So I won't bore you with rehashing the 1st and 2nd Season, if you're watching the show, great, if you're and afraid of spoilers, I'm sorry but there are some plot points I gotta discuss here. Currently, we've watched episode 6 of the current season (Season 3) and I just don't like the direction this show is going. One of the things that put me off if the show's poor writing, not BAD writing (this isn't "American Horror Story", still trying to recover brain cells from having watched that, any and all donations welcome), I'm talking about poor writing. The show sadly can't commit or provide pay offs to plot points that really need it. What do I mean?
In the 1st Season, Cal Roberts, after being berated by Silas broke a bottled and stabbed him to death with it, ridden with guilt and nearly drunk, Cal then buried Silas played it off as if Silas joined Steve in The Light. One party wasn't buying this act and that was Sarah Lane, and she figured out that Cal had written the final rungs of The Ladder himself and had a suspicion (which was later confirmed by Cal showing her the body) that he had killed Silas. Rather than turn Cal in and expose him as the horrible person he is, she decided to help Cal and cover for him. Just so we're keeping score here, Sarah Lane is now complicit in a murder. This doesn't cause her to break ties with Cal...the straw that breaks the camel's back is when (as my wife dubs her) Scary Mary gives birth to Cal's baby.
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| Look, Cal, kill all the people you want but bastard children is crossing the line! |
We start Season 3 with one of Sarah's blackmail victims blowing his brains out in her house...did I mention Sarah blackmailed several people? In the previous Season the FBI were onto her and it was looking like she was going to do some hard time, but unfortunately Hulu decided not to bring back Rockmond Dunbar's character back for this season so that plot line got wished into the cornfield. Getting back on topic, Sarah's current conflict is her slowly losing her faith after discovering Stephen Meyer may have been a pervert into BDSM. Her behavior is reminiscent of Eddie's in the 1st Season, not sure what to believe, questioning everything and finally seeing Meyerism for what it is. However, unlike Eddie in the 1st Season, Sarah is expecting Eddie to fully embrace her...lucky for her Eddie reformed the faith otherwise she'd have to be confined to a White room.
Sarah is my major sticking point in this series as her hypocrisy isn't even ironic or funny. Even after covering up a murder, blackmailing several people and actively lying about her faith (remember she never told anyone Cal wrote the last rungs) she still has the audacity to act as if she's better than everyone. She has thus far suffered no comeuppance for her past actions and it doesn't look like they will effect her at all...and no...I'm sorry but no, a character with that much going on should be more interesting and she's not. Honestly, whenever she's on screen I feel physically exhausted because I know she's gonna ramble about feeling guilty but she won't do anything substantial about it. Seems like the only ACTUAL thing she did was engage in some BDSM with Cal and admitted she was losing her faith...okay...when will the truth about her covering up of Silas's murder come out?
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| Maybe...but you'd have to switch interrogation methods to get a confession out of her...(I'm a terrible person) |
Let's back up for a bit and talk about "Breaking Bad", there was a great scene when Walter was going into surgery and Skylar asking him about his cellphone to which he replied heavily medicated ,"Which one?". Just those two words lead Skylar to revelation that Walter was a drug dealer. We didn't see her make the phone call Gretchen Schwartz or to Walter's mom, we heard about it and that made the confrontation that much more palpable because she did all the busy work which in an inferior drama would take episodes before we got the final revelation from Skylar that Walter is a drug dealer. Now, let's imagine that Walter said "Which one?" in Season 1 and we spend the next couple of Seasons with Skylar trying to figure out what's going on with Walter. That's what it's like with Sarah. If the point of Sarah is that she doesn't suffer any consequences then don't involve her. Because the writers involved Sarah in some MAJOR plot points that have merely been shrugged off and placed in the background.
No one's asking Sarah about Silas (they all think he's with Stephen in The Light) but she knows that Silas was killed by Cal, that didn't call her faith into question? She forced Richard, a very devout man (who she knew was devout) out of the faith for asking too many questions, that didn't call her faith into question? No, Cal's illegitimate child and some BDSM and now she's suddenly losing her faith. I could careless. Moreover, let's talk about Hawk Lane...Hawk "I Like Men Now" Lane. Hawk had something of an arc in the 1st Season, dating an I.S. girl questioning his faith and sorta finding it again and becoming more devout in the 2nd Season taking something of a leadership role in things but sadly I feel the writers aren't sure what to do with him...so naturally, they decide to make him gay or at least questioning of his sexuality.
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| My wife TOTALLY called this. |
Earlier this Season Eddie found a man with a swastika tattoo lurking around their compound, Logan Dodd. Logan says the tattoo was given to him by his brothers for protection in juvie, while present at the compound Logan is soft spoken and shows a penchant for gardening. Eddie goes to bat for him for him to remain at the compound believing that Logan is the prime candidate for his new open door policy, the others reject Logan flat out. However, Logan hasn't yelled at anyone or revealed himself to be violent or hateful towards anyone, HOWEVER everyone else around Logan outwardly despises him and express their hatred constantly. This was a prime opportunity to start a rivalry between Logan and Hawk, with Logan being the devout son that Eddie never had and Hawk being the son who can't accept his father as the leader (after witnessing what a flawed man he is in the 1st season).
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| Wasted potential. |
During the 2nd Season, Cal was positioning himself as a personal mentor to Hawk much to chagrin of Eddie. This dynamic sort of went away but it really should've remained, after all at the end of the 2dn Season when Hawk asked Mary whose baby it was she whispered something and I doubt she told him it was Cal's. What was supposed to come of that? Did she tell him it was Eddie's to poison trust between father and son? Doesn't matter because this was apparently forgotten. Now Hawk is back in a position of leadership and it looks like his main issue will be him struggling with his sexuality...which I'm not even sure it's a struggle because Meyerism doesn't seem to have a position of homosexuality...so I'm thinking this struggle will mostly be with Caleb and whether or not he can be with Hawk because Christianity is obviously against homosexuality. I'm sorry but this does not interesting TV make...at least not for me. Every Season Hawk had a romantic interest, it's finally time for Hawk to have something else going on for him other than women pulling him in every which way.
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| Hawk is dating an I.S. Boy!! |
Eddie, I really like Eddie but once again they keep butchering his character. In this Season Eddie was buried alive and while he was down there he started to say The Lord's Prayer and it was interesting because when the chips were down he wasn't calling out for The Light but he was about to call out to God. Was this a potential crisis of faith? Doesn't look like it. It unfortunately looks like he's the target of some Hyper Meyerists who believe some prophecy must be fulfilled with Eddie's death. Aside from Stephen Meyer climbing a burning ladder, being vegetarians and an ethereal force known as "The Light" being a sort of guiding force there is very little we known about Meyerists so these Meyerist extremists are coming out of left field and aren't interesting enough because we can't see exactly in what ways they're radical, not yet anyway...and I'm sorry but I'm not interested.
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| That Face You Make When You Realize You're A Cult Leader And Didn't Wanna Be But You're In Too Deep And Have To Commit |
"The Path" started as a decent series but after awhile it became a chore to watch and I refuse to watch anything I have to force myself to engage with. This isn't to say that I'm not at all curious about how things turn out...that's what's wikipedia for, what I am saying is that this show has lost my viewership because I just see too many potential story threads and REAL sources of conflict being ignored for what I can only see as mediocre at best. Not once has there been a moment that REALLY made me go "Whoa!", aside from the suicide in Sarah's house. But 2 Seasons too late. I stopped watching "The Blacklist" just because it was becoming a burden on me to watch, but once the current Season hits Netflix or DVD boxset, I'll be watching it..."The Path" however...naw, I'll pass.
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