Jackskeleton

Ha ha ha ha. expecting any sort of resolution or even character arc for Woodrugh. But hey, #redherrings is the new excuse for piss poor character writing.

Ropes Pierre

#johnfromcincinnatiseason2

if i had time i would rewatch it just to see if anything made the slightest bit of sense.

things i am confused about:

why honor woodrugh with a road? he was a cop shot in the back in some random building

how did the assistant/illegitimate daughter end up at the hooker parties? i thought they only used high class eastern european doctored call girls, not street walkers?

i think either ray had the tracker on him already and it led them to his son and he knew they would use that as leverage against him, or they put it on him at the school and NOW know about his son and where to find him. so he went to the woods.

i was yelling at the screen, "no don't get off at the exit/ why would you go to see your son now?" it was too tropey for belief. and frank couldn't spot a tail on him and act evasively? maybe they both had to die in this world, but did it have to be so stupidly?

uteotw

EXACTLY. Which is exactly what bothered me the most about the finale. Oh, AND he didn't get to upload his final words AND it was actually his son (even though there was less than zero resemblance). All of it, just lame and felt totally pointless.

Shannon Nutt

The theme song summed this season up for me: "never mind"

Honestly, if HBO wants the show back, they should demand someone polish Nic's screenplays after he writes them. This season was a complete mess, and it didn't need to be nearly as incoherent as it was.

Why So Blu?

Yeah, it was bleak. It doesn't mean it was bad. I understand how some of you wanted a skittles rainbow type of happy ending but it was not going to happen.

Why So Blu?

Out of guilt? They didn't want to demote him or remove him from his CHP duties but thanks to that lying actress broad he got fucked over.

slop101

Actually, he objected to the guy taking the jacket because he had the $3million diamond in his pocket. But the show didn't make that very clear.

Jackskeleton

How you can miss the point to most any post on here is beyond me. I don't see how anyone was clambering for a "skittles rainbow type of happy ending", but I guess that's your new "Haterz gonna hate" mentality to deflect people not enjoying the same thing you did.

For me, have a bleak ending if you want, but at least have it be earned. This shit was just all around pointless. Which is even more insulting than pandering to the audience.

Coral

It wasn't bad because it was bleak... it was bad because it was bad. Shit writing is shit writing.

This is it exactly.

I like bleak endings, but get from point A to B in an honest manner - don't force your way there by any means necessary. When it's forced, it's bad writing.

It was a shit season and it's hard to defend it.

Why So Blu?

No, you just wanted it to be like season 1.

Decker

It takes courage to kill off lead characters midway through the run of a series (or sometimes much earlier in the case of Game of Thrones). To kill off characters who are never going to be on the show again after an 8-episode series is just lame and feels like a short-cut to an emotional gut punch. And in this case, that gut-punch was severely diminished since these deaths were telegraphed for at least an hour before they happened.

And while I didn't buy a moment of the final (non-imagined) scene with Frank and Jordan, where they conspiciously toss wedding rings out the front door of a bus station, at least give Vince Vaughn credit for his decent impersonation of John Lithgow :
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1d8oqIXtjdo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Jackskeleton

In terms of quality and actually having a story told in good manner. Having an ending be earned? Yeah, a shock that I'd want that.

Why So Blu?

Well, the ending to the first season sucked ass.

Jackskeleton

It really didn't. But okay. Thanks for that description on why. Or wait, maybe you just wanted to read an H.P. Lovecraft novel instead?

Oddly enough, I enjoyed them telegraphing that Rust was going to die and that he was so ready to just go off into the distance darkness flat circle and... surprise surprise, didn't. Much more than I did this so heavy handed telegraphed deaths in this season. I mean, wrestlers do a better job at playing it closer to the chest.

slop101

Holly shit! Where are you getting this from? No one is saying that! We're saying we wanted it as good as S1, not the same - in fact, I don't think anyone wanted it to be the same, just the same level of writing/acting.
I thought it was fine. It didn't live up to the build up, but it didn't ruin the show or anything. It was earned.

Why So Blu?

I will say this had a better ending than season one. The first season had a great build up and then turned into a generic thriller towards the end. I liked that season a lot except the ending.

Jackskeleton

Sorry it turned into a giant #redherring, brah. But I thought S1 ending was perfect.

In fact, I loved that they actually had some character development and character arcs going. I loved how they were, in a subtle way, pretty much setting us up for Rust to die in the end. But he didn't and that his lack of death was a nice fake out as well as it changed him as a person. It was that push to the character that lead to a great speech that, unlike everything that came out of Colin Farrell mouth, Mathew Mcaunihay sold the shit out of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVlrNKtFLbM
There was nothing this season that even got close to that scene.


It may not have been some sort of dark cult H.P. Lovecraft lore pay off for all the subtle occult stuff. But every second of that ending was earned. S2's ending fucking dragged on for 30 minutes that it really do anything with.

johnnysd

Personally I thought season 1 was mostly crap as well, but the two leads are so good, and the direction so well done that it made the material seem elevated. But those 3 could probably make Scary Movie seem like a top comedy.

Season 2 was just crap. Even the finale.

They laid the foreshadowing on so heavy " two weeks...or less.. in the park" blah blah blah that I actually thought the twist would be they all get away with it. But other than that just dumb and convoluted.

Will likely watch Season 3 if it is made to witness the train wreck.

jacob_b

So basically, what you are saying, is that this season is like the entire series of Pretty Little Liars and stay the hell away from it?

Gunde

Yes to the last part. Stay away from season 2.

Jackskeleton

You see, the biggest misconception is that season 1 ended on an upbeat note. The bad guy still won. Yeah, sure, the pederast got taken down and the case was, for the most part, finally resolved to some degree. But what's common in this season as with the last is that you have characters who are trying to defy entrenched power and eventually lose. The yellow king wasn't the biggest villian in the first season, but then again, you didn't see the political level higher ups standing in the back of a door waiting to kill someone magically.

We're not looking for "skitties rainbow endings" because we never got one from this show. At best you can say that season 1's ending left it on a Hopeful note.

Showing the phone fail at the upload and seeing the paternity test just come off as cheap attempts at twisting the knife of the viewer's gut for shits and giggles and serves nothing for the actual show but to show complete bleaknes. Those things also take away from the actual important things going on in the story.

Why So Blu?

I had nothing against Rust at all. He was the best part but once they find out who spaghetti face is and how that played out - I didn't care.

Josh-da-man

I'll put it this way... DO NOT BLIND-BUY SEASON TWO, EITHER ON DVD, BLU-RAY, OR DIGITAL DOWNLOAD.

magiccmom

Hopefully we can avoid spoilers of Season 1 in this thread. Comparing it to Season 1 is making the conversation go there, and this thread is not about that. I've skipped the last bunch of posts, because I'm afraid of it going there!

Jackskeleton

How could you go into a season 2 of a show thread without expecting to hear at least something about season 1? I mean, I know it's anthology based... but.. wha?