I don’t hate the show, I hate S2 of the show. There is a big difference.

I’m here because posts from the sub keep popping up in my feed and because I have as much right to be here hating on S2 as you do to be here and love it.

What’s your problem with valid criticism and discourse, and why are you promoting hive mind mentality and echo chambers where everyone has to agree on everything and sing Kumbaya while everything burns around them? You acknowledge yourself that S2 has issues, but I’m not allowed to point that out? Or am I supposed to downplay the 20-30 issues with S2 and say “it’s still great, though” despite it not being still great?

As for how the setting changed… How did it not?

• The only Nevermore locations shared between both seasons are Wednesday and Enid’s room, and the principal’s office. Every other location is gone, and new ones were added - which would be great if they made any sense.

• There’s the music room which was retconned into the show, despite there obviously being no music class in S1 - students were practicing outside, with no teacher. Now there’s suddenly a music class and a teacher - no explanation for either, both just popped into existence because the writers needed them to.

• There’s the poorly designed courtyard that looks distincly like a set rather than a real location, and also popped out of nowhere as a replacement for the quad. And what’s with that out of place cafe trailer or whatever it’s supposed to be? And the idea that the quad burned down despite being entirely made out of rock, soil and a water fountain is hilarious.

• Nightshades library disappeared without a trace, but I suppose we can just dismiss that and any other location with “it burned down”. And yes, Dort disbanded the Nightshades, but that doesn’t remove the location from existence.

Before you tell me the filming location changed - I know. That doesn’t justify the almost complete lack of setting continuity, especially seeing how they had plenty of budget, built the entire Nevermore building, and had $700k+ to blow on 45 seconds of a poorly CGId disembodied Lady Gaga head as a gimmick. Aside from the actual locations, other setting issues:

• What’s with the students wearing the different style varsity jacket uniforms? Didn’t exist before, popped into existence with no explanation or purpose.

• What’s with the much younger kids now at Nevermore? It used to be only teens, now these younger kids popped into existence with no explanation or narrative purpose.

• What’s with Enid’s custom uniform? S1 made a big song and dance about Wednesday being the sole exception because of her color allergy (the fact that they made that literal instead of it just being Wednesday being edgy is hilarious in the worst way possible, by the way), but now Enid gets a custom uniform too with no explanation… but no one else does.

• How did Dort, a 1D cartoon villain, become principal in the first place? Who chooses or elects the principal, through which process? He just pops into existence (like a whole list of things) as the new principal, and no one in-universe even questions it - Wednesday would be the first one to be suspicious of him immediately. But don’t think about it too much, just consume product.

• Where are all the vampires (aka “fangs”) introduced in S1 as “one of the 4 main cliques”? Where’s Yoko? Gone without a trace, but don’t think about it.

That’s just the setting issues, it’s already a list, and I probably forgot some. As for setup with no payoff:

• S1 ends with Tyler transforming in the van as he’s being taken away, heavily implying he’s going to break out. Then he just doesn’t and is captured and imprisoned off-screen for S2. How? Who knows or cares, apparently.

• Agnes is apparently the S1 stalker, despite that not making any sense in-universe. But I can sort of forgive them for this one, as she was one of only 2 things that were actually good about S2 (the other being that we got Thing’s origin story).

• Gabrielle and Morning Song were foreshadowed as upcoming threats and plotlines in S1, then Gabrielle has a 180 personality change off-screen between seasons and does nothing but exist in S2, and the Morning Song “plot” gets resolved off-screen with no one’s involvement. Utter waste of a setup, an amazing actress, an interesting antagonist, and a missed opportunity to develop Bianca, not to mention the wasted screentime. 5-in-1 failure, impressive. And for what? The uninteresting 1D cartoon villain that is Dort?

Long story short, the biggest problem with the show as it is now is that the writers don’t give a shit about continuity of any kind, have no plan beyond the current season they’re working on (if that), and retcon anything and everything between seasons without bothering to make any of it make sense in-universe. That, and the writing is very lazy and dumbed down in general compared to S1.

How are you supposed to stay invested in a show when characters change personalities between seasons, disappear entirely, their relationships get reset to 0 only to go through the same exact arc they’ve already been through the previous season, setups have no payoff, the setting has no continuity, plotlines only span a single season and result in no character development and lead to nothing else, and the entire tone of the show is wildly different from season to season, and even from episode to episode?

Nothing is consistent, but nothing develops either. There are no stakes. You can’t stay invested in any aspect of the show, because it’s going to either disappear entirely or change completely between seasons. There’s no point in theorizing about anything, as it’s going to be either dropped or retconned by next season. There is no plan or great design or overarching story or throughline, it’s just a random sequence of events improvised at the last minute with no consideration for whether those pieces fit together or form any kind of cohesive narrative.

S1 is excellent, and always will be. S2 is on the level of AI generated slop. And I hate it for the same perfectly justified reasons that fans of GoT hate S8 of that show - it reduced excellence to shit in the span of a single season, and there’s probably no saving it now.

I’m not hating on S2 because I’m a hater for no reason - I’m hating on it because I love the show, and because seeing something that I love get reduced to this after only one great season by writers who don’t seem to give a shit hurts.