Main cast: Steven Pacey (Steven the Narrator) and Laura Pacey (The Scientist)
Director: Tim Miller

Well, we have finally arrived at the final episode of the second season, The Drowned Giant, and I’m still wondering whether I’d somehow missed the party because it sure feels like it never started.

Based on a story by JG Ballard, this episode perfectly encapsulates the second season: it’s nice to look at, but it’s ultimately a hollow shell. There’s no genuine passion to it.

Basically, the corpse of a giant is washed up on shore. No one knows how it gets there, or even where it comes from, but it doesn’t matter. The whole thing ends up being a heavy-handed metaphor, beaten in the head with all the subtlety of an electric drill right between the eyes by the protagonist: no matter big you think you are when you’re alive, very few people will remember that or even care once you’re dead.

So yes, that’s it. It sure feels like the people behind this show carefully parsed stories to make episodes out of, stories that will win them accolades for being pretentious. There is no nuance or subtlety, and the message isn’t even that deep or profound to begin with!

The result is way too try hard, something that desperately wants to be seen as something it doesn’t even come close to being.

Anyway, this season is a letdown after the first one. The big reason for this is how lacking it is in fun.

Every episode feels guarded, self conscious, perhaps because the first season was criticized by the usual morons on social media and online so-called pop culture sites for daring to have fun.

Perhaps the people behind this show have their heads swelled to double the original size when this show took off after the first season and became hijacked by fake geeks that don’t care about the show and just want to hop on whatever bandwagon that is the most popular at the moment.

Oh well, the term “sophomore slump” is coined for a reason. Here’s hoping that the next season will get back some of its magic.