Just Stop just released a great video about the ways this show fails at storytelling. I agree with the points about how much of the show doesn't work in retrospect, such as the stagnant character development.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=J8epjdWJT9wPreserveTube
Just got around to watching this, and yeah, I mostly agree with what he says, here's are the points he brings up that I would like to further discuss things.
The only point I heavily disagree with is how GW's writing apparently improves by the later episodes, I don't think that that's what happened, what happened is that the show becomes more serious and gets far less overtly wacky, so it feels like the writing has "matured", when it's still as infantile and amateurish as it always has been, just in a different tone.
- Almost no one has a meaningful character arc
EVERYONE, except Jax (he argues Caine has a character arc too but it's just as quick and barely thought of like most of the characters) simply have bad and poorly constructed character development, I've already explained them many times prior in this thread, so I won't repeat myself, but I will give you a blueprint on how everyone's character evolution works:
- A few scenes establishing their personalities and issues
- Wallow a little bit
- Get some super emotional therapy session that lifts their spirits up and fixes their flaws forever
- Get chucked into the bin of irrelevancy afterwards
The only person that actually went through a "proper arc" is Jax, and I can argue it's just mediocre instead of the touching and heartbreaking story it's meant to be, 5 episodes of being the wacky asshole, then crashed out at 6, almost dies in 7, becomes irrelevant for a bit, dies, and has his backstory revealed, what it's trying to get across is a warning of how being a deliberate prick and denying your real feelings (insert trans interpretation here) will inevitably destroy yourself and everyone else around you, but the problem is that the runtime was allotted really weirdly, Episode 5, 6 and 9 are the only ones where he actually demonstrated his development, and outside of those episodes, he's leans closer to a supporting character in the show he plays the co-lead on, yes, I AM arguing that Jax should have gotten more screentime and prominence needed to further improve his story, he's the main thing the writer focused, why not go all in?
This is the best bit of character development that GW can apparently write and it's just mediocre.
- Everyone is a passive bystander for 99% of the time
Another issue is how just, inactive everyone just seems to be, prior to Pomni's arrival, it seems that nobody is even really friends with each other and is narratively in stasis.
Again, it's Jax that seems to be the only proactive person around, and by proactive, we of course mean him being a wretched gremlin, he's the only one being allowed to actually act on his CHARACTER
Now, this actually could have been a really great narrative hook to start with, the circus has thoroughly sucked the life out of everyone that they are effectively just going through the motions, day in, day out, just barely hanging on until abstraction inevitably takes them, then Pomni, the new blood, comes in, and she sees the stagnation and how long it's been happening, and takes it on herself to start actively improving things, forging bonds with the others, making sure they work as a cohesive unit with something to work on, something to strive for, making demands for Caine to improve their living conditions, this can even be part of her own arc, going from nervous wreck at risk of abstracting to a bold, confident leader dead set on holding the group together.
But nah, fuck that, let's make sure that they just stand around twiddling their thumbs until they get their limelight before pushing them back to doing nothing, because that's a GREAT use of your own cast.
- There's no establishing motivation to change, making the story feel directionless
Related to the "stagnancy issue", no one is concretely given a reason WHY they should change, the video harkens back to IHNMAIMS on how AM forces the 5 humans to face their traumas and if they don't, they'll be thrown back to getting tortured indefinitely, it's a solid, driving motivation for the characters to develop.
it's why the character arcs are incredibly trash, they have all of these personal issues, but nothing is really driving them to fix it, Caine isn't really torturing them, Jax is mostly content with elementary school trolling, they are flawed until an emotional scene magically does fix it for them.
It's bullshit, it's unnatural, and it's emotionally underwhelming.
- There are no real stakes for most of the series
The pilot established the abstraction concept and seemed like big threat dangling over everybody is the fact they WILL die if they start mentally giving up, I personally thought that's a really cool idea of in a world where nothing can physically hurt you, your only enemy is your own mental health, and that will be a big point of tension that would drive the story and the subsequent character conflicts
But, no, after the pilot, it was ONLY in episode 8 of Caine being AM-Lite is when there were some stakes getting established, the performers don't want to be tortured forever, so they put a plan to stop that, I think this is why so many people really liked episode 8, it's one of the very few times GW effectively executed and concluded a conflict long brewing since the very beginning, it's an actual story with a PLOT and STAKES that isn't half baked character drama.
Other than that, abstraction doesn't even seem to be a thing anybody had to worry about and is pushed into the side until Jax starts hinting about doing it, again, most of the consequential events revolves in and around Jax, as if everyone else are literal NPCs.
- Overreliance on hype moments and aura
There are several scenes in the that in isolation, seem cool and poignant, one scene he brings up in the finale is Pomni in response of her learning about her IRL self, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but she goes:
"She's out there doing her own thing, but me? I'm just Pomni."
It's a poignant moment that's supposed to signify how much she had diverged from the person she was originally based from, but when you actually think about it for more than a few seconds, Pomni did not have the long and satisfying character evolution that line implied, she went from nervous wreck to accepting of her situation in two episodes before completely stagnating as her character essentially orbited around Jax from episode 5 onward, it's a faux resolution scene masked by the visuals and music to trick the children and the manchildren into thinking something important happened.
It's a continuous pattern of supposedly highly impactful "emotional scenes" that don't actually make that much sense when you consider what had led up to that moment.
- Several details are set up and never brought up again
Too many times, but the video brought up at least one.
When Pomni looks at the computer in the pilot, she starts freaking out for some reason, was it reminding her of life outside?, did she have some traumatic event related to the computer and how she could have ended up here?
It never becomes relevant ever again.
- The entire setting and premise are mere set dressing
The truth is, this entire show is simply a platform for the showrunner to showcase his fetishes and his personal issues, nothing more, nothing less, a writer that's actually interested in the fictional universe they're making would not have so many fucking glaring flaws present before putting their screenplay into production
So many people fell in love with the premise and the characters because this WAS a show that had a lot of potential to be fun, to be emotional, but GooseWorx seemingly just did not give a shit about making a solid, structurally coherent story,
And that's the worst part, I realized far too late that he just
did not care.
