spoilers for S2E4

there was soooo much hype about this episode, from the people who made it to people who have read the comics (which I have not). I’d heard this episode was going to be so brutal that it would best the S1 finale, that it would be the final episode before the season split and that the split was a good idea because of how devastating it would be, like we’d need to sit with it. But in reality:

- it simply was not that brutal (I have no attachment to the bug society so I didnt feel anything when they were massacred), and the beatings Nolan and Mark took weren’t nearly as hard to witness as what happened at the end of last season. like, I know Mark is going to be fine so being stabbed isnt that upsetting.

- the Viltrumites who came to get Nolan were killed with shocking ease (like, from the impression I got, Mark shouldn’t have been able to get any kind of advantage over Thula. they were about as formidable as Immortal had been on both occasions against Nolan. felt like a plot contrivance that they took their time and weren’t that )

- the stuff on the planet was interwoven with three stories that don’t carry nearly the same amount of gravity (I love Debra and feel for her, I like idea of Donald’s existential crisis, but there was nothing particularly devastating about what happened in this one. and Atom Eve’s story was only slightly interesting. After Nolan gets his back broken and Mark is laying there with a hole in his torso, it immediately cuts to Debra’s story, which is so much slower and has such a different tone. I just don’t get why they thought that was a good idea.)

- there was no sign of Angstrom. we’re halfway thru the season and ive still not been made to care about him

yes, it was a gamechanger episode and I look forward to seeing all thats gonna happen from here but I was hoping this would be the one this season to be the first to hit REALLY hard across its whole runtime, and it just didn’t

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