#like they show off this new character in s3

[sepublic]

The Owl House Pilot Leak!!!

            Oh my titan.

            The Owl House’s original pilot episode (basically a bunch of voiced-over storyboards) just got leaked and OMT. Watching it felt like experiencing the original magic of the show all over again… Reminding me what it was like to fall in love the first time!!! The hype and rush, the excitement to type down my thoughts after a new episode, analyzing and gushing over both big and small moments, the details!!! The pilot has reiterated all over to me again why I love these characters, from Luz's powerful earnestness, to Eda's chaotic demeanor! It’s like having the whole show open ahead of me, the possibilities endless when knowing this is just the beginning and we could go anywhere from here!

            What’s interesting is that Luz’s conflict with Camila doesn’t really exist here; In fact Camila isn’t present or mentioned at all! What brings Luz to the isles is Amity, who’s been learning in the human world, under the guise of being a human by disguising her ears! It’s alluded to that Odalia and Alador made her do it, though we don’t know why…

            But WOW that must’ve been so meta, doing S3 with Amity stuck in the human world with Luz, hiding her ears! It must’ve been a fun way to bring back the older concepts in new form! And indeed, we see a couple of stuff we’ve already gotten glimpses of, such as the storyboards of Luz offering her friendship art to Amity! I love that we get to see the actual scenario of how Amity accidentally defended Luz in the first place, since we heard that but didn’t get to see how it turned out.

            It’s interesting that Lumity is basically the inciting incident of the story, though I can see why the final version opted instead to emphasize Luz’s conflict with her mother. Especially with how she chooses to stay in the isles in the final draft, which leads to guilt over lying to her mom, having her ‘coming out’ moment that eventually occurs in Yesterday’s Lie, etc. So more agency when it comes to Luz losing her access to the human world. Plus in the pilot, there isn't the same emphasis on Luz trying to live out her dreams of being a witch, and her obsession with stories that ties back to Manny and forms the basis for a lot of other themes and arcs.

            That said, I also appreciate what this alternate take offers, and how Lumity helps tie everything together, it really is the queerness that is such a foundational part of the ‘weirdness’ theme that the show is about, and it’s intertwined with the pilot! God Luz being heartbroken when Amity dismisses the drawing… And then crying when Eda compliments it without realizing who it’s about! Or maybe she did, she could’ve recognized Luz there and figured out a way to stealthily make Luz feel better…!

            I love Luz routinely lock-picking her locker because she presumably forgot the combination! And it’s interesting that we have a setup of there being multiple dimensions that the Boiling Isles has access to, and not just the human world and Demon Realm. That plays a role in the climax, more on that later. Given we have what is basically an airport for different dimensions, I wonder if we would’ve seen Luz find her way back home much earlier on, under much less intense circumstances, in a S1A episode?

            The ‘Emperor’ is also alluded to in the pilot, which we didn’t get actual mention of until the fifth episode in the final show. He apparently dislikes humans and wants Luz brought over to him, is this still operating off of the ‘Pupa’ version of the character who claimed to speak on behalf of the true ruler, trapped in their metamorphosis by him? So maybe he wasn’t always human, or maybe this is Belos’ hypocritical way of ‘protecting’ humans by keeping them away and in blissful ignorance of the demon realm.

            We also establish Hexside much earlier! IIRC Hexside was always part of the show, but executives pushed for it to have more emphasis, which the crew continued to follow through on in S2 onwards because that had already been set up. Lilith is the principal, and I recognize the storyboards of her, including her bat transformation! We get a Tinella Nosa cameo, we see Amity, and there’s also a brief cameo of Willow too! Nice way to set her up before her proper debut.

            The ‘barrier’ containing King’s crown turns out to just be a regular human locker, which makes me wonder if the writers updated the final draft to make it a force field that only allows humans through, because of the whole Belos twist. Which makes me wonder if in this draft, Belos is Pupa, who never was human, or maybe they realized the opportunity to insert foreshadowing into a big twist regarding the main villain. Makes me wonder if the house we see Amity enter in the pilot, which is on sale, would've had any significance like in the final show. Love how Tinella Nosa is a student at Hexside, and also Dana having to occasionally insert lines for Wendie Malick and others was great.

            Lilith is a lot more openly adversarial, which is different compared to how her actual debut provides a softer side to her; I imagine this would’ve been apparent in a later episode of the ‘Pilot AU’, and her transformation has me curious; Was she originally the one with the curse, but then the writers changed it to Eda? Or did they both have a curse? Eda also has an owl form she can summon and control at Will, maybe all Clawthornes have a beast mode that’s less of a curse and more of a talent. Lilith ends up trapped in another dimension, which makes me wonder if she’d have a temporary replacement –possibly Pilot Bump- or if she’d return offscreen. We see the portal key get destroyed under much more casual circumstances, though it’s less as big of a deal for this and the established ‘dimension port’ we saw before.

            (Also, Amity recognizing Luz in the hallway… Everything to me!!!)

            Warden Wrath doesn’t exist and neither does the Conformatorium, it’s Lilith and Hexside. With her as principal and Amity as student, I wonder if we would’ve gotten more of their relationship in the pilot AU, if Covention was a way of carrying over that former connection since Amity would be a teacher’s pet in either version of the story. And speaking of ties to Covention, it’s interesting is that Eda’s chest gem seems to be linked to the Emperor’s Coven, as ‘Pilot Kikimora’ uses it to control her. Curiously, we have a scene at the end mirroring what we got with Lilith in the final draft of the show!

            I feel it implies that Eda DID join the Emperor’s Coven with Lilith, if only for a brief moment, but then defected; But the chest gem is basically the pilot version of the Emperor’s sigil, except with the explicit function of being a shock collar. I find it interesting that Eda still has the mirror to contact the EC with, instead of just getting rid of the thing. Is she a rogue agent who hasn’t totally cut ties, because she can’t? Won’t?

And the fact that Pilot Kikimora can just shock Eda at will makes me wonder if the Emperor is low-key just letting Eda roam around, which makes me wonder if he’s aware of the familial connection, is using Eda to find Luz, already knows about her doing that because of the time loop, etc. We’d of course have gotten an episode where Luz finds out about Eda’s connection and helps her deal with the gem… I realize now that Luz learning Eda also wanted to join the EC with Lilith is a carryover of this idea.

I can see the ups and downs between both versions; The final draft sets up Luz’s conflict with Camila and the reality camp, which is foundational to her character arc throughout the whole show. Her pain over being ‘sent away’ is just so vital that I appreciate its inclusion in the first episode. But I also like the inclusion of Lumity and the earnest desire to be friends with someone who showed her, unwittingly, any kindness at all! We get explicit bullying from Luz’s peers in the pilot, but in the final draft we also get her thoughtlessness that plays a big part in her S1 arc. And Luz’s arrival in the isles is more intertwined with Eda and King in the final version, which also feels right; The show is about these three in particular!

All in all, this was wonderful to watch! The magic was experienced all over again, not just in watching an episode, but also commentating on one that was just ‘released’ as well? I thought the last time I’d do anything like this was with the series finale Watching and Dreaming… But as Luz said, it really comes full circle with watching the first episode all over again! So maybe we have other stuff to still look forward to after all… So until next time: BBBBBYYYYYEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

#the owl house #luz noceda #amity blight #lumity #eda clawthorne #edalyn clawthorne #lilith clawthorne #analysis

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

one thing i’m really realizing about tv-watching lately is that i’m reaching a point where i can’t hold all these shows in my head. it takes so long to have a new season come out that i’ve forgotten all the details of what happened in the previous season unless it’s a show i’ve watched multiple times, which it’s usually not. then i feel like i’m doing wrong by the show by not rewatching the previous season(s) so i can watch the new one as the creators intended it to be watched, with all the emotional threads from the previous season getting picked up and returned to. like, i want those things to HIT the way they’re intended to, but usually they don’t for me in this tv-watching model because it’s been so long that i don’t remember the details of what’s going on or how i was feeling about everything going on on the show where it last left off. i can’t shake the feeling that i need to rewatch the whole show before the new season so it can register with me correctly ... but there are only so many hours in a day, i can’t do that for every single show i watch that drops a new season every year or every couple of years!

tl;dr this is why i am dreaming of majorly cutting down on the amount of tv i watch. my brain just can’t take it in this current format! there are already so many new seasons of shows i loved that i just haven’t seen for this reason. i find myself actively craving, like, limitations to my viewing so i don’t feel like my brain is going to explode. often i daydream of canceling all my streaming services except pbs passport and getting really into antiques road show and this old house.

#being a tv person in the 2020s babe!!!!!! #like -- i loved the first two seasons of servant SO MUCH #i was crazy about it #but then we tried to pick up s3 and i couldn't remember what had happened before #so everything felt off #(i think i might actually start servant again from the beginning since there will be two new seasons waiting for me at this point) #and i never watched recent seasons of you or the flight attendant or harley quinn or russian doll or so many more i could list #just because ... i can't remember!!!!! #currently having a bit of a tough time with his dark materials s3 for this reason #also rewatching 30 rock has me so aware of how much i miss when a show would be part of most of your year #like -- there's the 3/4 month break over the summer #but for most of your year you're getting new content with those characters #man i miss that! #that was really special and i really feel the loss of it #it was so much easier to follow a series that way #anyway this has been my overwhelmed tv ramble! #goodnight!! #dollsome's deep thoughts

[charliethomascoxuniverse]

‘Daredevil’ Star Deborah Ann Woll: Marvel Hasn’t Called Me to Join Disney+ Reboot, So ‘I Am Not Part of It’

By Zack Sharf  Nov 17, 2022 (X) (X)

Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio are making the jump from Netflix’s canceled “Daredevil” series to Disney’s upcoming limited series “Daredevil: Born Again,” but their former co-star Deborah Ann Woll might not be following. “True Blood” alum Woll starred opposite Cox as Karen Page on all three seasons of Netflix’s “Daredevil.” Considering Karen was a prominent character on “Daredevil” and Matt Murdock’s primary love interest, many Marvel fans have been wondering whether or not Woll would appear on “Born Again.”

“I can say this: they have not called me yet. So, as of now, I am not a part of it,” Woll revealed on a recent episode of the “Inside of You” podcast (via Total Film), hosted by “Smallville” alum Michael Rosenbaum. “I would be thrilled to get to be a part of it. They know where I am. Like I said, I love the character Karen Page. I love telling that story. I feel like I have more to say. But it is up to them what kind of story that they want to tell.”

Netflix pulled the plug on “Daredevil” in fall 2018 after three seasons. The show never got to resolve its storylines and craft a proper series finale.

“The Marvel series feels unfinished to me because we got canceled when we thought we were going to have more,” Woll said. “There’s a part of me that was like, ‘I had more to say about Karen,’ and I felt I was in the middle of that story.”

Cox has already made the jump to the proper Marvel Cinematic Universe by reprising Matt Murdock/Daredevil in a “Spider-Man: No Way Home” cameo and in a couple episodes of the Disney+ original series “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.” In the series, Matt becomes romantically intertwined with Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany), so if he’s going to have any love interest in “Born Again” it might be Jennifer and not Karen.

Disney and Marvel have only confirmed Cox and D’Onofrio (back as Kingpin) for its “Daredevil: Born Again” cast. The series is set to run 18 episodes.

#just saw this article ☹️ #I mean we already knew the new show wasn't going to be a S4 of Daredevil but I still expected Karen to be in it #And they're scheduled to start filming in like 3 months so surely someone would've called her by now #even if they only meant to have her appear in a reoccurring role rather than as a main character surely she'd have heard something by now? #well that sucks 😟 #and Charlie is like Captain Karedevil so I wonder what he thinks of this #although it does make Born Again even more unpredictable which could be interesting if handled well #because Matt has so many interesting love interests in the comics to choose from #ah well we'll just have to wait and see #I do wish we could've had some resolution with Matt/Karen though #if she doesn't appear in Born Again they may as well have just killed her off in S3 T_T #my random ramblings #deborah ann woll #charlie cox #karen page #matt murdock #daredevil #daredevil born again #article

[marchlione]

.

#took a look at some meta posts about characters in tw #and holy shit ppl who are anti scott are like ??? #there are somethings about the writing that make me dislike his character #but that's not him it's the writing #he's very bbc merlin arthur coded in that way #but at the same time ppl who are like #he treated his friends like trash #treated stiles and derek like shit #and i'm just- #did-did we watch the same show? #when stiles is in trouble in s3 first person he calls is scott #scott is so so gentle with stiles #and in the case of derek they didn't get off on the right foot #but also why are you picking on scott? #stiles was straight up ready to kill him/let him die #and yeah scott isn't always dropping everything and running to stiles when he's in danger but cut him some slack? #scott's the one who was turned into a werewolf #scott's the one trying to adjust to this new world and very often scott isn't ignoring stiles for no reason #it's usually because he's trying to accomplish some other task #and really stiles had had moments of actual shittiness to scott too #straight up ignoring scott's calls #pelting him with lacrosse balls #like yeah that was for “training” but he also took petty vindictive pleasure in doing that #so it's not big bad scott abuses poor wittle stiles #it's two teenagers who are doing their best and are sometimes shitty to eachother and sometimes miscommunicate w eo #although i will concede to that one post where they point out the problem with scott's character and why he isn't as likable #is that he isn't given any flaws? he doesn't have to overcome anything that comes at a cost to him and he rarely ever has sacrifice #he never has to make the tough decisions #and the writers shove it down your throat that he is good and right and perfect #he's like mcu t*ny stark in that way where the writers clearly had a favourite they'd bend over backwards for

[hazardsoflove]

ndcw is so tragic to me bc they took one of my favorite things in the world (nancy drew) and combined it with more of my favorite things in the world (murder mystery, supernatural elements) but then ruined Everything in just a matter of episodes

#it getting cancelled was the best news to Me #off the bat calling ned nick was a red flag to me but so way george not being a lesbian #*was #but anyway after they broke up ned and nancy and then didnt even let them try to get back together it was downhill for me #i still like s1 but when they started introducing the ned/george relationship 🤢 #like sorry theyre best friends. and george is a lesbian #and dont even get me started on all the relationships they put nancy in but n*ce especially . FUCK n*ce always and forever #i was popping major bottles when they killed off owen in s1 i wanted ace to die so bad in the s3 finale bc i hate him sm #i liked him at first but n*ce made me hate his guts #at least i have solace in the fact that n*ce shippers only get this show while nedcy is forever canon and has been for nearly 100 years #in every other iteration of nancy drew <333 #also in s4 if they reveal ace is actually joe hardy i Will commit acts of insane violence. thats MY boy get the fuck away from him #im very rarely a multishipper but i hate nancy/either of the hardy boys (but especially frank in the ndpc games) So much #its literally nedcy or bust for me idc #and it had a banger cast too. like kennedy tunji leah and maddison SLAYED as their respective characters. like they were perfect #the writers just fumbled and flopped BIG time #anyway the version of nd that exists in my head you will always be famous. ill write that fic ive been planning for years eventually #r.txt

[dashuisofanubis]

Me, already watching 3 or so shows: I'm gonna rewatch HoA s2

#this is my way of saying expect a live blog starting in the coming days 😅 #i havent even finished watching s4 of hha yet and i need to watch de vijf #but i havent rewatched s2 since i made this blog and i want to get a better grasp of the characters for seven sins #bc somehow its been a year since i did my s3 rewatch so im just losing perspective on characters like Amber and Nins #plus ive been rewatching @yackers once said videos and i forgot how chaotic the show is i miss it so much #i do want to finish hha but i also dont bc s4's become sort of mythologised in my mind so i dont want to find out the truth and finish it #on the other hand i really want to see what marijke's all about #so i'll get there eventually 😂 #im also determined to finish watching Voyager before i move out of this flat so ive got 3 weeks to do that 😂 #in seven sins news: they've finally set foot on the path but thats as far as i got bc i got distracted trying to describe fabians outfit #hes the first one as well so this is gonna be fun #im also nearly at 4000 words already so this chapter is gonna be long bc i know where i want this one to end #that being said i think i could find a place to split it if it gets too unwieldy #anyway this is very off topic and i need to sleep #XD #i just realised i said @yackers once said videos and i meant @charlie-pippin-faraday sorry!!

[endlessgalore]

i need to kill something wandavision won the nebula award for dramatic presentations????????

#look here is my wandavision opinion. #i think they should have milked thw evil sitcom angle for all it had and never connected it to the rest of the mcu #i watched it!! i didnt actually like the sitcom parts BUT i liked them WAY MORE than the mcu parts! #i think if theyd made it more evil and less playing off nostalgia that would have been good #bc i hate to admit it but i was getting ads and i was pretty interested like ooh....its in black and white...but its new..... #i thought there would be more evil sitcom. #i was quite annoyed when mcu characters started showing up and my dad was like 'oh thats blorboman! and rhats captain blerbe's daughter!!' #also there were 3 mcu productions on the list :( #the only other nominee id watched was wwdits s3. whcih i loved!! #and i wanted to watch the green knight i think id be happy if that won as well. i never got around to it bc i dont watch movies. #i havent read any of the books that won so i dont have an opinion on them #actually out of the novel/novella/novelette/short story categories the only one i have read is a pslam for the wild built #which i loved!! #and i hace a tab opeb with mr death on it i just havent gotten to it yet ok. i know ill like it bc i love alix e harrows writing though #talkin

[avephelis]

RISE TWITTER QNA! no major news or announcements, but here's a list of new information and confirmations:

S3 could be brought back as a retro show in the future, but it probably wouldn't happen anytime soon (focus is on mutant mayhem at the moment)

it was never decided whether capril would be friends or girlfriends (due to rise's focus on platonic relationships)

council of heads! they're in power, but a lot of influential yokai (like big mama) aren't easily controlled, and "game the system"

despite not having his dual katana, supposedly f!leo DOES still have mystic powers

ron corcillo would love to see a spin-off focused on the caseys (if rise were ever continued), and likes the potential of a raph + casey vigilante duo

the turtles got their names after splinter's love for renaissance art

big mama's henchman WAS planned to be the missing sister, and rather than venus de milo, she would've been named after a female artist (possibly frida kahlo)

for halloween: raph dressed up as a kitten, mikey as a lion, leo as a rockstar, and donnie as j. robert oppenheimer

the mystic weapons stolen from draxum acted as a conduit to help the boys unlock their innate mystic powers with a "little boost"

they didn't realise mayhem's potential as a character/force until too late, but it could've been fun to do some stories of him being an operative (a la perry the platypus)

there weren't any planned stories for side villains (aside from the foot's cupcake shop), most focus was on the turtles

not much on casey jr's backstory, just that cass and the turtles were fighting the krang and leo raised him as a warrior. casey jr only has brief memories of cass from when he was very young, and was mostly raised by leo

there were definitely six baby turtles (two sisters)! and the turtles were gonna split up to rescue the one with big mama and the one in "the dimension", but they never planned much of it out

there's most likely a time gap between the rescuing leo and the ending scene of the movie, as "after a fight like that, [everyone] would definitely crash and need some recovery time"

there would've been more big mama in future episodes, and stinkbomb was planned to return

since the turtles became known to the public at the end of the movie, they'd have to fight to retain their reputation. this and their reception to criticism/backlash would've become a major arc.

on brother rankings: mikey is definitely raph's favourite, and they all look up to raph

the stronger someone's ninpo is, the greater the drain on their energy is (as seen with f!mikey and karai)

there wouldn't be much threat on villains going after casey jr's future intel, because most of it would've been rendered obsolete

nickelodeon would never give up the rights to rise, but they could license it to a partner company (such as IDW for a comic!)

as previously mentioned, the 2nd sister would've been trapped in "another dimension" and venus/frida would have to be won over by "helping her see that she had been brainwashed [by big mama] as a child" (and redeemed)

given more time, the show would've fleshed out: the hamato story, the hidden city's origins (krang spaceship that crashed into the crying titan being the source of the ooze, its fuel being what gave the yokai mystic powers), and would've used the rat king (who ron corcillo would've liked to be a powerful yokai with rat-like abilities and some form of mind control, who could've threatened the council of heads for power in the hidden city)

as far as we know, the turtles (aside from leo's spanish) only speak english (and even their english is sometimes a bit off)

rise probably wouldn't have ever "gone dark", but after the turtles were publicly known and full-time heroes, it might've had more of an extended plotline

the turtle's casual clothes somewhat reflect their music tastes (r&b for raph, glam rock for leo, techno (and 80s) for donnie and boy band for mikey)

future heights: mikey grew a bit and then shrunk under mystic strain, leo was at least 6ft, donnie a little taller than leo, and raph at least 6'6

mikey's powers could get pretty intense, which could've resulted in some multiverse episodes (ron corcillo would be most inclined to do a 12 crossover, but any could work). while leo portals short distances, mikey's cross space and time (with great effort)

given more time, how the turtles met april would've been fleshed out

in terms of how they take after splinter: donnie and leo have a lot of his cockiness, raph his courage and sense of duty, and mikey senses him missing his family (which is part of the reason of why he tries to hold everyone together)

given more time they would've done more with the transfer of leadership from raph to leo (and originally the plan was to draw that out over S3, rather than the abrupt S2 ending). they would've been co-leaders for a while, and at times mikey or donnie would lead (they aren't really a group with just one leader archetype)

there were plans for april to have more time with the specific turtles other than donnie (like how the gumbus was focused on her mikey and leo)

the cast's mystic abilities would've increased over time, and splinter has a lot of power that hasn't been revealed (as he spent a lot of time in the hidden city in his past)

venus/frida would've been very disciplined and so serious that's she's funny, and the dimension sister would've been "a little kooky"

there weren't really any plans on how the turtles would look in cloaked human forms, just that they'd resemble lou jitsu and may be inspired by their VAs

mikey is the only brother who can fully pull all his limbs and head into his shell (being a box turtle)

any usagi appearances would be a rights matter, and depend on collaboration

on timelines: april is 16 at the start of the series and 18 in the movie, but exactly how much time passes isn't confirmed

ron corcillo would've liked to do more donnie + raph episodes, like one where despite how donnie considers himself smarter, raph ends up beating him in common sense and emotional intelligence

f!leo didn't go with casey jr to the past due to being mortally wounded in his bleeding side

given more time there would've been more flashback episodes with the turtles at various ages

though he'd never admit it, hueso has a close relationship with leo

in early S3 there would've been an episode of setting up the new lair

mystic warrior f!mikey is pretty old (maybe in his 70s), and is strong enough to use basically any mystic power, but at great cost to him physically

no major plans with bishop, but once the turtles became more well-known he could be a bit of a thorn in their sides (like j. jonah jameson to spiderman)

there might've been some redemption from big mama, but also some relapses into her "villainous ways"

given a full season, karai would've been alive for longer, and would've trained the boys for a number of episodes

confirmation that some of early s1 aired in the wrong order (which the writers weren't happy about)

in rise, there's always an unpredictability as to how sentient a mutant will turn out to be

raph probably wouldn't be super uptight about swearing, provided the boys weren't offending anyone

there weren't any plans for romantic relationships (and DEFINITELY never an april-turtles love interest), but if they had ever tried something eventually it would've been with the same species

there were no specific plans for alopex, rita, or rennet, but anything's a possibility

in terms of the 1000 years ago krang/mystic timeline, the spaceship crashed first (possibly spawning the yokai), and other krang followed it, drawing in the invasion

that seems to be about it but if there's any more i'll do a reblog with additions

#theres a couple other answers if you wanna go through the thread but they're a bit hand-wavy or double ups on info #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #BLEEAGH im gonna go live my life now and eat breakfast

[conflictofthemind]

Lucas knows about Mike and Will

First off, of course the context is needed that Lucas has known the two of them the longest out of any of the kids. He is Mike’s neighbour and joined their party even before Dustin. He also played wingman for Mike previously in S3, trying to help get Mike and Eleven back together. It’s not a stretch of the imagination that Lucas would end up in a role like that again.

So, the hospital scene at the end of Season 4.

There’s a few things within this scene that are a little suspicious, and then one big thing that basically has no explanation other than Lucas suspecting something is going on with Mike. I brightened the scene here- first let’s just acknowledge they held hands on Lucas’ back. This is the only kind of direct hand touch we get this season.

Lucas can’t see that.. but it’s on his back. Of course he would be able to feel it. It’s also another moment that separates Mike and Will as a pair, versus Eleven on her own. Here’s the full clip below. And then just LOOK at the expression Lucas gives Mike after he sees El lingering behind. Your friend just visited as soon as he possibly could to give you support. Why would you look at them like this after he hugs you? Because he knows there’s something weird going on in the relationship between Mike and El. No other explanation.

Lucas is clearly giving Mike a “what the fuck is going on” kind of expression, eye squinted, eyebrows furrowed. There’s also a blink and you’ll miss it moment where Mike’s breath catches after the contact with Will’s hand, and he makes a split second glance to look at their hands (which I captured in the first image).

Then after Lucas hugs El, he clearly parts and steps back to give room for Mike to join beside his girlfriend. But Mike crosses the room to put himself in between El and Will instead. Another thing Lucas would have found weird. Lucas isn’t dumb.

Then we have the shotlisting post from Ross’ instagram. Shot listing is where they plan out what happens within an episode and what kinds of shots they want. This image is obviously an Easter Egg for fans about who’s interacting with who in the first 2 episodes (ie Stonathan shenanigans of which we already know about). I didn’t see it at first but Lucas is clearly placed in the centre of a triangle between El, Mike, and Will. He’s the centre of the triangle.

This makes sense with what we know about S5 thus far as well. There’s a confirmed plot line that has Dustin trying to isolate himself from the rest of the group (if he hasn’t already been isolated enough from the party in recent seasons). It shows up in the shot list image too of course, with Dustin on the opposite side. For the kids, due to Max being out of commission, the only interactions we are going to get in the first two episodes before the time jump seem to be between El, Will, Mike, and Lucas. We also have confirmation from Millie that El and Lucas will be spending a lot more time together than they had in previous seasons.

Moving onto a bit of cornplating for the last points which just serve as some cherries on top of this theory - we already have imagery of Lucas acting as a bridge between Mike and Will in the party image Ross gave us. This is post time jump most likely because of the new outfits, so it’s interesting that this role could continue throughout the season.

We also have the imagery of Lucas holding a suspiciously coloured blue and yellow shield in Will’s painting of the party. A bit of a stretch, sure. But complied with everything else it is definitely interesting to consider.

Now for the character reasoning, which is always important to consider: why would Lucas end up in this position?

Lucas is going through his girlfriend being in a coma after they had a major distance in their relationship. A coma that Lucas in universe has no clue if she’ll ever wake up from, and realistically (in-universe) hopes are slim that she will recover. And if she does, she may not have all the memories of times spent together still with her. There’s probably so many regrets swirling around his mind of things he could have done or said in the time that they had together. Lucas doesn’t have this luxury - but his friends still do.

Lucas is Mike’s oldest friend outside of Will, and Will/Mike are Lucas’ first friends. They existed as a party even before Dustin.

Out of his pain of ‘losing’ Max and the wisdom he learned from it, I really do think Lucas is going to encourage Mike to seize the day and take control of his life once again. Will and Mike still have the luxury of time and still have chance. If anyone could convince Mike his feelings are reciprocal, it would also be Lucas.

Furthermore, Lucas understands that as a black man in fairly rural 80s Indiana, his relationship with Max is also one that is singled out due to prejudice against interracial couples. Interracial marriage would only have been legalized less than twenty years ago. It’s not quite the same, but again if anyone understood the position Mike would be in (other than say Robin) - it would be Lucas.

#anyway uhhh wheelclair is real and coming home #mike wheeler #lucas sinclair #will byers #byler #stranger things

[iamadequate1]

OK, this common refrain:

Just move on! You OFMD fans are so annoying!

Ridiculous.

What is happening with OFMD right now is UNPRECEDENTED. This isn't a cute little cult show: this is a juggernaut for Max. It's its #1 original show right now (using the metrics available right now since Max hides numbers). It's 30x in demand than the average streaming show. It was Peabody nominated. Max spent significant money on a FYC campaign for it. Its audience grew between S1 and S2, and S1 was already beating off Marvel and Star Wars shows on the charts. It can pull thousands of fans into conventions. It had a Times Square billboard just in October. Most of Max' social media interaction is from OFMD. If reports are to be believed, the S3 scripts were readied and they were already scheduling time for filming, releasing announcements, and interviews. It has succeeded in every metric a show can be measured in, and passed these expectations beyond any studio's dreams.

But it was derailed last minute by a tantruming CEO, a CEO whose incompetence is bleeding hundreds of millions out of the company and is destroying the reputation of and industry confidence in the company. The company stock has fallen over 6% since the OFMD announcement two days ago (not the sole factor but one of the biggest factors). If a show like OFMD cannot succeed at Max, no show can succeed at Max. If Max cannot support this show, it cannot support being a streaming service at all.

Is there a show cancellation that has ever compared to this?

This announcement is not because a fringe minority in and outside the fandom thought S2 was "bad", or that some people didn't like certain plot points of S2 (no hiding it here that I'm not a fan of certain fanons, though I enjoy all characters). Taika Waititi was excited and onboard; he wasn't "bored" and decided to move on. They didn't cram the original ending into S2 just in case. There is still story to be told, and this series earned the right to be able to finish that story. Ed and Stede are still in the shaky beginnings of their relationship! They need to dance, have domestic moments, have affectionate moments, get married (what was the point of David Jenkins hyping matelotage at every step?)! How does our pirate community actually move on with their lives past the English encroachment (personified in Ricky)? This isn't a video game, and the story didn't end because they reached a "Get to The Revenge" checkpoint. What personal paths are our beloved crew members going to go on? There is still so much story, and we didn't have a clean break.

We're telling ourselves that fan campaigns have worked before. These examples, the shows were all deserving, but they were not the juggernauts that OFMD is. Firefly, for example, was 98th in Nielson ratings, and it was nowhere near the biggest audience for FOX shows. Imagine if FOX had randomly decided to cancel its top rated scripted show for the lulz. Would FOX have ever recovered or been able to court new talent? (ETA: 2002 FOX. 2024 FOX already can't court talent. A rather expensive spectacle show like 911 smoothly and immediately transitioning to another, more stable network is not why I'm here.)

The streaming competition is tight right now, and Max had a miracle in OFMD, all without even bothering to promote it. OFMD has a passionate audience. It has deeply resonated with thousands and thousands of people, and it is not silly to have emotions about creative projects because that is the entire point of creative projects. We have invested real time and money into this. We've created a community. We believe in David Jenkins and all involved, and these are real people we want to support because they brought joy into our lives. The respect and comradery this crew has with the fanbase is refreshing and rare. They revel in the fans' returned creativity and passion where most others have chosen to mock instead.

I am not going to just accept the whim of some random guy in a suit. I'm not just going to shrug and say "Got me there!" I'm not going to be ashamed of having passion, any excitement, any thrill at a unique work that is unapologetically sweet, joyful, and sincere and gives us the beautiful diversity we see in our lives. If this can happen to THIS SHOW, this juggernaut, there is no point in ever being invested in a new creative project again, and that is not a world that I'm willing to accept.

I am going to fight and keep fighting for as long as it takes. If this annoys you, learn how to use mute and block functions and don't expect me to change because it's your first day on the Internet. Why shouldn't we expect excellence in media we invest in? Why shouldn't we be angry that studios are trying to collapse into one with mergers and reduce all output to five IPs with cookie cutter releases? Why shouldn't we expect that a show that has met all expectations to be rewarded by the studio for the value it added? Why should we be expected to just shrug at every cruel decision like this (a decision that doesn't even make financial sense) and hand over our money to some passionless, generic alternative? Why should we just consume whatever terrible product the studios spit out at us instead of fighting for ones that deserve to thrive?

It is not hyperbole that this is a turning point in the industry. We just spent the summer with studios demanding AI be able to replace all pieces of the creative process unchecked, and now we have an absolutely unprecedented strike down of a creative and unique show at the top of the industry because there were a few more (entirely imaginary) pennies to be had. This is inexcusable.

This is a long haul situation. Zaslav blindsided us, so alternative streamers wouldn't have even been on the radar at the beginning of this week. David Jenkins and company also can't make comments on any possibilities we have since they have to keep working relationships in this industry and they need contracts finalized first.

There is always hope, no matter how slim.

Don't give up, and don't give in.

Remember to @renewasacrew

#our flag means death #ofmd #renew as a crew #save ofmd #renewasacrew #saveofmd #david jenkins #i just really like this show #no cut! just giant wall of text

[mercurie-and-me]

sooooo st s4 rant incoming get ready

#all in all.... it's bad sis #still don't know if s3 or s4 is the worst #first of all thE LENGTH #like i'm sorry but no tv show is that good #if you do an episode that's almost 2.5 hours (!!!!) long u should stop and ask yourself if your viewers rly deserve to be put through that #i think networks forcing tv shows to fit their episodes into certain time slots was a good thing actually #second of all i am so tired #there was nothing inspiring here half the storylines were fucking stupid #like i watched the whole thing and i can't remember anything that happened bc it was all so insignificant #if you ask me they should have cut the whole arc of joyce and hopper in russia like who tf CARES it didn't even have any relevance to the- #-story and it was so drawn out and boooooring #they should have cut out eddie and the whole 'jocks against satan' bc wtf did that add to anything #didn't add anything to the plot didn't raise any stakes it didn't matter at. all #eddie was nothing more than a character that's supposed to be loveable and sympathetic to the audience to then get killed off #he's just another bob #on a side note i DO NOT understand tumblr's obsession w this guy like wtf do you see in him?? like especially the whole crowd that wants- #-him back so badly and is CONVINCED that actually he's gonna return in s5 and this was all a big fakeout #it's getting creepy bro #didn't think the new tjlc would be eddie munson truthers kxkdkxkdkfcf #but yeah scrap eddie and the jocks scrap russia kill someone of the main cast so there are some actual stakes #bc the plot armor on these characters is insane #i personally think it should have been max for real and then steve or maybe mike #get some good old fashioned angst in there pls #oh and murray 100% needs to go he's so fucking annoying #also they should do smth so el is not so ridiculously overpowered like what she can resurrect dead ppl now?? since when? #i liked the whole thing they did with one but it's such a copout to say that he was just behind everything the whole time #do him as a one off villain okay not as the fucking upside down overlord bc that just makes everything so much less scary #i liked max's story line and will's (which btw was so not queerbait pls read a dictionary) and jonathan's and robin's sorta? #did NOT like that they're bringing stancy back literally who asked for this #stranger things

[omartinyosef]

ST5 POTENTIAL SPOILERS!!!

GUYS I FOUND THIS ON REDDIT AND ACTUALLY IT'S QUITE INTERESTING

ST5 Leaks/Fleaks

Gen Plot

Season picks up briefly where we left off in 1986 before jumping into either late 1987 or early 1988. The season is contained entirely in apocalyptic Hawkins. Things with the government are shaky. Owens doesn't appear in the beginning of the season and it's unclear if he's returning, but Ellen Stinson is the new Owens. Hawkins is like a combination of the UD and Kamchatka.

Labyrinths/Mazes being important to both the supernatural plot and the interpersonal relationships. They're inherently linked.

Two songs to be featured are 'Listen to Your Heart' and 'Alone,' both of which were apparently foreshadowed in a previous conversation between Hopper and Joyce, similar to how Hopper's "I'm the puppet, you're the master" to Joyce in S3 basically foreshadowed Eddie's 'Master of Puppets' in S4.

S1 and 2 scenes being referenced are "Nancy and Mike's conversation in the bathtub" and "Hopper + Lando Calrissian"

Lots of importance in COLOR CODING and blocking from the final shot of S4, and a good chunk is told in the costuming—like passing the torch from one character to another as their arcs overlap. For example, Hopper and Will share the "am I the curse and therefore putting my loved ones at risk by being near them?" sentiment for S5, therefore their wardrobe in the final shot of S4 is similar. Joyce/Jonathan and Nancy/Mike's costuming also similar for the same reason, whereas Eleven stands out because she's the first one coming into her own this season. The white for her represents shedding of false skins.

Character duos this season will be primarily dressed in colors of blue/green and yellow/red.

There's lots of symbolism and foreshadowing for every character in S5 from the moment Will touches his neck in the last sequence of S4.

S4 focused on themes of lies and miscommunication, and everyone is going to have to work through these lies before they can defeat Vecna.

Murray and Argyle are both back. Dimitri and Yuri don't seem to be in the beginning of the season.

One thing left unresolved with the Russian plot. Something important will happen involving the machine and the green liquid from the Starcourt bunker. Reference of Dustin vowing to die with Steve when they initially discovered it.

Hopper, Joyce, Mike, Will, and El had to be away from Hawkins, otherwise Vecna wouldn't have won.

An important death that they're nervous about given the reception to Eddie (not Joyce or Jonathan—see details below).

Eleven

We'll see her unlike we've seen her before. A badass who doesn't take shit from anyone. Not a Monster, not a Hero, Jane. Think: adult El could be headed for a Charles Xavier type role.

Erica, Lucas, and El will share scenes together.

El has significant blocking and development with many characters this season.

Max, Eleven & Max

The "kaleidoscope of colors" from a script the writers posted makes a feature in both the scene where young El remembers her mother's love in order to defeat Henry in the lab, as well as the scene where El revives Max. This is significant because it's the first time we see El using her powers on someone in a non-violent way.

El was able to revive Max because of she, herself, being revived in the bunker by Brenner and Co. It's a show, don't tell moment from the writers.

Max getting Vecna'd was foreshadowed in the beginning of 2x01.

Will, Henry/Vecna, The UD

Filming was supposed to commence mid-June, but Noah and Jamie were set to begin in May due to more complicated costuming. Will is going to require heavy prosthetics at some point.

Will's character design is blocked in three stages. The more the UD bleeds into Hawkins, the more connected to it he feels. The gates being open will physically influence him, especially when he's not as mentally strong.

He's kind of like "the card up Vecna's sleeve."

It appears they want to confuse the audience about Will.

Will wrestling with his own morality

Henry/Will mirrors. Will will sympathize with Henry because, unlike El, he knows how and what Henry thinks, and he can feel him.

Vecna and Will are very similar, but the difference is Will is made stronger by love not hate. They will play into that duality.

Vecna was nerfed in S4 compared to how we see him in S5. He'll be much stronger.

At the beginning, he'll be taking a hiatus while he plans how to divide and conquer now that everyone's back together in Hawkins.

Soteria will be the key to saving Will. If they want Will to be untraceable to Henry, they'll have to insert it into his neck and it'll be painful. Vecna not having access to Will fucks up his ability to leave the UD.

Byler/Mileven Triangle

Apparently, it's complicated and up in the air as of now.

Mike dealing with guilt this season. He feels guilty/responsibility for El. He feels stuck in a loop that keeps him from a truth he's scared to face.

Will and Mike to spend a good chunk of the season together based on character designs and blocking.

Will telling El that Mike won't like being lied to comes back with the painting. During a pre-time jump scene in 5x01, while everyone's together plotting how to defeat Vecna and brainstorming how to save Max, Mike brings up the painting El commissioned for a D&D analogy. Will has to pull Mike aside and confess he lied about El commissioning the painting. Mike gets angry, because he doesn't know about Will's feelings and feels embarrassed that Will thought he was that pathetic he needed to be given a pep talk. Their own version of a "fight you can't come back from." Immediately after their fight, we get the time skip.

Mike's character motivations are unclear and seem to be kept under wraps. After the time jump, he and El won't be talking as much because he's keeping the details about Will's painting from her. She's gonna ask what's wrong between him and Will, and he lies/is very vague.

Joyce, Hopper, Jopper

Joyce feels immense guilt/responsible over Bob's death since she's the one that asked him to help in S2, which is why she pushed Hopper away at first.

Hopper has a secret from S1 that was never addressed, and it comes back to haunt him.

Joyce sustains an injury in S5 that is reminiscent of the way someone was injured in S3, but it isn't critical and she'll be okay.

Jopper are the most established couple after the time jump. Lots of bickering still, but Hopper trusts Joyce more than he ever has.

Jonathan, Nancy, Jancy

So far, does not seem like a breakup is happening.

Jonathan's still lying about the college letter and distant because of it, and Nancy thinks he's not as into the relationship and that there might be someone else. She confronts him, which leads to a talk. She's touched by the lengths he would go to try and protect her and any of their future children even from himself.

A moment where we're led to believe Jonathan dies but doesn't, like Hopper in S3.

Hopper-Byers Family

These five characters slowly unraveling their arcs together and have always been closely linked. Their perfect endings are together.

We see the family combining, especially in relation to El.

Joyce gets to witness Hopper being paternal and tender towards the boys.

Scenes with Joyce, Jonathan, and Will

Hopper being back lifts a weight off Jonathan's shoulders.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, now time to shine.

''(...) sentiment for S5, therefore their wardrobe in the final shot of S4 is similar. Joyce/Jonathan and Nancy/Mike's costuming also similar for the same reason, (...)''

Okay. How did we see Nancy in S4? Confused. Confused with the love triangle between Jonathan, her and Steve. Jonathan is her actual boyfriend. And Steve is her posible love interest again.

So, putting this in byler language: Nancy = Mike Jonathan = Eleven Will = Steve

If Mike's and Nancy's character's clothing is important at this point of the time line and that means they feel similar feelings, this could mean that byler has a chance. BUT then we read this: ''(...) He (Mike) feels stuck in a loop that keeps him from a truth he's scared to face.'' And

''Mike's character motivations are unclear and seem to be kept under wraps.''

THIS LITERALLY MEANS BYLER. FOR REAL. Like byler could be endgame. Also, remember Eleven's injury in S3? Do you remember the leak of a shoe covered in blood?

It's Joyce. ALSO YOU CAN READ THAT WE'LL HAVE SCENES BEFORE THE TIME JUMP. And here it comes. Look at this freaking hair:

Does this look more like this

or this?

The season 4 bowl cut right? So maybe this is right in some part? I dont know. But that could make sense why Will is wearing Mike's pants, because his clothes were in California by that moment. But i really do think that the pic that was leaked a few days ago is before the time jump.

Im so late with this info haha :) but i kinda think some things here make sense. Even if this is too well explained to be a leak.

#stranger things s5 #st5 spoilers #stranger things 5 #st5 #stranger things #st5 speculation #st5 leaks #st5 production #will byers #stranger things season 5 #will byers is gay #byler tumblr #william byers #byler is endgame #byler endgame #byler nation #byler #mike wheeler is gay

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Question: I enjoyed s1 OF OFMD, but for various reasons I never actually got around to watching s2 (pick up most of the plot from tumblr tho). What exactly went wrong in s2 that got so many people upset?

Oh, boy. Very long rant incoming.

So, for context, S2 had a significantly smaller budget, which necessitated moving the filming location to union-unfriendly New Zealand, reducing the number of actors/number of appearances of established actors, and cutting down the number of episodes from 10 to 8. In a show where each episode is only about half an hour long, that last one alone was enough to seriously hamper any character development or plot. I am very comfortable putting the vast majority of the blame on HBO because of these financial decisions.

The short version is that Jenkins et. al. needed to address and build on the problems left hanging in S1 while also getting the characters to the end of their character trajectories in case there was no S3 while also leaving room for additional episodes in case there was a S3, in a grand total of four hours, and failed.

The long version is that there were a bunch of what I'd consider small problems in isolation that came together and exploded in the S2 finale.

The reduced cast necessitated breaking up the crew (ex: having Swede marry Jackie and stay on land with her, so they don't need to pay Nat Faxon for all eight episodes) and not spending as much time on their relationships as S1 did.

The reduced time meant that the entire season was rushed (in contrast to S1, which takes place over at least several weeks if not months, most of S2 takes place in roughly five days), leading both to a lot of telling rather than showing (because they don't have time to show you), including vital character and relationship development.

This includes:

Having the Kraken half of the crew beat Ed to death after months of being abused by him – abuse that is clearly shown to have given them PTSD and a well-justified fear and hatred of him – only for them to be okay with him two in-universe days later;

On that note, having Stede dismiss the crew's concerns about Ed because he loves him and also we only have three more episodes left to fit in everything so we need to get over it really fast, even though Stede is supposed to be well-meaning and caring (even if he's not good at it all the time);

Resolving the issue of Stede abandoning Ed in one day, then having them "go slowly" in their relationship for two days and then have some spur-of-the-moment sex, and then the next afternoon have them break up over their diverging career aspirations, and then the day after that resolve that problem and retire on land while the rest of the crew sails off into the sunset;

Stede becoming a fantastic pirate captain over the course of one day, becoming wildly popular in the piracy world two days later, and then deciding the day after that to never be a captain again because he is retiring with Ed;

Having Ed and Stede decide to retire together as what is implied to be the end point of their relationship arc, when none of Stede's issues from S1, like his poor self-esteem, have been so much as mentioned by anyone, implying that he's either magically gotten over them or they don't matter all that much, actually, even though they were the catalyst for basically everything he did in S1;

Ed having two separate character crises – "I am an unlovable person" and "I want to do something with my life other than piracy" – not spending a lot of time on either one, having moments that clearly indicate he is still working on both problems and they have not been resolved, and then apparently having them both be resolved in the final episode despite nothing occurring to actually make that happen, and in regards to the latter, despite the story actively undermining it by repeatedly showing he can't do anything other than piracy;

Related to the above, Ed ending the series as allegedly being loved by the crew as a family (thus solving Crisis #1) despite this never actually being shown, demonstrated, or even fucking alluded to onscreen. If anything, it shows the exact opposite.

This last point is especially galling to me because of what is probably the most divisive issue in the fandom right now: killing off Izzy Hands after giving him seven episodes of character development.

The show begins with the Kraken crew clearly trying to use the skills they learned as part of Stede's crew to cope with their incredibly shitty situation and care for each other, which includes Izzy. Izzy, on his end, tries to protect the crew and speak up for them, which results in him being repeatedly hurt (both implicitly, as Ed at one point says "that's another toe" in response to Izzy advocating for the crew and we later see he's missing more than one toe already, and explicitly, as Ed shoots him in the fucking leg in front of the crew when he stands up for them).

This camaraderie is shown again and again and again. Frenchie, Jim, and Archie take care of Izzy while his leg is infected, at risk to their own lives. Izzy's misery over losing his leg is what unites the PTSD-ridden Kraken crew and the well-meaning-but-ignorant-of-PTSD marooned crew, who are initially at odds, to make him a new prosthetic leg. Izzy gives Lucius advice about forgiving Ed. Izzy is introduced to drag and opens up enough to sing at a crew party, and the whole crew is having fun together while Ed and Stede are in their cabin having sex for the first time. Izzy gives Stede pirate captain lessons and bonds with him when Ed leaves him. Izzy provokes the season's villain into focusing on him and then gives a big speech about how piracy is about belonging to something, giving the rest of the crew time to try to escape.

Recall that Season 1 had some pretty well-established universe rules, one of which was that it runs on Muppet physics/magical realism. People can jump off yardarms, hit the side on the way down, and be perfectly fine. People can get stabbed in the liver and it's totally okay because it's probably not that important, and even can stay pinned to a mast all night that way with only mild discomfort. Buttons can talk to birds and see long distances without a spyglass and put hexes on people. Good people can be hurt (Stede is stabbed repeatedly), bad people can die (the Badmintons, Geraldo), but no one we care about is ever killed.

This is repeated in Season 2: Ed is beaten into a coma with a cannonball and wakes up like Sleeping Beauty after a spirit journey, with no injuries to his face or body. Buttons turns into a seagull after spending an episode doing a magic ritual and is never seen again (because they couldn't keep paying Ewen Bremner due to the budget cuts). Jackie microdoses her husbands with poison to build up their immunity, so that she can later pull a Dread Pirate Westley and poison the British with shared drinks.

So: in the finale, the villain of the season is taken hostage by the pirates (for reasons? unclear how that fits in the plan), happens to have a gun on him (no one checked??), shoots Izzy on the right side and then leaves with no repercussions. The entire crew stands around silently doing nothing while Ed cries over Izzy and tells him that he's his only family.

And Izzy fucking Hands, the guy who just spent eight episodes bonding with and protecting everyone, uses his last words to reassure Ed that him becoming Blackbeard/the Kraken was Izzy's fault and that the crew is Ed's family and they all love him. No one else says anything to Izzy or tries to comfort him or help him in any way.

I repeat: in a show predicated on the idea that bullies and bigots die stupid deaths while queer people and POC are basically magic, a show that was praised for being kind to queer people by not making them worry about their faves suffering or dying, a show founded on the strength of the relationships between the characters, the guy who went through a season-long arc of learning to embrace his pirate found family and his own queerness is shot for stupid reasons on the side we're told isn't important and dies while everyone just stands there. His last words are about the whole crew loving Ed when the only person that the whole crew has loved all season is him.

Anyway, never mind all that, let's cut to Lucius and Pete getting married and Stede and Ed retiring!

Complicating all this is that people who liked Izzy (or even said anything insufficiently mean about Izzy) were harassed for months in between seasons with insults, slurs, and actual fucking death threats. Izzy's growth was kind of a vindication for liking him: it meant that, despite all the harassment, we were right to like him and care about him as a character. Even people who didn't like him initially started to like him during Season 2.

And then he dies, and now there's a bunch of people saying that Izzy fans are big whiny babies who can't handle fictional death, and actually his death was so meaningful and beautiful and the only logical end to his arc, and it can't be bad writing because people die in real life all the time, and also he admitted he fed Ed's darkness so actually he was a terrible person all along anyway and they were right to hate him (and his fans)!

So, yeah, there are a lot of reasons why it's so hated, and I'm probably only addressing the problems of the pro-Izzy people (from what I can tell, BlackBonnet shippers who don't like Izzy think Ed and Stede's relationship is fine and dandy, but I'm sure that there are other criticisms they have that I have not addressed). I'm not even addressing the issues with Jim and Oluwande's relationship this season (and whooo boy are there issues).

It wasn't a universally bad season. There were episodes I really loved and still do. But the finale was a train wreck, and because it was a train wreck, a lot of people are looking back at what happened before the wreck and realizing that, oh, the train lost its brakes and steering because of the budget cuts and the engineers kept throwing fuel in the engine to make it go faster, and huh, now that I think of it, that part earlier in the trip was really wobbly but I didn't pay much attention to it at the time because I was sure the engineers had everything covered.

#ofmd critical #our flag means death #writing #izzy hands #ofmd meta #askbox #personal

[amuseoffyre]

Since insomnia is kicking my arse of late, I naturally tilted into the thoughts about the nature of the 3-act structure and why S2 of OFMD may have felt off and incomplete to a lot of people.

I am fully in agreement that we lost a lot of valuable time with only 8 episodes and a lot of it did feel rushed, but for the amount of story and set-up and growth and development they needed to fit into 4 hours of television, they did astonishing things.

DJenks has said from the very start that this is a story that has been planned out to take 3 seasons. It's literally a 3-act play and we are currently right in the middle of the worst part of that timeline according to every traditional 3-act structure.

Act one/season one is self-explanatory. Like New Hope in the Star Wars Trilogy or Fellowship of the Ring, this is the set-up. We're introduced to our protagonists and antagonists, the relationships are given a foundation.

The beginning is Stede's journey to becoming a real boy. The inciting incident, the one that actually pushes his change beyond "playing pirates" is meeting Ed. The second thoughts come together in episode 8/9 after his confrontations with Jack and Chauncey and episode 10 is the climax.

Act 2/season 2 is never going to be as smooth and simple as act 1/s1. A big part of the A2/S2 job is set up for A3/S3 and this is what we're seeing and why a lot of story threads seem to have been left dangling.

Again, to call back to Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers, the structure is much the same: the original batch of people are divided and scattered, the big enemy from A1/S1 is looming, new allies make themselves known. In SW, this meant the introduction of Lando and Yoda as allies plus the hint of the Emperor lurking in the background. In LotR, we have the Rohirrim, Gondor and the Ents as allies and the expansion of Sauron's forces in Helm's Deep, Osgiliath and the winged wraiths.

There's a clear trajectory following the A2/S2 structure:

obstacle 1 - the crews separated and struggling

obstacle 2 - the end of episode 2 and the repercussions of his actions

twist - just when things start to settle, the Ned Low situation happen and Stede kills for the first time

obstacle 3 - Ed's struggle with his identity leading to him leaving

disaster - Ricky's assault on the Republic

crisis - do-or-die battle because they have no other choice

climax - the last 15 minutes of ep. 8 live here.

As with SW and LotR, there's an ending, but weighted with the knowledge of a story that is meant to continue. Each of those act 2 films end with the heroes still aware of the looming threat, some of them heading out on new missions, and some of them resting and healing. There's brief pause, brief respite, a moment to take a breath.

We have all the characters in place now and the battle-lines have been drawn. Luke still needs to confront Vader (I see you, impending Ed and Hornigold confrontation), Frodo still needs to destroy the ring, Aragorn still needs to lead the army against the Black Gate, the second Death Star is still hanging in the sky.

I'm so excited to see what S3 brings because we have so many arcs ready to go: Zheng's vengeance trip, the inevitable enforced out-of-retirement arc for Ed and Stede, Hornigold, Ricky trying to maintain his tenuous control of the republic given how many of his people were killed when the crew escaped, the pirate rebellion gathering forces.

Also how often do we get shows/films where the supporting cast are given this much storyline? We have a named/speaking-role cast of upwards of 15 central characters. That is a staggering amount of people to work with, when most shows would only focus on the leads and a couple of their friends. Six is the average for most TV shows, while comedies can inch higher because ensembles, but most ensembles don't get as much as our crew did.

I know a lot of people aren't happy about Izzy's death. I know I would have liked to see him a lot more, because he's such a grumpy old bitch and I love him and him affectionately roasting Ed and Stede would have made my entire month. But I'm also aware that narratively, as a figurehead of the old ways of piracy and "we were Blackbeard", it was a symbolic death as well - a sign of the death of the old ways of piracy and of Blackbeard as was.

(Also, they Obi-Wanned him. I'm not over that. Gave him the "if you strike me down I will become more powerful" speech. I'm just... guys, your star wars nerdery is showing XD)

So while it was flawed in places and pacing, given the scale of the story they're telling, the number of pieces and characters they had in play, and the arcs they have been setting up while also still keeping the humour, I am giving a standing ovation for a remarkable piece of work.

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd meta

[leikeliscomet]

“But We Love Martha Jones!” - The Doctor Who Fandom’s Selective Memory of Racism

Be aware that this article contains explicit examples of anti-black racism and misogynoir.

Chapter 2 - Utopia-ish

The constant nitpicking of Martha Jones for reasons white female companions could get away with was blatant anti-black racism. Let’s get that bit clear first and foremost. As a Black person in fandom, watching Black characters get torn apart while never being given the grace of their non-Black castmates is an experience that’s too common. Microaggressions are more subtle so the easiest way to shut down any mentions of racism is to accuse Black fans of making things up or telling us “Well it’s not like REAL racism”. Luckily Doctor Who Tumblr birthed the Martha Jones affirmative action and Aunt Jemima “memes” so I can cross both covert and overt racism off the list. As mentioned in extensive detail in the previous chapter, plus the various Martha Jones articles written before me, the treatment Martha experienced was racist. I don’t care if you personally didn’t like her. I don’t care that you missed Rose. I don’t care that Ten is your smol bean. Martha’s treatment was racist. Freema Agyeman’s treatment was racist. It might not have been everyone. It might not have been you personally. But it was there. The fandom can never be a safe space for POC, specifically Black people if this elephant in the room can’t be addressed over a decade after it arrived.

On paper, you’d assume Martha’s rep was good because “at least she wasn’t a Black stereotype”. Some fans praised her for having a present father, not speaking MLE and not being from the ends. This goes into respectability politics but the fandom’s weirdness about Black Brits and class is not the point of this article. The point is the revisionist history of how Martha was really treated and to do that it helps to know what Black tropes are. The Mammy trope is a Black woman whose main purpose is to serve her white counterparts and during slavery, she mainly cared for the slave owners' children. She is usually fat, dark skin and asexual, not as a representation of those things but as a statement of how if she isn’t used for sexual exploitation like the Jezebel (the promiscuous, reckless, sexualised Black woman), she has no sexual value at all. Her value is serving the needs of others only. Martha doesn’t fit this trope in theory but in practice, she fulfils the sub-categories of this trope both in show and fandom: the disposable Black (girl)friend trope. She is used as Ten’s emotional punching bag before he’s ready for Donna and then Rose again. She had to endure edgy moody S3 Ten so no one else had to. She’s the excuse people use to deflect any critical analysis of how race was handled in RTD1. She’s the fandom’s excuse to deflect from their own racial biases. Racism? No way! Everybody loves Martha Jones! What do you mean?

Some parts of the fandom have tried to mend things by suggesting Martha be paired with other doctors or romantically shipping her with other characters a bit better than Mickey Smith. But does this hold up? As much as I’m a big fan NineMartha as a concept and as someone who honestly saw one-off characters like Riley Vashtee from 42 or Tallulah from Daleks in Manhattan having way more romantic chemistry with Martha than Mickey ever did, simply re-shipping Martha isn’t enough. Doctor Who’s racism isn't exclusive to one doctor, one series or one era and new Martha pairings suggest the issue was “right person, wrong doctor” instead of what the issue actually was: racism. Moffat and Chibnall’s eras weren’t full of golden Black representation either so I doubt the Martha issue would’ve magically disappeared under those two. From Nine’s hostility to Mickey, to Twelve’s hostility to Danny Pink to Thirteen handing a South Asian Spymaster to the Nazis and Eleven only travelling with POC in comics most fans haven’t heard of and being besties with Churchill, simply putting Martha with another Doctor isn’t the serve fans think it is. Even RoseMartha seems like putting a bandaid on a bullet hole. If it's not enough for Martha to be compared to Rose, put down in favour of Rose, told she isn’t Rose and told she's worse than Rose in fandom and in show over and over and over, she has to be shipped with Rose too. Martha’s a great character… as long as you can tie her to Rose… again. Even in my own article I have to talk about Rose because Rose is centred in what was supposed to be Martha’s story. A doctor-to-be Black girl from London with a hectic family meets a Time Lord and gets abducted by space rhino police at work in one day. Her main conflict isn’t balancing work and time traveller life, or fighting to get her family back together, or seeing what’s out there in the universe - it's that she isn’t “Rose” enough. The Mammy and her sons’ main thing in common is simple; how well they serve and centre the white characters. In attempts to mend Martha’s treatment she is still only valued in relation to white characters. She should’ve been with Eleven because he would’ve fucked a Black woman. Or maybe Dilfy Twelve. Or a sapphic romance with another female companion who she saw twice or doesn’t actually know. Or maybe Ten in an alternate universe where he supports #nubianqueens. None of this is done to explore sexuality or romance with Black women and is definitely not to centre Black lesbianism and bisexuality. It’s Mammy with a dash of Jezebel. It's adding romantic and sexual value on top of physical and emotional value like a crappy meal deal.

I’m tired of Black women being treated as extensions of white women both in media and in real life. I’m tired of our value being determined by how well we serve white people emotionally, physically, platonically and sexually. And I'm even more tired of white feminism especially in this fandom. It would be so easy to label this article as anti-Rose, anti-Ten or anti-Tenrose to invalidate my whole racial analysis because it's the easy way out. I’ll admit I like both characters individually but not the ship but this isn’t something I decided on since birth - it's my conclusion as a Black fan in a predominantly white fandom, watching a predominantly white show, watching the first companion of my race be told she isn’t good enough compared to the white characters, and that the hatred of her is justified for the greater good of its popular white ship. Black fans can never have this conversation without being told we’re “pitting women against each other” and that Martha and Rose hugged once in S4 so everything's hunky dory. Martha’s happy that Ten found Rose again so what’s the problem? It sends a clear message that Black women’s pain will never matter a much as white women’s feelings. “Rose is amazing! Martha’s amazing! Stop pitting women against women!” but who was pit against who in the first place? These faux girl power posts fail to acknowledge the overlap of race and gender which separates the treatment of Black and white women. It fails to acknowledge Martha’s hate was rooted in anti-black racism. It fails to acknowledge the anti-Rose pushback was in response to how the show and fandom convinced us Rose was the untouchable bar this Black woman failed to meet. It fails to acknowledge Freema Agyeman the actress was targeted not just her character. It fails because the female empowerment rhetoric that leaves the Black ones at the bottom of the pile only “empowers” women of a certain demographic.

The harassment Martha experienced was swept under the rug of “stan wars” but it was so much deeper than that. I’m not saying Martha stans are angels but there was no “Great Stan War” because the sides were never even. At the end of the day no amount of “Martha’s better than Rose” tweets will ever compare to the fact that Martha hate was rooted in misogynoir. Rose was and still is considered the greatest companion of nuwho, whilst Martha is constantly erased and undervalued. Rose’s video views and hashtags have always been bigger than Martha’s. Amy and Clara came after Martha but still surpassed her in popularity and got plenty of fan edits of “The Girl Who Waited” and “The Impossible Girl” whilst Martha was conveniently skipped in the companion lineup. The fandom’s bias still shines clearly in favour of Rose over Martha. Rose’s jealousy towards other women is justifiable and just the ups and downs of a 19-year-old whilst Martha’s is entitled bitterness. Rose’s flaws are compelling character moments and depth, Martha’s are “holding her back from being a good companion”. Hell, even Donna calling out Ten’s BS was entertaining accountability whilst Martha was just the angry Black woman. Fans will weaponise Rose’s working-class roots to imply a pro-Martha bias, failing to acknowledge the working-class to poor background of the average Black Brit, the anti-blackness middle-class Black people are not spared from, the many working-class Black characters of the show like Mickey, Bill, Rigsy and Ryan or how most fans don’t consider Martha middle class because she doesn’t fit the white British cultural stereotypes. You can't be the most loved and hated at the same time. The hard truth is Billie Piper wasn’t racially abused by Martha stans but Freema was absolutely racially abused by Rose’s and the effects of this are still around. Go into Martha Jones tags today and you’ll see snarky posts of how Ten could never love another companion like Rose. Even when Freema bravely shared her experiences of literal racism, fans were quick to yell “But I wanted Ten and Rose though” as a justification for years of misogynoir. Again, we need to address the elephant in the room instead of covering our eyes and ears to act like it’s not there. A Black character and actress was collateral damage in order for a popular white ship to rise and whilst I’m not an anti, I as a Black Doctor Who fan, I’ll never be a supporter. At the end of the day, only one of these actresses is still carrying the burden of misogynoir over 10 years since RTD1 ended. A lonely walk across the Earth yet again.

<- Chapter 1 Chapter 3 ->

#martha jones #freema agyeman #doctor who fandom #doctor who #dw fandom #fandom racism #antiblackness #fandom antiblackness #fandom analysis #rose tyler #tenrose #tenmartha #rosemartha #ninemartha #eleven x martha #twelve x martha #marthadonna #thirteenmartha #rtd era #rtd critical #moffat critical #chibnall critical #black representation #new who #dr who fandom #doctor who analysis #rtd #rtd1 #fandom history

[ladyluscinia]

Ok, I think I might be exiting the "are you fucking kidding me?" period and ready to make a real argument, so lets talk about Three Act Structure!

Is OFMD S2 just the "Darkest Hour"?

A very common explanation I've been seeing for some of the... controversial... aspects of S2 is that it's meant to be that way. That the middle act is where the protagonists hit their lowest point. Where we get the big failure point. Where everything looks kind of shit.

S2 is supposedly just that point. It's The Empire Strikes Back. People have been making that comparison since before the first episodes even dropped, telling everyone to expect something that could be disappointing or unsatisfying - it's just a matter of needing to wait for S3 to pull it all together.

It's not a baseless framework to consider the show through - I'm pretty sure David Jenkins has mentioned it in interviews (or at least mentioned he planned for three acts / seasons) so it's certainly worth asking how he's doing at the 2/3rd mark.

So - quick summary of Three Act Structure:

Act 1 introduces our characters and world. It includes the inciting incident of the story and the first plot point, where a) the protagonist loses the ability to return to their normal life, and b) the story raises whatever dramatic question will drive the entire plot. Act 2 is rising action and usually most of the story. The protagonist tries to fix things and fucks them up worse, in the process learning new skills and character developing to overcome their flaws. Act 3 is the protagonist taking one more shot, but this time they are ready. We get the climax of the story, the dramatic question gets an answer, and then the story closes.

If you want examples, the Star Wars Original Trilogy is a very popular template. And, hell, he said it was a pirate story... the main Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy also does a solid job with their three acts.

Let's compare. (Spoiler: I'm not impressed 🤨)

---

First thing I need to establish... Wait. Two things. First is that Three Act Structure is flexible, so we can't really analyze success or failure by pulling up a list of necessary plot beats that should have been hit in X order. Second is that if you tell me you are writing a romance with a Three Act Structure - where "the relationship is the story" - the first thing I'm going to do is ask you how you are adapting it. Because while there's not necessarily anything preventing you from applying this to a character driven plot, most people are familiar with it as plot structure for externally driven conflict.

Unless there's a reason the status of the main relationship is intrinsically tied up in the current status of the war against the evil empire, a standard Three Act Structure is going to entail either an antagonistic force that absolutely wants your main couple apart being the main relationship obstacle OR the romance aspect being a subplot to the protagonist's narrative adventure. None of those sound like how the show has been described.

So how is OFMD adapting it?

---

Act 1

(Can't figure out how well Act 2 is doing if we don't start at setup.)

Right out the gate, OFMD breaks one of the main "rules" for a story where the Acts are delivered in three parts. Namely the one where the first Act is treated as an acceptable standalone story, with it's own satisfying yet open ended conclusion.

In Star Wars, A New Hope ends with the princess rescued, Luke finding the Force, Han finding his loyalty, and the Death Star destroyed. The Empire isn't defeated, the antagonists still live... the story is not over, but this one movie doesn't feel unfinished.

Similarly, Curse of the Black Pearl gives Jack his ship back, Elizabeth and Will get together, and Norrington has the English Navy let them all off the hook and give Jack and the pirates one day's head start.

OFMD's final beat of S1 being Kraken Arc starting is not that, even if Stede returning to sea is still a pretty hopeful note. Now... I don't necessarily think this was a bad call. At least, not if the story is the relationship. It's easy to close on a happy ending and then fuck it up next movie if the conflict is external and coming for them. Not so much if you're driving the story with your protagonists' flaws, in part because it should be really obvious at the end of setup that your main characters need development and can't run off together right now. I actually like that they were risk-takers and let S1 look at the situation clearly vs doing a fragile happy end, because it takes into account the difference between a character-driven and plot-driven narrative.

I think OFMD's Act 1 actually ends at maybe the Act of Grace? Well, there through the kiss on the beach, counting as our "first plot point" before everything goes wrong, basically.

At that point, they have setup the story and characters. We've been introduced to Edward and Stede's current issues. Signing the Act of Grace does make the intertwined arcs between them real - it's no longer a situation that either one of them could just walk away from like it was in 1x07 - and we narrow in on the (alleged) driving question of the show:

It's not about "Will Stede become a great pirate?" or "Will we develop a better kind of piracy for the crew?" - the show is the relationship and the big question is "What is Stede and Edward's happy ending?"

Act 1 ends on their first solution, being together and making each other happy and admitting it's more than just friendship. Act 2 starts, appropriately, by saying both of them are currently too flawed for that to go anywhere but crashing and burning.

Now... looking back, what does Act 1 do well vs poorly?

I think it's really strong on giving us the foundation for BlackBonnet's characters and flaws. We aren't surprised Stede goes home or Edward goes Kraken (or at least... we weren't supposed to be surprised. There are still a lot of holdouts blaming Izzy for interrupting Edward's "healing" despite how at this point in the story it doesn't make sense for Edward to have the skills to heal... but I digress). The relationship question is compelling at the end of S1, the cliffhanger hooks, and the fandom explosion of fics did not come from nowhere - the audience was invested.

I also think Act 1 does a great job of settling us in the universe. We understand the rules it abides by, from how gay pirates are just a fact of life to how there's no important organs on the left side of the body. Stede has a muppety force field. Rowboats have homing devices, and port is always as close as you want it to be. Scurvy is a joke. The overblown violence of pirate life is mostly a joke, but we are going to take the violence of childhood trauma seriously.

Lucius's fake-out death, while technically part of Act 2, works well because Act 1 did a good job of priming everyone to go "obviously this show wouldn't kill a crew member for shock value, and we're 100% supposed to suspend disbelief about how he could have survived getting flung into the sea in the middle of the night." And we do. And we get rewarded for it.

Regarding antagonists - a big focus of any setup - the show is deliberately weak. The one with the most screentime is Izzy, and he's purposefully ineffective at separating our main couple. Every antagonist is keyed to a particular character, and they function mostly to inform us of that character's flaws and development requirements. The Badmintons tell us about Stede's repression and feelings of inadequacy, and Izzy tells us about Edward's directionless discontent and tendency to avoid his problems. Effectively - the show is taking the stance this will be a character driven narrative where Stede and Edward's flaws are the source of problems and development the solution. No person or empire (or social homophobia) is separating them...

...which leads me to something not present - there nothing really about the struggle of piracy against the Empire. Looking at Curse of the Black Pearl... we see piracy is in danger. The Black Pearl itself is described as the last great pirate threat the British Navy needs to conquer. Hangings are omnipresent - Jack is sentenced to die by one almost as soon as he's introduced to the story, when his only act so far had been to wander around and save Elizabeth from drowning. OFMD tries to invoke this kind of struggle in 2x08, but there's no foundation. Our Navy antagonists are Stede's childhood bullies, and so focused on Stede the crew isn't even in danger when they get caught. The Republic of Pirates is getting jokes about being gentrified, not besieged.

Even the capture of Blackbeard by the Navy is treated as a feather in Wellington's cap but not a huge symbolic blow against piracy... because we just do not have that grand struggle woven into Act 1. You only know the "Golden Age of Piracy" is ending if you google it, or have watched a bunch of pirate shows.

Overall, a solid Act 1, well adapted to the kind of story they've said they were looking to tell - a romance in the (silly-fied) age of piracy, instead of a pirate adventure with a romantic subplot.

---

Now, Sidebar - Where is the story going?

The thing about the dramatic question - in OFMD's case: "What is Stede and Edward's happy ending?" - is that a) there's normally more than one question bundled up in that one + sideplots, and b) while you aren't supposed to have the answer yet, you can usually guess what needs to happen to give you the answer.

Back to our examples... Luke's driving question is "Will the Empire be defeated?" Simple. Straightforward. Also: "Will Luke become a Jedi?" The eventual climax of our story from there is pretty obvious... the story is over when Luke wins the war for the Rebellion in a Jedi way. That's the goal that they are working toward.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a bit more complicated. We're juggling more characters and have a less defined heroic journey, but there are driving questions like "Is Jack Sparrow a good man?" and "Is Will Turner a pirate / what does that mean?" and even "Will the British Navy defeat piracy?" They get basic answers in Curse of the Black Pearl, and far more defined ones in At World's End. Still, this is another plot-driven narrative. They've laid the foundations for the Pirates vs Empire struggle, and when that final battle turns into the trilogy climax then you know what's happening.

OFMD is not doing a plot-driven narrative. To judge how they are doing at their goals, we have to ask what they think a happy ending entails in a character sense.

Clearly it's not the classic romantic sideplot, where the climax is the first kiss / acknowledgement of feelings. They've teased a wedding in Word of God comments a lot, so that's probably our better endpoint. Specifically, though, a wedding where both of our protagonists aren't ready to flee from the altar (big ask) and where they've both grown enough that their flaws / mutual tendencies to run away from life problems won't tank the relationship.

In Stede's case it's still massive feelings of inadequacy and being too repressed to talk about his problems. Also he ran away from his family to chase a lifelong dream of being a pirate - "Is Stede going to find fulfillment in being a pirate captain, or will the real answer be love?" Edward meanwhile expresses a desire to quit piracy and retire Blackbeard, but we also find out he's struggling with massive self-loathing and guilt from killing his father - "Is retiring what Edward wants to do, or is he just running away?"

If they are going to get to a satisfying wedding beat at the climax of their story, what character beats do we need to hit in advance?

Off the top of my head - both characters need to self-realize their flaws (a pretty necessary demand of anyone who runs away from problems). They are set up to balance each other well, but also to miscommunicate easily. They have to tell each other about or verbally acknowledge that self-realization so it can be resolved. Stede has to decide how much being a pirate means to him. Edward has to decide if he's retiring and what he wants to do. They both need to show something to do with getting past their childhood traumas given all the flashbacks. Through all this, they also need to hit the normal romance beats that convince the audience they are romantically attracted to each other and like... want to get married.

Oh, and this is more of a genre-specific sideplot, but once they demonstrate a behavior that hurts the people who work for them, they need to then demonstrate later how it won't happen again. Proof of growth, which is kind of important in a comedy where a lot of the humor is based in them being massively self-centered assholes. Stede doesn't earn his acceptance in the community until he kicks Calico Jack off the ship, making up for causing the situation with Nigel in the first episode. A workplace comedy can get a lot of material from the boss as the worker's antagonist, but if you want the bosses to stay sympathetic you have got to throw them some opportunities to earn it.

All that sounds like a lot, but like - the relationship is the story, right? If we spend so much time on establishing flaws big enough to drive a story, we also have to spend time on fixing them. Which is where the turning point hits.

---

Act 2: How it Starts

This is where the full story reality-checks your protagonist. Glad you saved your boyfriend and embraced new love in Act 1, but his repressed guilt means he's about to completely ghost you, and your own abandonment issues and self-loathing are about to make his dick move into everyone else's problem.

Again, it's a non-conventional choice OFMD has this start at the very end of S1 rather than with a sudden dark turn in the S2 premiere, but it's still pretty clearly that point in the Three Act Structure.

In Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back opens with a timeskip to our Rebellion getting absolutely crushed and hiding on a miserable frozen planet. The Empire finds them as the plot is kicking off and they have to desperately flee. They get separated. Han and Leia try to go to an ally for help and end up in Vader's clutches. It's a sharp turn from the victorious note that A New Hope ended on.

Pirates of the Caribbean's Act 2 starts dark. Dead Man's Chest opens with our happy couple Will and Elizabeth getting arrested on their wedding day for the "happy end" escape of the last movie. Jack has not been having success since reclaiming his ship, and we'll soon find out he's being hunted by dark forces. As for the general state of piracy, we get a horrifying prison where pirates are being eaten alive by crows, and a new Lord Beckett making the dying state of piracy even more textual. "Jack Sparrow is a dying breed... The world is shrinking."

The key here is making a point that our heroes aren't ready. This is the struggles part - things they try? Fail. The odds do not look to be in their favor.

Now, OFMD apparently decided to go all-in on flaw exploration, especially with Edward. The first 3 episodes of S2 are brutally efficient in outlining Edward's backslide. In S1 you could see he had issues with guilt and feeling like a bad person. S2 devolves that into a destructive, suicidal spiral where Edward forces his crew into three months of consecutive raids, repeats his shocking act of cruelty with Izzy's toe offscreen (more than once!), escalates it with his leg, and finally they state directly that Edward hates himself for killing his dad so much that he fears he's fundamentally unlovable and better off dead.

Stede's struggles are subtler, but most definitely still there. He's deliberately turning a blind eye to tales of Edward's rampage, half from simply being too self-centered to care about the harms Edward causes others, and half from being unable to face or fathom that he had the ability to hurt Edward that much. Upon reunion he wants to put the whole thing behind them, not addressing why he left in the first place. Very "love magically fixes everything" of him, except Stede is no golden merman.

Interestingly, here, BlackBonnet's relationship dysfunction has very clearly been having a negative impact on the surrounding characters we care about. Make sense, since it's the driving force of the story, but that also adds a lot more relationships we need to make right. Like... Edward is the villain to his crew. The show focuses on their trauma and poisoned relationships with him. And then draws our attention even more to Stede taking his side to overrule their objections to him.

For a story where the conflict and required resolutions are primarily character based, and the setup had already given the main couple a good amount to work with, dedicating a lot of S2 to adding more ground to cover was... a choice. Potentially very compelling on the character end, certainly challenging on the writing end... but not a complete break with the structure.

Bold, but not damning.

---

Act 2: How it Ends

Now it is true that Act 2 tends to end on a loss. Luke is defeated by Vader and loses his hand, and Han has been sent away in carbonite. Jack Sparrow for all his efforts cannot escape his fate, and he and the Pearl are dragged to the locker.

But the loss is not the point. The loss is incidental to the point.

Act 2 is about struggles and failure, but it's also about lessons learned. There's a change that occurs, and our cast - defeated but not broken - enters the final act with the essential skills, motivation, knowledge, etc. that they lacked in the beginning.

Luke Skywalker could not have defeated the Empire in Return of the Jedi until he'd learned the truth about his father and resisted the Dark Side in The Empire Strikes Back. (Ok, confession, I'm using Star Wars as an example because literally everyone is doing so, but frankly it's a better example of formulaic Three Act Structure repeating within each movie because on a trilogy level - relevant to this comparison - it is a super basic hero's journey in a very recognized outfit and as such the Act 2 relevance is also... super basic "the hero tries to fight the antagonist too early" beat where he learns humility. Not really a lot going on. So, for the better example...)

Dead Man's Chest has a downer ending with the closing moment of the survivors regaining hope and a plan against an enemy now on the verge of total victory - a classic Act 2. But in that first loss against Davy Jones we get Will's personal motivation and oath to stab the heart, Jack finally overcoming not knowing what he wanted and returning to save them from the Kraken (being a good man), Elizabeth betraying Jack (being a pirate), Barbossa's return, and Norrington's choice to bargain for his prior life back. The mission to retrieve Jack from the World's End is the final movie's plot, but things are already on track to turn the tables back around as we enter the finale.

Now, relevant sidenote - one major difference between Three Act Structure within a single work vs across three parts is that Act 2 continues into Part 3, and only tips over into Act 3 about midway through. This is because obviously your final movie or season cannot just be the climax. That's why both movie examples start with a rescue mission. They have to still be missing something so they can get the plot of their third part accelerating while they go get whatever that something is.

But if you wait until the 3rd movie / season to get the development going at all - you're fucked.

Jack's decision in the climax of At World's End to make Elizabeth into the Pirate King goes back to the development we saw in the Pearl vs Kraken fight in Dead Man's Chest. So does Elizabeth's leadership arc. Will's whole arc about becoming Captain of the Dutchman gets built upon in the third movie, but it starts in the second. Not just as an idle thought - he's actively pursuing it. Already consciously weighing saving his father vs getting back to Elizabeth as soon as he makes the oath. Everyone is moving forward in Act 2. Their remaining development might stumble for drama, or they might be a bit reluctant, but I know that they know better than to let it stick, because they already faced their true crisis points.

I'm not sure we can say the same about OFMD.

S2 does a good job of adding problems, yeah, but there's not really any movement on fixing them. Our main couple stagnates in some ways, and regresses in others.

Stede opened Act 2 by running away in the middle of the night back to his wife without telling Edward anything. We know he did it because of feeling guilty and his core childhood trauma of his dad calling him a weak and inadequate failure. Now in S1 he actually speedruns a realization of his shitty behavior with Mary, but what about S2? Well...

He continues to not talk to Edward about... pretty much anything. My guy practiced love confessions galore but Edward only finds out about going back to his wife via Anne, and it gets brushed aside with a love confession. He seems to think Edward wants him to be a dashing pirate, or maybe he just thinks he should be a dashing pirate. Idk, it doesn't get examined. Regarding his captaincy, they give him an episode plot about Izzy teaching him to respect the crew's beliefs, but this is sideplot to a larger arc of him completely overruling their traumas and concerns (and shushing their objections) to keep his boyfriend on the ship so. That.

Stede kills a man for reasons related to his issues, shoves that down inside and has sex with Edward instead of acknowledging any bad feelings. At least this time Edward was there and knows it happened? Neither Chauncey's death nor his dad have been mentioned to anyone. He gets a day of piracy fame that goes to his head, gets dumped, and ends on a complete beat down by Zheng where he learns... idk. Being a boor is bad? He's still wildly callous to her in the finale, and spends the whole time seeking validation of his pirate skills. He reunites with Edward, kisses, and quotes Han Solo.

Where S1 ended on a great fuckery, his S2 naval uniform plan after they regroup is ill defined except to call it a suicide mission - and we don't get to see what it would have been because it devolves into a very straightforward fight and flee. And gets Izzy killed. Quick cut funeral (no acknowledgement of his S2 bonding with Izzy), quick cut to wedding (foreshadowing), quick cut to... innkeeper retirement? Unclear when or even if BlackBonnet discussed Stede's whole driving dream to be a pirate and live a life at sea, but I guess that got a big priority downgrade. Despite the fact he was literally looking to Zheng for pirate-based compliments in the post-funeral scene.

I guess he's borderline-delusionally dogged in his pursuit of love now - so unlikely to bolt again - but he's also got at least a decade of experience mentally checking out in a state of repression when he's unhappy. And he's stopped being as supportive and caring toward the crew in that dogged pursuit, while arguably demonstrating a loss in leadership skills, so, um, good thing someone else is in charge?

And if Stede is a mess, Edward's arc is so much worse.

As established, they devote the Kraken to making Edward worse. He literally wants to kill himself and destroy everyone around him in the process because Stede left, and this is fixed by... Stede coming back. That's it. The crew tries to murder him and then exiles him from the ship (and Izzy takes the lead on both, indicating exactly how isolated Edward has become), but it's resolved in half a day by Stede just forcing them to put up with his boyfriend again. Like they think he murdered Buttons and still have to move him back in???

The show consistently depicts Kraken Era as a transgression against the crew, but they also avoid showing Edward acting with genuine contrition. He admits he historically doesn't apologize for anything, and then mostly still doesn't. It's a joke that he's approaching probation as a performance (CEO apology), and then the only person he genuinely talks to is Fang - the one guy cool with him - and the only person who gets a basic "sorry" is Izzy - the guy he really needs to be talking to. Edward's primary trauma is guilt, but apparently he only feels it abstractly after all that? He's only concerned with fixing things with Stede, despite Stede being about the only person around who hurt him instead of the reverse.

Speaking of primary traumas, Edward hating himself doesn't really go anywhere after the beat of self-realization. Apparently Stede still loving him is enough of a bandaid to end the suicide chasing, but he doesn't like. Acknowledge that. Edward is maybe sorta trying to go slow so he doesn't hang all his self-worth on Stede again (you can speculate), but they a) absolutely fail to go slow, and b) he doesn't make any attempt to develop himself or another support structure. Just basically... "let's be friends a bit before hooking back up." And then we get the whiplash that is Blackbeard and/or retirement.

Kraken Era is Blackbeard but way worse, like no one who has known Blackbeard has ever seen him. In the Gravy Basket Edward claims he might like being an innkeeper, before destroying his own fantasy by having the spectre of Hornigold confront him over killing his dad. The BlackBonnet to Anne & Mary parallel says running away to China / retiring makes you want to kill each other - burn it all down and go back to piracy. Stede rightfully points out prior retirement plans were whims. Edward gets sick of the penance sack after a day and puts his leathers back on to go try "poison into positivity". But also claims to be an innkeeper (look - two whole mentions!) when trying not to send children to be pirates after teaching them important knife skills.

Killing Ned Low is a serious, bad thing that prompts ill-advised sex and then going hardcore into retirement mode - leathers overboard, talk about mermaid fantasy, get retirement blessings from Izzy, end up dumping Stede for a fishing job instead of talking about how he's enjoying piracy. The fishing job, however, is also a bad thing and a stupid decision because Edward is a lazy freeloader fantasizing about being a better person. We have an uncomfortable, extended scene of "Pop-Pop" weirdly echoing his abusive dad and then sending Edward to go do what he's good at - disassociate, brutally murder two guys, fish up the leathers, rise as the Kraken from the sea. He continues with comically efficient murder but also he's reading Stede's love letters and seeking to reunite with him so... wait, is this a good thing? Post makeout / mass slaughter he's trading compliments on his kills with Zheng so. Yeah. Looks like it. Murder is fine.

Wait, no, skip ahead and Izzy is dying and Edward suddenly cares a whole lot as Izzy makes his death scene about freeing Edward from Blackbeard. Now being a pirate was "encouraging the darkness" because Izzy - a guy who had little to no influence over Edward's behavior - just couldn't let Blackbeard go. Murder is bad again, and he is freed. Minus the little detail that the murder he explicitly hates himself over was not related to Blackbeard or piracy whatsoever, so presumably haunts "just Ed" still. Anyway he's retiring to run an inn with Stede now, as the "loving family" Izzy comforted him with in his dying moments sails away from the couple that can best be described as the antagonists of their S2 arc. Also Edward implicitly wants to get married. It's been 3 days since making out was "too fast". He's still wearing the leathers.

So most of the way through Act 2 and Edward's barely on speaking terms with anyone but Stede, who he has once again hung his entire life on really fast? Crushing guilt leads to self-hatred leads to mass murder and suicide, but only if he's upset so just avoid that. He's still regularly idealizing Stede as a non-fucked up golden mermaid person (that maybe he personally ruined a bit) because he barely knows the guy. His only progress on his future is "pirate" crossed out / rewritten / crossed out again a few times, "fisherman" crossed out, and "innkeeper ?"

Just.

Where is the forward movement?

It's not just that the inn will undoubtedly fall apart - it's that the inn will fall apart for the near-exact same reasons that China was going to at the beginning of Act 2, and I can't point to anything they've learned in the time since that will help them. I guess Stede realized he loved Edward enough to chase after him, but that was in S1! They should be further than this by now. You can't cram another crisis backslide, all the Act 2 development, and the full Act 3 climax into one season. Certainly not without it feeling like the characters magically fix themselves.

If they just fail and keep blindly stumbling into the same issues because they don't change their behavior, then Act 2 doesn't work. You're just repeating the turning point between Act 1 & Act 2 on a loop.

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Where Did They Fuck Up?

Actually... lets start on what they did right.

The one consistent aspect of S2 that I praised and still think was done well in a vacuum (despite being mostly left out of the finale) was the crew's union-building arc.

With only 8 episodes and more to do in them than S1, side characters were going to get pinched even if the main plot was absolutely flawless. That was unavoidable. With budget cuts / scheduling issues, we regularly have crew members simply vanish offscreen outside of one scene, meaning cohesive arcs for your faves was not likely. Not to say they couldn't have done better - my benefit of the doubt for the TealOranges breakup and Oluwande x Zheng dried up about when I realized he was literally just her Stede stand-in for the parallel - but something like Jim's revenge plot from S1 was realistically not on the table without, like, turning half the crew into seagulls to afford it.

The union building works around this constraint really well. They turn "the crew" into the side arc, and then weave Izzy's beats in so that they aren't just about Izzy. The breakup boat crew working together to comfort each other and protect him turns them into a unit, and Stede's crew taking it upon themselves to address the trauma vibes while the captains aren't in the way solidifies it across all our side characters. The crew goes to war with Stede's cursed coat and wins, they Calypso their boss to throw a party, and they capitalize on a chance to make bank with an efficiency Stede could only dream of.

We don't get specific arcs, but Frenchie, Jim, and Oluwande are defaulted to as leaders in just about every situation, and Roach is constantly shown sharing his inventions with different characters. Individuals can dip in and out without feeling like the sideplots stutter. Any sense of community in S2 is coming from this arc - even if there are cracks at the points where it joins to other storylines (Stede and Edward, Zheng, etc.)

So why does it work? Well, because it's a workplace comedy, and you can tell they are familiar with working on those. They know where the beats are. They know where to find the humor. They know how to build off of S1 because they made sure the bones were already there - an eclectic group of individuals that start as just coworkers, but bond over time in the face of their struggle against an inept boss who they grow to care for and support while maintaining an increasingly friendly antagonism because, you know, inept boss.

OFMD does its best work in S2 when it's being true to its original concept... and its worst work when it seemingly loses confidence in its own premise.

"The show is the relationship," right? It's a romance set in a workplace comedy. The setup of Act 1 was all about creating a character-driven narrative. So given that... where the hell are we getting the dying of piracy and a war against the English Navy?

That's not a character-driven romcom backdrop, it's an action-adventure plot from Pirates of the Caribbean or Black Sails. It's plot-driven, creating an antagonistic force that results in your characters' problems. Once the story is about the fight against the Empire, the dramatic question becomes the same as those adventure stories - "Will the British Navy defeat piracy, and will our protagonists come out the other side of the battle?"

Forget the wedding. The wedding is no longer the climax of the story, its back to the happy ending flash our romantic subplot gets after winning this fight.

Except, of course, trying to pivot your story to a contradictory dramatic question near the end of Act 2 can be nothing short of a disaster, because either you were writing the wrong story until now, or you've completely lost the plot of the real one. I shouldn't even be trying to figure out if they are doing this, because it should be so obvious that they wouldn't.

And yet.

What do the Zheng and Ricky plots add to the story if not this? Neither of these characters have anything emotionally to contribute to Stede and Edward - they truly are plot elements. It's a hard break from the S1 antagonist model, but it also takes up a lot of valuable screentime. This was considered important, but still Zheng's personality and motivation only gets explored so far as it's an Edward-Stede-Izzy parallel with Oluwande and Auntie, and they only need the parallel for Izzy's genre-jumping death scene. Which follows a thematically out-of-left-field speech about how piracy is about belonging to something good (workable) and how Ricky could never destroy their spirits (um...?). And then David Jenkins is pointing to it and saying things about "the symbolic death of piracy" and speculating S3 might be about the crew getting "payback"??? An idea floated by Zheng right before our temporary retirement, btw.

Fuck, the final episode of S2 didn't have time for our main couple to talk to each other because it was so busy dealing with the mass explosion of Zheng's fleet and Ricky's victory gloat. We get lethal violence associated with traumatic flashbacks until they need to cut down enemy mooks like it's nothing, at which point we get jokes with Zheng. The Republic of Pirates is destroyed outright, and it feels like they only did it because they got insecure about their "pirate story" not having the right kind of stakes. Don't even get me started on killing a major character because "Piracy’s a dangerous occupation, and some characters should die," as if suspending disbelief on this aspect makes the story somehow lesser, instead of just being a fairly standard genre convention in comedy. Nobody complains about Kermit the Frog having an improbably good survival record.

Did someone tell them that the heroes have to lose a battle near the end of Act 2, so they scrambled to give them one?

Just... compare the wholly plot-driven struggle in 2x08 to Stede and Edward's character-focused storylines in 1x10 and tell me how 2x08 is providing anything nearly as valuable to the story. Because I can't fucking find it.

At best they wasted a bunch of time on a poorly integrated adventure plot as, like, Zheng's backstory or something, and just fucked it up horribly by trying to "step up" the kind of plot they did for Jim. In which case the whole thing will be awkwardly dropped but damage is done. Otherwise, they actually thought they could just casually add a subplot like this because they've done something wildly stupid like think "pirate" is a genre on the same level as "workplace comedy" and can just trample in-universe coherency while you draw on other media to shore up their unsupported beats.

Bringing us to the most infuriating bit...

---

"...end the second season in a kinder spot."

If this was the goal, the entire season was written to work actively against it in way that is baffling and incompetent.

The really ironic thing is that the reason that the Act 2 part typically gets a downer ending is because of the evil empire that OFMD did not have to deal with until they pointlessly added it. A plot-driven story has an antagonistic force - a villain - that the heroes need to defeat. Something external working against them. The story ends when they beat the thing, and it's not much of a climax if they do most of the defeating before you get there. Ergo, they have to be outmatched up to the climax. Ergo, the second part cannot end on them feeling pretty comfortable and confident going into the third.

The same rules do not apply in the same way to a character-driven arc.

We already established Edward and Stede declaring their love is not the end of the story. Nor, necessarily, is both of them confidently entering a relationship. Even once they've developed a bunch they will have to show that development by running into the kinds of problems that would have broken them up before and resolving them better.

David Jenkins keeps talking about this idea that S2 is getting a hopeful open ending and S3 will get into potential problems, and like... I don't see any reason why they couldn't have done that successfully. They didn't, but they could've.

If S2 grew them enough as characters and then had them agree to try again in the last minute of the finale, they absolutely could have had a kind and hopeful ending where you were confident they could do it. And then a potential S3 can show that. It's a bit rockier than they were counting on, but they have learned enough lessons to not break up. And then the overall plot can build to proposal (start of Act 3) and wedding (the romantic climax). It doesn't have to be a blow out fight to be emotionally cathartic.

(Hell, the main rockier bit that they overcome in the S3 Act 2 portions could be marriage baggage. I'm sure they both have some. It would work.)

In the same way focusing on our character's long term flaws and character-driven conflict makes an Act 1 "happy ending" more difficult, I suspect it makes an Act 2 "happy ending" easier.

Instead they wrote an Act 2 that failed to convincingly start development and got confused on its direction, and then presented a rushed finale ending in a copy of the predictable disaster from S1 as though it's a good thing. They yanked the story at least temporarily into an awkward place where a romcom is trying to sell me on a bunch of serious drama / adventure beats that it has not put the work into, and inviting comparisons to better versions of those same beats in other, more suited media that make it look worse. The need to portray everyone as reaching happy closure overrules sitting with a major character death and using it for any narrative significance, while still letting it overshadow those happy endings because a romcom just sloppily killed a major character with a wound they've literally looked into the camera and said was harmless.

If I'm being entirely honest, Dead Man's Chest ends effectively at Jack Sparrow's funeral and then cuts to the British Navy obtaining a weapon of mass destruction, and it still feels kinder and more hopeful just because I leave with more faith the characters are actively capable of and working toward solving their problems.

OFMD S2, in contrast, has half-convinced me our main couple would live in a mutually obsessed, miscommunication-ridden horror story until they die.

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Additional Reading

Normally I link stuff like this in the post, but that requires more excitement than I'm feeling right now. Here's my alternative:

Where I thought they were going with Edward - really outlines the mountain of character development they still have unaddressed

Where I thought they were going with Izzy - touches on a lot of themes that might be dead in the water & also context that's still probably relevant to why Izzy got a lot of focus in S2

My scattershot 2x08 reactions

An ask where I sketched out the bones of this argument, and another where I was mostly venting about the fandom response

This one, this other one, and this last one (read the link in op's post too) about genre shifts and failure to pull them off

The trauma goes in the box but it never opens back up - the whole point of Act 2 is that they needed to start opening shit like that - and also they focus so much on needed character growth and so little on following through

They can't even carry through on character growth that we got last season???

Why Izzy's death feels like Bury Your Gays ran smack into shitty writing

EDIT: Oh and this post is REALLY good for outlining the lack of change in way less words than I did

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd meta #three act structure #character arcs #blackbonnet #genre #blackbeard ofmd #stede bonnet ofmd #my meta #ladyluscinia #ofmd critical