After a disappointing but promising first season, I was looking forward to a much improved second season of Joss Whedon’s latest series. Unfortunately the season did not start well. We still got some stand alone stories. There was a slight improvement, in that there was a little more progress regarding the characters and the overall plot.
Then something changed: the series was getting cancelled. It seems to me that once they knew about the cancellation, the writers decided to jam everything they worked out about the series into the last remaining episodes. Stories that were planned to take place over multiple seasons were worked into a few episodes. And it was awesome!
Each these episodes felt like a season finale, where big things happen to characters, and secrets or twists are revealed. Not only that, but they 4 of them were aired 2 per week, giving us so much info and excitement in an even shorter time. It felt a little bit like 24 at its peak, where every episode had a good twist.
There are drawbacks to this kind of writing, we barely have time to think about some revelations, and their consequences are not properly explored. But in the end it worked. I was totally into it and enjoy every second of it. Some of the details of the plot might be unclear to me, because they didn’t have a lot of time to explain and clarify things. But it didn’t matter.
All characters had an arc and by the end of the series they were literally changed. Echo was the least interesting because of her constant personality wipes, but once she truly became her own person, separate from Caroline, I started to care more about her. Her relationship with Ballard also helped in that aspect.
Sierra and Victor were always interesting, but they also grew. And I especially loved Victor/Topher, that was some superb acting. Topher is another character that totally changed in season 2. His scenes with Bennett were really fun to watch. Boyd was part of the greatest twist of the series. Adelle almost fooled me into hating her, but I knew there was more to it than it appeared.
Overall it’s very uneven series, but the last 6-7 jam-packed episodes are totally worth it.
Rating: 4 Stars