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Started out gritty and realistic. Now it's a quirky sitcom about serial killers?

posted 3 years ago by TheGutterMonkey (302)
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I'm 4 episodes into season 3 (after having binged the first two seasons) and I'm finding that it's not holding my interest as well anymore. Now that the big reveal about Love has occurred.

Out of all the people he was to randomly meet, it just so happens to be a female version of himself with a murderous background (who also claims to have "done it all for love")? It's a bit too coincidental to swallow. And I believe it officially breaks my ability to take the show seriously.

Which is a shame, honestly. I really appreciated how brutal the series was and how it didn't pull punches in its depiction of Joe. It's kind of what I wanted Dexter to be when I first began watching it when I heard it was a show about a serial killer (only to find out later that it's actually a show about a Sheldon Cooper-esque vigilante who only kills bad guys). Joe did bad stuff, the series didn't redeem him for it, they didn't make him look cool or attractive doing it, and they even included the typical horrifying/disturbing serial killer behavior like saving tampons of his victims, that horrifying jar of teeth, and regularly masturbating to his obsessions. I'm not sure I'd call it all full-blown realistic, but it was pretty close in comparison to most things. And I really appreciated that. This new turn of events, however, has jumping the shark written all over it. And it seems to be getting worse with each new episode.

It doesn't necessarily ruin things for me. I actually like Love's character and the actress's portrayal of her, and I'm interested to see her and Joe together now. But still, I sort of wish we'd gotten to this point a bit differently and more realistically. And that the show had retained the gritty, realistic tone it had before. Perhaps having had her catch him in the act and -- due to her own obsession with him -- helped him cover things up and killed for him (as opposed to having apparently grown up just like him in that regard). I believe some real-life murderous couples start out sort of like that, so I could have bought it, I suppose.

Now, 4 episodes into the third season, things are feeling more and more silly and comedic as we go. The situations are feeling less horrifying and more wacky. Murder isn't even taken seriously now (several bodies have already piled up during just a few episodes, murdered over ridiculous reasons). I remember during the first season I was continuously wondering if Joe would actually go so far as to kill someone. And when he actually did kill whats-her-faces boyfriend I was shocked. And I continued being shocked each time he did it because it was never taken lightly. Now it's like a punchline at the end of each episode.

I don't mean for this to come off as me hating on the series. For the most part, I still mildly enjoy it. It just feels completely different to me now is all. Less creepy and gritty somehow and more... I dunno... novelty?

[–] Rorikon (18127) 3 years ago

Can you quick summarize briefly what happened in S1 and S2? Like did Joe kill 1 lady in S1 and another in S2 for 'love'? Now that you're in S3 and he seems to have met someone 'like' him, are they going to try to kill each other because the passion is so great? I hear it's Dexter 2.0 but with woke/politics in the mix. Contemplating if I should get into the series.

I wonder if these types of shows desensitize people from reality or make it a fantasy for them which is weird in itself if not disturbing. I hear people DM or tweet to the actor to kill them... Maybe they can get real killers to do so. :O

[–] TheGutterMonkey (302) 3 years ago

Well, as for the woke stuff, yes. It's overflowing with that type of vernacular. Trendy terms like "privilege" and "gaslighting" seem to be used every few minutes. There are a couple of not-so-subtle moments which mirror (and attempt to justify) the MeToo movement. And the characters are conspicuously diverse in terms of sexual orientation and race. Thus, the politics of the writers is apparent. But I don't feel any of that affects the story too badly. It's mostly peripheral, resulting in the occasional eye roll.

Personally, I wasn't a big fan of Dexter. As I mentioned in the OP, Dexter was more akin to a murderous Batman in a lot of ways: someone who uses his detective skills to do away with bad guys. It was a bit more forgiving of his is behavior in that way. You agree that murder is wrong but "at least he's killing bad guys."

You, however, seems (in the beginning season) to be more of a genuine look into the mind of an obsessed person. A man who compulsively becomes addicted to women, stalks them, masturbates to them outside their windows, sneaks into their homes and steals their underwear, breaks into their phones and spies on every aspect of their lives, etc. And, via his narration, you get his warped rationalizations of all of this (which seem believable, IMO). As you can imagine, this all inevitably comes to a head when he encounters things to be jealous of, when his "love" isn't reciprocated, or when someone catches onto his disturbing behavior. I enjoyed how ugly and real it felt in this regard. Which is why I felt so let down by this last season where the psychopathy appeared (to me) to become less serious and more of a joke.

I don't really worry about the desensitization of viewers when it comes to these topics. I'm sure that to some extent it may happen. But as deprived of critical thinkings as I see most of humanity, I nevertheless think *most* are sane enough to know not to copy what they see on TV or video games when it comes to murder. lol