Season 2

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Season 2 Review:
The second season of this show is a very mixed bag for me, and it's the most apparent in the characters. For example, I loved everything we got from Jepperd this season including the fleshing out of his darker backstory and seeing just how much he has changed and grown since meeting Gus. His devotion to Gus and the lengths he's willing to go to in order to keep him safe were really great. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, General Abbot was an incredibly one-note and silly villain that I did not care for. And all of the other characters fall somewhere on the wide spectrum between these two. Another inconsistency was the tone. We'll get fart jokes one minute and the next there are people threatening to cut open and experiment on children. This show has a very unique style and tone that tries to balance these two extremes, and sometimes it comes across really well, but in this season it just felt all over the place a little. I also had a really difficult time getting behind some of the costume designs for the kids. Some looked okay but others looked like poorly drawn makeup and clearly fake props. Most of them just looked like normal kids wearing costumes, so getting me to believe they are human-animal hybrids was difficult. However, I did enjoy much of the script across the season and the story that was told here. The themes were on point, resulting in a heartfelt story about friendship. The emotional beats worked well enough for me especially between Gus and Jepperd, they have a really great relationship and the actors have good chemistry. The production design was also pretty good. So all-in-all, I wasn't as endeared to this season as much and the inconsistencies with characters and tones drag it down, but the story is good.

6.0/10 -- Decent

Season 1 was fantastic and really got me invested in the characters and the world.

Season 2 is lazy cliche writing.

• the last men are no longer anything to be feared and are just a circus
• the doctor and his wife have almost all of the runtime and manage to make me feel absolutely nothing
• the "lead villain" is a cringe inducingly doctor robotnik rehash
• there are too many child actors and too many filler scenes where the plot just simply does not move, if you're going to grow the cast 10 fold then make an effort.

the real shame is the golden thread is Gus and Big Man. Their chemistry is fantastic and it's a crime they are allowed maybe 20 mins of runtime in this series.

The things that made Season 1 special was that it focused around real issues and situations as a kid that are exaggerated but relatable e.g. loss, fending for yourself, building new relationships. Season 2 has none of this.

It also has a big issue around pacing and not knowing what it wants to be. In one scene it's a PG family friendly bonding of kids, jokes and silly chase scenes or over the top evil henchmen. The next we are getting gore and blood from dangerous animals, scientific experiments or the death of a child. It's really jarring and just breaks you out of the immersion.

Really sad this wasn't the continuation and building of season 1 I was hoping for.