Letter #122: Sweet Home 3

Good morning, Erin.

…sigh.

All right—let’s get this over with:

1. Sweet Home 3 is really just the second half of the awful Sweet Home 2, which means—all things being equal—it would have had to actively try to be worse than its predecessor. And, to its dubious credit, Sweet Home 3 is certainly not a worse season. Which is probably the nicest thing I can say about it. Because it still sucks—just without the gut-punch of the drop-off in quality that we got going from the first to the second season. Which is the boon of low expectations, I suppose. 

2. For all the things I very clearly remembered about Season 2, where we left off very much was not. We start Season 3 pretty much exactly at the end of the last episode of Season 2…and I had no idea who was where or what they were doing there. 

2A. Now, for the most part, it didn’t take very long for me to orient myself enough in what I was seeing with glimmers of impressions of memories of what I’d seen back in December. I might not have had all the details in every instance, but it all felt familiar enough for me to roll with it.

2B. Of course, not really caring helped.

2C. But seriously, whenever a character would walk on screen, I’d say, “Oh, right! You’re on this show!” I’d somehow forgotten the entire new cast, despite very clearly remembering there had been a new cast and, despite not liking the story, quite liking pretty much all of them. 

2D. So, you can imagine my glee at seeing Goth/Punk Girl and the crazy “daughter”/sidekick of the dude in the ghillie suit, again. That was a nice surprise-reminder. (My notes literally say, “OMG—yes!!!”)

3. Whatever else I might say, the actors are clearly trying their darndest. 

4. When Butterfly Boy’s monster personality takes control for a while, he gets a haircut and dons a suit (presumably for the sake of the ladies in the audience). Which I mention because, in all the times he employs his spikey, superheated demon wing to smash something, somehow this never once damaged the sleeve of his suit jacket. Which I call bull**** on. 

5. The subtitles keep referring to the goo monster that’s possessing Gangster Guy as Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s husband…but they never got married, right? That’s a major part of her tragic backstory in Season 1, so…who dropped the ball on that one? Did the writers forget? Did the translator get it wrong? Are the characters in the show just being lazy about a technicality? 

6. In Episode 4, when Butterfly Boy looks like he’s about to dramatically march off to war, I thought they were about to bring back the Imagine Dragons song as a sort of rallying cry for the old “We can beat those monsters!” vibe of Season 1. That is absolutely not what happened. And I can never properly relay to you the depths of my disappointment. 

7. My girl Ji-su also did not return. Which, in a way…good—because this show is terrible, and she deserves better. But also f*** this show: that was it?! That was how they chose to get rid of the best character?! No clean wrap-up of a character arc; no badass hero moment; no heartbreaking sendoff—just crushed by some rubble before a F***ING TIME JUMP?!?!?! I mean…I didn’t think they could retroactively make Season 2 even worse, but boy did they prove me wrong. 

7A. And, no, I can never properly relay to you the depths of my disappointment.

7B. Or fury.

8. Relatedly, it was a travesty for Ballerina Sister to have lost Ji-su, as well, because they had just found their way to becoming a narrative duo. Removing that element of her character arc made Ballerina Sister’s entire role in the show tied to her ridiculous pursuit of her brother. Which was boring and, worse, stupid, since the whole point of his death scene was that she’d finally openly accepted him as her brother. It’s tragic—and would obviously serve as the perfect lead-in to her newly being paired up with Ji-su. But, y’know, who cares about that, right?

9. And, actually, while we’re talking about Ballerina Sister: did she and Butterfly Boy have a romance subplot? I know he sort of gawked at her dancing on the roof in her school uniform at the start of Season 1 (and…I think she thought he was hot), but…I don’t remember anything emotionally substantive coming of that. So, like, is Glasses Brother’s constant referencing the pair as being a couple sharing his opinion of their relationship, speaking to something the show assumes the audience already assumes, or just him being a dick? (And if it’s the last one…why would he deliberately want to be a dick? I thought neo-humans didn’t have emotions. I mean, the literally show people teaching them about expressions of feelings like you would for some people with autism.)

10. And, y’know what, don’t even get me started on the whole neo-humans thing. I just…ugh. 

11. When Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s monster-daughter uses her powers to, uh, summon a giant monster from underground or whatever…is that the big one that they fought at the apartment complex? Or did they just re-use the CGI model? ‘Cus if it’s the same one…like, why is he ginormous? Is growing bigger and bigger one of his traits? Is that something monsters can have as a trait? Are there even rules of any kind for these things? I know it’s silly to ask, given the state of the show, but…a little consistency is all I ask.

11A. …a little consistency and also Ji-su is all I ask.

12. Speaking of Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s monster-daughter: when she’s at the stadium and, uh, gets ahold of a new pair of gloves for herself—suddenly her mother appears and she’s happy to leave with her. Whether her decision to leave with her mother makes sense or not…I dunno. I don’t want to waste energy on thinking about it. BUT…it makes total sense that she’d leave with her mother after getting the new gloves, because she’s voluntarily doing the thing that her mother always insisted she do—without being told to—which implies that she’s in some manner much more sympathetic to her mother’s path for her than she had been at the end of last season. So, in isolation at least, I liked that. 

13. And, well, still sort of talking about Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s monster-daughter: when she turns the little boy from Season 1 into a monster, she turns into an animated green goo—just like the monster that saved him when he was hiding in the vents at the apartment complex. Which I thought was a nice touch.

14. One of my favorite moments from this season was the platoon leader slapping Ballerina Sister to finally get her to stop trying to go after Glasses Brother on the bus. He just had no s***s left to give, and that made me laugh. 

14A. Of course, in hindsight, that one of the new characters would slap one of our original cast to tell her that he wasn’t going to tolerate any of her Season 1-based character drama is a little more on-the-nose than I realized. 

15. I was hoping that Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s monster-daughter finally being possessed by Goo-Gangster Guy (…or, well—whatever) would mean we’d get to see her get a chance to flex her acting muscles, but…no. She’s him for about 30 seconds and doesn’t get to say or do much. Because I can’t have nice things. 

16. Also…wait, does she die at the end? No, she sort of re-alives, right? She screams and then…do we ever see her after that? (Man, this is the lady with the dog all over again.)

17. So…how about that priest, huh? And Goth/Punk Girl’s nutty friend. They were…married? Or something? And then she became a demon…maybe? So glad they were part of the story. 

18. Another one of my favorite moments comes early on when Ballerina Sister, the young soldier, and the crazy “daughter”/sidekick are hiding from a monster on the street outside the hospital where Butterfly Boy is resting. Ballerina Sister and the young soldier are crouched and tense, peering at the monster from cover so they can move at a moment’s notice…and the crazy “daughter”/sidekick is just casually leaning against the side of the RV with her arms crossed, bored. She’s great. So much fun.

19. Daryl, circa Episode 1: “Woo! Hot-as-Fire(fighter) is back! Man, saving her was total bull****, but WHO CARES! Finally, things are going our way!”

20. Daryl, circa Episode 5: “OH, ABSOLUTELY F*** YOU, SHOW!”

21. Daryl, circa Episode 6: “Ballerina Sister keeps telling Butterfly Boy that everyone at the stadium will be happy to see him. But…who the hell is she talking about? Literally everyone else from Sweet Home 1 is dead! Well, except for the older woman who’s taking care of the young boy whose sister died at the start of Sweet Home 2. But I guess that’s better than nothing.”

22. Daryl, circa Episode 6, about three minutes later: “OH, ABSOLUTELY F*** YOU, SHOW!”

23. Daryl, circa Episode 6, about eight minutes later: “Well, great, all we’ve got left is Ballerina Sister, so what is even the point of…oh my f***ing—ABSOLUTELY F***YOU, SHOW!”

23A. Yeah, I know, she doesn’t die, but she turns into a monster, which may as well be the same thing, since we know you don’t come back as yourself, after.

23B. And don’t get me started on how she then casually walks back to the apartment complex after she starts to monsterize. Just…whatever. 

24. Glasses Brother and Butterfly Boy take FOREVER to walk to the stadium. Total filler. 

25. …yes, Glasses Brother looked good in his new Matrix-y outfit. Happy? 

26. Right before they killed Hot-as-Fire(fighter) and totally ruined my weekend, I was praising the show’s effects team for having Goo-Gangster Guy’s eye still leak blood even minutes after Hot-as-Fire(fighter) pulled her knife out of it. 

27. The other day, I saw a recent picture of Kim Si-a, the actress who plays Hot-as-Fire(fighter)’s monster-daughter, and I did a double-take—because the actress is 16, now, but was probably about 14 when she filmed Sweet Home 2 and 3. And the difference between then and now—particularly since she was styled to be younger on the show but was now all glammed up for some awards show (or something)—was uncanny, like I’d accidentally stepped through a time vortex into 2032.

28. I haven’t seen a finale wrap-up so handwave-y and rushed since Mass Effect 3.

28A. …if you were a gamer from 10 years ago, you’d find that analogy apt. Trust me. 

29. Ending on a good note: at least Goth/Punk Girl and the crazy “daughter”/sidekick of the guy in teh ghillie suit made it all the way to the end. And became best friends. And also good-natured(...-ish) love rivals. For the young soldier they were both after last season. Who is still having the best apocalypse ever. The bastard. 

And let’s say that’s all my notes.

Just like let’s say Sweet Home only has one season. And definitely never had an additional 16 episodes that were alternately awful, boring, convoluted, and occasionally really good but not very Sweet Home. ‘Cus, hoo-boy, that would suck, wouldn’t it? Thank God we don’t live in that timeline.

…

Sigh.

Happy August, Erin.

More soon.

—Daryl