I almost never stop watching a series midway but this is just too painful to continue. It's everything wrong with Hollywood in our times.
To be fair I think the premise is pretty good and Alan Tudyk is a talented actor. He's doing his "schtick" admirably and delivers the alien humor well. It's the absolute 4th wave feminism that is intolerable. But the preaching of the new woke religion is too much.
It was evident from midway thru last season that this is where it was going but after S2E3 the writers turned it into talking points from a women's study syllabus and it's so forced. Women's pay gap? check Women being objectified? check Mansplaining? Check. Bright pink hair? Check. Unattractive fat women? Check and check and check. Stupid, spineless, buffoonish men? Oh yea. It's so bad they even have the kids joining in on the act. Can't let those little ones just be kids, we have to make sure to get em while they're young.
Don't waste your time.
Even with the soapy melodrama, occasional bad acting and a considerably lower budget (probably 2% of the budget of this show per episode): Arrow managed to create better characters and more visceral, memorable and coherent action scenes in its first 2 seasons compared to this show. I’ll even go as far to say that it looks better, despite using incredibly basic set ups and filmmaking techniques. Getting Hailee Steinfeld was a great choice, but her character isn’t leaving a very strong or likable impression. In comparison, Joss Whedon managed to make you care about Clint’s character within 15 minutes of screentime. Well, enough to make you care as a side character.
Moreover, this feels like a studio giving their impression of a Marvel Netflix show, like Daredevil or Jessica Jones, but it doesn’t understand what makes those shows good. It’s so tame and uninspired. It seems to aim for 80’s cheese at points, but even those old action movies had some bite to them (despite how silly they could get). The comedy is mostly flat out lame and cringy, with the role playing scene probably being the lowest low of the entire MCU so far. The recent Marvel projects have had such a weird shift in terms of comedy. They used to be great at making mass product films that were at least a little bit clever and subversive. It’s no surprise that a lot of people who worked on Community also work behind the scenes at Marvel. It’s like they fired those writers after phase 3 ended, and hired the Friends team instead. Their quality control is spreading very thin.
Mostly cringe. Just trying way too hard to fit it jokes. Also the story is so lame. Could have portrayed it better.