I feel like the show is BS'ing us

Some of the episodes this season have really been duds. Episode 9 in particular has been really disappointing for me, but I'll start from the top.

Season 1 of the show was EXTREMELY well-paced. There were very few times where it felt like the show jumped over logical points or slowed down to a crawl; it was consistent the whole way through, and it was building plot momentum and character progression at the same time I'd say flawlessly. Every important moment is exactly as long as it needs to be to have its effect, and this is what makes the *really* important moments (see: "Let's burn this place to the ground", etc.) where characters have changes, or plot beats, reveals etc. stick really hard.

This somehow hasn't been the case for much of Season 2. I've been enjoying watching it so far but there was a noticeable downgrade in quality for me as far back as episode 2. I think it really began when they introduced Mark's new team, opening up the world so much more, only to get rid of them pretty much immediately. But I didn't dislike that and accepted it as part of the show doing some worldbuilding. It was even better when it ultimately got explained in the next episode.

But then the next episodes had some of those scenes where it's just the same plot beat repeated twice for no reason. Particularly the part with Cobel, where she attempts to get her job back at the start of Episode 2, drives off at the end, turns around halfway in Episode 3, comes back, asks for her job again, drives off again. It's the same exact dynamic no changes, just repeated. Feels like padding runtime. They could very easily have cut out one of these, perhaps the first one, and had the same effect.

The strange part is, with that particular plot beat, the repetition felt intentional. Like it's writing 101 to cut out scenes that don't add to the story in some way, so it sticks out like a sore thumb in a show with excellent quality writing to go through with such a basic error. It felt like they *wanted* to show her try again, possibly to show her desperation to get back into Lumon or something like that. Which is where it falls flat to me. Maybe this worked for others; but to me, this added nothing to her character we didn't already know.

This is admittedly a very small gripe, but it's not just this, the second season is somehow filled with moments that keep *appearing* to build up to something, only to get dropped or sidelined entirely. Episode 3 had that whole arc with Mark trying to get a message through to his innie using the afterimage, only for Reghabi to jumpscare him and dismiss the idea within seconds, and for it to lead up to a random reintegration scene.

Irving had a small trace of suspicion about Helena's story in Episode 1, but nothing was built upon that in episode 3. Episode 3 had a grand total of one interaction between the 2. But jump to the ORTBO episode and suddenly he's so suspicious of her; of that one missing detail about the night gardener? It feels very strewn together, and not well-connected at all. And then they kill him off in that episode.

Things like these keep adding up as the show goes on; Devon is suddenly so trusting of Cobel for seemingly no reason (I digress, it made sense to me when she decided to call her in Episode 7, I was even willing to buy that she would call her in Episode 8 after Mark was alright, but then in the newest episode she is so sure about her trusting Cobel?? It's too much with not enough substance behind it.

Things get exacerbated when you're halfway through the show, and some plot points feel like they're reaching a climax and other plot points are being setup like its the pilot--and then the show grinds to a halt and has TWO stand-alone backstory episodes back-to-back, and then Episode 9 drives all the plotlines toward extremely rushed conclusions.

Dylan met his wife like two or three times; they kissed once, and now he wants to marry her. Great. Gretchen tells her husband for the first time about the kiss; he IMMEDIATELY crashes out and threatens to quit. Dylan tries to propose to Gretchen, she rejects him; he quits the same episode. Outie burt and irving met for like the second time properly and had one dinner together. Now he's in his house, reading his notes. Now they're on a car ride. Now irving's in love? Now burt's helping him get out of town. Now he's out of town?? Within the span of like 2 days? What?

This is what I mean when I say the show is BS'ing us. They're trying to seem like they built up to a strong finale conclusion like S1 did (and I imagine the finale will be riveting indeed), but they haven't paced the beats out correctly the way season 1 did at all. Even when season 1 was meandering and slow like s2 often likes to be, it was Still driving us toward important stuff, more importantly, RELEVANT stuff. Season 2 spends valuable time capital on aesthetic shots and worldbuilding. Good worldbuilding, but nothing ultimately relevant. And then episode 9 throws together a bunch of build-up sustained on a foundation of nothing at all.

The show still has brilliant moments; Milchick's rebellion with Mr. Drummond was EXTREMELY well set-up, and the kind of thing you'd have seen a lot more of if we were watching Season 1. Some other stuff....not so much.

Rant over lol I just wanted to get this out there.