The show is suddenly being way too faithful to the source material's pace. I expect the show to be cancelled before they reach the fireworks factory.
As of the midseason break I was still thinking it was the best capeshit going. Now I'm not so sure. Show's either jumped the shark or at least hit one hell of a speedbump. I really thought they were building up to something there in 2B, but it managed to slow down even more and become repetitive. The few things that did seem to happen were immediately reset. In the first season, the A-plot and all of the subplots had some kind of closure. Season 2 didn't even have an A-plot, and all the B-plots are either "setting things up" or terminated with no consequence. Compare the season 1 finale, which was a genuine climax, to that gag montage of alternate universes. It's so underwhelming.
Kirkman's own hype for the next season isn't encouraging. The comics became completely ungrounded after a point and never made it back. Every character lives in outer space, every week a city blows up and a gorillion people die or a new saiyan shows up (with an even HIGHER power level), meanwhile the actual story inches forward at a snail's pace while becoming ever more contrived. Looks like they won't be deviating from the comic's plot as much as I hoped.
That running gag where the mummy shows up for 30 seconds at a time and nothing happens doesn't work when every plot on the show is like that.
But the problem with Kirkman and other writers like him is that he's so busy mocking what came before, all the while expecting to take it seriously when they kill everyone for shock and aww, it ends up feeling shallow and worse, it exposes how insecure the creators about their work.
tbh I don't find Kirkman to be much of a subverter of tropes. He's an unironic fanboy and he plagiarizes out of love of the source material, for whatever that's worth. He's edgy as all hell, but that's a different thing.
The first season fake killed its villains from what I remember. The robot villain with the microchip or the doc seismic character had faked deaths. Also if Levy comes back again that will be another fake death. "No one's ever really gone".
I thought Levy was 100% supposed to be dead in the comics and his return was a bullshit retcon when Kirkman changed his mind and wanted to use the character more. It's really odd if they adapt that straight, with the benefit of hindsight.
tbh, I suspect Donald was genuinely intended to be dead in season 1 of the show, and they talked themselves into bringing him back with muh comix accuracy as precedent. It's not foreshadowed and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
