Letter #93(B): Sweet Home 2

Good morning, Erin.

Holy f***— Transit Love 3 started?! And there are THREE EPISODES already out?! It’s…it’s like Christmas all over again! 

…um, anyway.

So, you know I loved the first season of Sweet Home—but you might also recall that I was trepidatious about the prospects for a second season of Sweet Home, because the promise of moving on from the apartment complex meant both a likely shift away from the tight-knit dramatic elements that helped make the first season so enjoyable and because (as is always my fear in just about any ongoing series) it would undoubtedly mean expanding the cast, likely to the reduction or exclusion of characters I’d want to keep spending time with. 

At the same time, I don’t know how much more we could have gotten out of the characters being stuck in the apartment complex, particularly with their resources (and reliable allies) dwindling so rapidly. So, whether I wanted things to change or not, there was really only one way I was ever going to get more Sweet Home. I just needed to go into it without being such a sourpuss. 

And so, as I’m sure you’ve already seen, I reimmersed myself in the fun of Season 1 to prep for Season 2, which I launched right into and burned through as quickly as I could. And I assume you did the same.

So…shall we see if I was a fool for worrying or dismayingly prescient? 

1. “All right, we killed off half of the characters you know, then pushed the other half aside to focus on a slew of generic new characters dealing with a very different set of related—but far less interesting—circumstances. This is what you guys wanted, right?”

1A. Jiminy Cricket, what a disaster. I don’t think I could have been more disappointed. It was exactly the kind of thing I was afraid of—except worse, because, instead of our heroes just being scattered to the winds, they were almost entirely sidelined in favor of the army men and their research facility nonsense. Which…I just cannot justify. Like, everyone who isn’t Ballerina Girl is basically an Easter Egg. One or two (like Butterfly Boy and Hot-as-Fire(fighter)) get what is just about a guest star role, but everyone else is treated like fanservice. Ugh. I just didn’t care about so much of the season. Just a bunch of generic apocalypse story beats.

1B. Of course, the worst thing about the show was that JI-SU LOST BIBLE MAN’S SWORD AND LITERALLY NO ONE CARED BUT ME.

1C. …followed quickly by no Imagine Dragons. The absolute gall. 

2. Now, you’d think I’d be upset about Ji-su’s death—which I was, but only insofar as she wasn’t really in the season, and she’s my favorite. Because I do not believe for a second that she’s actually dead. I know it doesn’t make sense for her to be alive, given how she’s supposed to have died (because I can’t believe Ballerina Sister didn’t check for her body herself), but give me a break. This smacks of scheduling conflict (because she’s in A Good Day to be a Dog maybe?) or something like that. It cut to black, so we didn’t see it happen. She’s coming back. She has to. 

3. The little girl is absolutely dead, though, and that PISSED ME OFF. 

4. In my Season 1 rewatch letter, I made note of the suspiciously prepared and polished video package the military broadcast as soon as it took control of the country, and I was all set for a payoff from that, but…it looks like the guys in black uniforms and the guys dressed in more traditional soldier’s fatigues are all just regular military, just different sections. (Like, the regular-looking army men were UDT—which, thanks to Single’s Inferno 2, I know is like the Navy SEALs!) So, nothing suspicious about who they were when they declared martial law. Or how they had a suspiciously prepared and polished video package about the apocalypse to broadcast. 

5. At one point, out and about on the surface, we see multiple of the same types of monsters. How is that a thing? Can multiple people take the same form because their desires are in the same category? Are they breeding, somehow? Is it just laziness on the production’s part? Did you think none of us would notice this weird new development not fitting in with your established rules?! Did you think I was only the world’s third-greatest detective?! I demand answers!

6. I appreciate that they didn’t just forget that Ji-su had a back-alley appendectomy, like, a day before the start of Season 2. 

7. Given the situation in the monster apocalypse, it’s better to have guns than to not have guns…but seeing how generally useless the guns are against the monsters, it really did seem more like people had them just so they could look dynamic and cool on screen rather than for practical reasons of any kind. 

8. I was really annoyed that we were still going to have to deal with the little boy (of the brother-sister pair), but then he turned out to be a jaded, anti-authority, no-f***s-left spitter of truth, so I was kind of on board. 

8A. But the minute he turns into a whiny poopface I AM OUT. 

9. Daryl, circa Ep 1: “Oh, good, we’re picking right up from where we left off instead of doing a time jump! I hate time jumps.”

10. Daryl, circa Ep 4: “...F***ING TIME JUMP WHY.”

11. …that said: Ballerina Sister lookin’ pretty fly with that new haircut. Which doesn’t excuse the time jump, of course, because she could have cut her hair without one of my least favorite narrative devices, but…still. You know I like a bob. 

12. I don’t know how they managed to make the CGI worse, this time through, but they did. Like, did you see the blind goblin thing? It looked horrible! Sure, it was fun to see it inexplicably team up with the eyeball monster (‘cus he’s blind? get it?), but…terrible.

13. Speaking of: I do not buy for even a moment that they'd have let Ballerina Sister bring them all the way back to the apartment complex. What absolute nonsense. I know they did it so that we could eventually get the reveal that the brother has been “reborn” or whatever, but…come on. You could have just as easily had the reveal at the end without it.

13A. …except then we also wouldn’t have been able to see Landlady Divorcee’s butt. Or her body double’s butt. Or whoever’s butt. Not Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s butt, so what’s the point. 

13B. And, yes, Butterfly Boy has a shapelier butt. Or his body double does. Whatever—again, not Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s butt, so what’s the point. 

14. The creepy lab facility reminded me of the Oldest House from the video game Control. I really liked that game. I should play it again. I probably won’t. But I should. 

15. …no seriously, there were a lot of butts, this season—why not Hot-as-Fire(fighter)???

16. Daryl, circa Ep 3: “Okay, maybe we’ll get a little Hot-as-Fire(fighter) butt finallWHAT IN THE F*** IS THIS BIRTHING SCENE?!”

16A. I mean, what what what was that umbilical cord stringing out all the way up to the surface of the frozen lake?! What were they thinking with this scene?!

16B. Oh, and by the way, show—don’t think for one moment that I didn’t catch you try to do a total cheat with this scene: you showed us Hot-as-Fire(fighter) cutting open the leg of her pants as she was getting ready to give birth…but we know where that baby came out of. We know where that umbilical cord stretched from. Ain’t no way she crawled out of the lake and onto the ice and HER PANTS WEREN’T SPLIT APART AT THE CROTCH. You just wanted to keep her butt from us—AND WE ARE ONTO YOU!!!

16C. …that said, when she finally returns to the story post-time jump (around Ep 5), she looks even more badass than she did before. So psyched to get more of that.

17. Daryl, circa Ep 8: “...now you’re just doing this to spite me, show.”

18. All right, let’s take a break from me being angry at this show to go over all the new people I recognized:

• the autistic brother from It’s Okay to Not be Okay as the main scientist guy

• the newbie prosecutor from Bad Guys, Vile City as the Crow Platoon team leader

• the goth/punk friend from Nevertheless as the Chief Ji’s bratty(-ish) daughter

• the queen from My Sassy Girl as the bratty(-ish) daughter’s crazy sidekick

• the 18th life girl from See You in My 19th Life as the Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s daughter

• the 18th life girl’s little sister from See You in My 19th Life as the daughter but younger

18A. Okay, follow me on this…goth/punk friend was in Nevertheless with Butterfly Boy, so mini-reunion there—but she was also in Revenant with the autistic brother from It’s Okay, so mini-reunion there; but there’s the 18th life little sister who was obviously in 19th Life with her 18th life older sister, so mini-reunion there—who was also in My Demon with Butterfly Boy, so mini-reunion there—who was also in The Good Bad Mother with the dude who plays Ballerina Sister’s brother who shows up at the end of Ep 8, so mini-reunion there. It’s mini-reunion-palooza, over here. 

19. By the end of the season, Butterfly Boy and Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s daughter have the same hair. 

20. What was up with that priest? Why was he there?

21. Did we really need to spend time with the old guy and his crazy “daughter”/sidekick? The ones out living on the surface, off the grid, as it were. Like, why were they important to the story? 

22. Which…hang on, let me clarify something: it’s not like I hated all the new characters. I enjoyed the bratty(-ish) daughter (because of course I did), the crazy “daughter”/sidekick, the leader of Crow Platoon, Chief Ji, the priest, the bratty(-ish) daughter’s crazy sidekick, and the military dude in charge of the underground society. They all felt like they were from a spinoff series rather than necessary parts of the continuation of Sweet Home, but I liked them. 

23. I was entirely indifferent on the young soldier who used to be a pitcher and was always following after Ballerina Sister…but can we talk about how comparatively sweet this dude’s apocalypse has been, with both hot bratty(-ish) daughter AND hot crazy “daughter”/sidekick chasing after him? Come on.

24. Daryl, circa Ep 6: “Oo, what’s going on with this hot crazy girl?”

25. Daryl, circa Ep 7: “Oh, what is going on with this hot crazy girl?!”

26. So…why did Goo-Gangster Guy want to bring Butterfly Boy with him? What was the plan, there? Did it need to happen? Was it filler?

27. Still not a fan of Butterfly Boy’s “I’m not a human, so…” emo phase.

28. The “monsters are really just people trapped way deep down inside” bull**** had me rolling my eyes so frikkin’ hard. I cannot believe they’re really trying to do the “the real monsters are us!” trope with this show. Absolute frikkin’ nonsense. 

29. I find it absolutely unbelievable that the only reason our heroes made it out of that monster attack at the tunnel/overpass in Episode 1 is because the young soldier driving the truck happened to think Ballerina Sister was too hot to leave behind…but nothing is more unbelievable than the dog lady not realizing that her dog had run off. A bridge too far, show. 

And…yeah, that’ll do. 

Oof, big swing-and-miss on this one. I couldn’t believe how off-the-rails stupid it was, at times. Like, nothing happened. I mean, stuff happened, but to what end? Why? Was there an arc to anything? Like, story or character?

So disappointing. 

Speaking of: Single’s Inferno 3 wraps up in a couple of days. They’ve added an 11th episode, I see. And I think I’ve figured out why—but I’ll save it for my letter. 

In the meantime—oh, my God…Transit Love 3 switched its director to the woman in charge of Pink Lie! And I am somehow weirdly excited by this, despite how I felt about Pink Lie itself. I mean…the show was exciting, just cast full of absolute trash fires.

…excluding My Sweet Angel, of course. Despite her absolutely being a total mess. 

ANYWAY.

Much more to come. Whether you want it or not.

—Daryl

P.S. - Your Demi Lovato cover was a nice surprise. I miss your singing.