Why is this episode paced so poorly
There really is not much more to say than that this series is an utter masterpiece. I can't even fathom what further seasons will bring to the table. Saying the art and directing and audioscaping are absolutely perfect is somehow an understatement. You just have to experience it all for yourself.
This two-parter is off-the-wall a touch beyond MITM's standards. Adoration.
Such a good episode. I love redemption.
This episode just makes me sad.
So why was Malcolm being punished?
I actually liked this one. This movie requires a very specific pallete for a specific taste of 'demented;' yes, it's ultimately f*cked up for no reason, but that's the entire point. It doesn't have a moral or theme or take-away, it's just some story to be told. Writing-wise, I wish the big plot-point (Wallace's "transformation") was a slower burn so it gave me a reason to actually care whether [they] lived or died, but that's truly my only gripe. If anything, if you go into this film assuming it's going to be balls-to-the-wall f*cked up, you might just be underwhelmed. Remember to laugh. It's a comedy.
A couple episodes in, and I've come back to comment on each episode one-by-one.
I didn't exactly have high hopes in starting this series because Hollywood likes to overshoot the topic of autism and has time and time again. From the first half of the pilot I thought I was exactly right, but it deserves some credit: Immediately, Elsa is annoying, overprotective, and cheesy; she goes so far out of her way to protect her son that she ends up being counterproductive. Further so, she seemed terribly written in that she was so--for the lack of a better phrasing and comparison--boomer... But in hindsight, that is perfect, because the only other characters who are like this are the other boomer women in her talk group. Just like reality, I guess. I'm still not 100% on liking this series, myself, but I see it's pros as some light-hearted TV drama, it's just a touch dated at times. I hope there are more characters in future episodes who are autistic to explain the spectrum better.
Twenty minutes in and the dramatic shots of Hugh Dancy and Aaron Paul every ~2 minutes are so incredibly distracting.
As user ds1 says in the comments, the writers try to introduce conflict before their characters, leaving you no reason to care about the protagonist's problems. Also the flashbacks/rewinds to just a couple minutes prior is practically insulting and more specifically entirely redundant.
The ending to this episode was only slightly selling, but--and maybe this comes from a particularly atheistic standpoint--only out of the sake of irony; I'm personally on Eddie's side of doubt, both in the story's plot and also the execution of said plot.
