The show is going full supernatural and it feels forced.
And to cap off the adult stuff, Shauna's subplot with Callie and this annoying undercover detective (who looks like he belongs on a 70s TV cop show) is the worst writing of the adult storylines. Callie just conveniently finds out he's really a cop seeing his credit card bill at the bowling alley. Why would he use a card under his real name? Why not just pay cash for everything? Then she goes to her parents revealing she's been dating said cop, they concoct some dumb plan to make him think Shauna is really having an affair with Randy and not Adam, which shouldn't matter since there's already proof she'd been seeing Adam a ton during Season 1. I don't know, maybe she has MULTIPLE lovers! Lol And to cap it all off, the cops do exactly everything Shauna thinks they will do by breaking in to their room and checking for proof they had sex. It's like this subplot was written for a CW show.
And the episode as a whole was just too many subplots packed into an hour, with not a single one of them amounting to anything important. To make things worse, I think this episode had the worst ending of the entire show so far. At the halfway point of Season 2, I can safely say that this show is nowhere near as good as it was in the first season. The acting is the only thing saving it and that's not good enough. It needs an actual coherent plot and good writing (which the show had in Season 1). And the showrunners are supposedly going to stretch this story out to 5 seasons. Not only can I not see 5 seasons, but I can barely tell where they are going with Season 2.