HELL'S TEETH - THAT SUCKED!
I wouldn't have even noticed the new season was out if
@SteelPlatedHeart hadn't bumped this thread. I'd more or less decided not to bother watching the new season based on how dislikeable the main characters in the S2 finale were and that the original writers were replaced to be more "diverse" (my post on this is further up the thread). But... I made this original thread and had written so much on the show. And the first two seasons were genuinely funny on the whole, even though skating the political line on occasion. So... I thought, I'll try it. And I also tried to put aside expectations and go in with an open mind.
It is fucking TERRIBLE! I want to say why but I am afraid my describing it will stir some curiosity and cause others to watch it. Read a book instead. It's trash.
I'll start with a positive. The voice actor for Joker continues to be good. And no kidding, that's the only positive that's coming to mind.
This isn't worth doing a full deconstruction on so I'm just going to do a lazy bullet point list and then hopefully this thread can just sink into oblivion and we all forget it exists.
- There's no story that in any way grips the viewer. S1 and S2 both had fun stories and drama and over-arching plot. This is like Bridget Jones with less tension.
- There is no actual wit at all. Humour appears to be mainly Poison Ivy saying "circle jerk" repeatedly and "but you love walking". It's only humour in the most insipid "I'm using an exagerated voice" style. S1/S2 had genuinely funny character humour like Dr. Psycho calling Wonderwoman a cunt and being denounced by the LoD over it; or King Shark's weakness for blood being revealed. Now the closest it goes to cleverness is King Shark yelling "My penises". Get it? Because sharks have two. So it's funny. Dear God the humour was weak.
- Ivy and Harley have zero chemistry. Like, zero. It might be odd to refer to chemistry between cartoon characters but at least with Ivy and Kiteman there was back and forth, embarrassment, sacrifice, attempts at flirting. Just... believable touches. This is just... platitudes.
- There's still the issue that Ivy and Harley are both horrible people for how they behaved towards Kite Man and how Harley behaved towards Ivy. She got Ivy heavily drunk (deliberately) at her hen party in order to sleep with her and break up her engagement with Kiteman. More on this later, but there's nothing that makes the characters likeable again for me.
- Musical number with Joker. Redeemed as much as it can be by the voice actor.
- Catwoman gets an award for best villain and gives a lecture on "you're only giving this to me because I'm Black" and "white guilt... blah blah". I'd like to suggest it was satirising the White privilege line in The Batman movie but... pretty sure it isn't.
- I don't need to see Riddler and Clock King in a homosexual relationship, I don't need to see them doing a 90's Will and Grace caricature of a homosexual for laughs, I don't want to see them kissing (it's funny because Clock King doesn't have a mouth, get it? If you didn't, don't worry - they repeat the joke at least twice more for you.)
- James Gunn, as himself.
- Billy Bob Thornton, as himself.
- The stillborn subplot involving both of the above.
- Really dumb, deus ex machinae resolution to the Kiteman situation. He's moved on, he forgives Ivy, Ivy and his new girlfriend instantly bond. The fact that he was genuinely in love with Ivy and she's immediately let off the moral hook for cheating on him twice and ditching him on their wedding day is a cop out. By suddenly showing that he's doing well and all is forgiven you actually just take away from Kiteman's character and make it look like he never had real feelings for Ivy in the first place. Nor does it make her behaviour okay. But clearly the writers think it does.
- The episode basically ends with Ivy and Harley having a "no, I should have realised..." one-upmanship conversation about understanding each other's needs. It's nauseating, false. And frankly inconsistent. And most especially, it's boring.
- Wildly inconsistent characterisation with previous season. Suddenly, Ivy is all talking about "social anxiety" and worrying that she chipped a nail before the awards show, etc. For two seasons she has never been anything like this. She's not afraid of social events. She just isn't much into them. But, I guess it doesn't matter if the character is rewritten to force into a 'dealing with other anxiety' storyline.
God this was awful. S1 and S2 sometimes had some woke moments and the odd terrible misstep like when they made fun of people who wanted the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League released (spoiler - Snyder's version is vastly better than Josh Whedon's abomination). But they also had a lot of really good jokes, characters and stories that kept me watching right up until the end.
This is garbage. I hope bumping this thread hasn't encouraged anyone to pick it up again. I've written all this so you don't have to. Watch S1/S2 if you haven't, sure - it's worth it. But don't start S3.
