BLACK BOOKS IS RIDICULOUS AND DELIGHTFUL. OMG THAT SHOW.
Ugh. Where to start? I thought the entire Robert plotline was stupid and made me actively hate him. They killed Lavinia My Girl for no reason. The forcing-Daisy-into-marriage thing never got called out by any of the other characters except Daisy (poor girl!). Thomas didn't get any development at all. The pacing was all wrong with the flitting through WWI just here and there and making things that should be one episode be more than that and things that should be more than that be one. All of the men got to play martyrs. Anna had zero plotline aside from Bates. Not enough Mrs. Hughes and Carson. Everything skewed too much upstairs without enough development downstairs. Instead of doing something actually interesting with Sir Robert, they just turned him into a caricature of a bad boyfriend. Sybil was totally wasted as a character. Plus, as you say, bungling Sybil and Branson, which I had loved so much in S1. There are other things that just aren't coming to me at the moment.
[eta] Oh! And I forgot about the utterly predictible stupidity that was the Matthew's paralysis plotline. Did anyone actually think it wasn't going to happen exactly as it did? The writing in general this season seemed dumb and lazy to me (some Violet quips aside), though I continued watching because the acting is just so great. I love these characters, even when the writer's making them do stupid things.
That doesn't mean there weren't things I liked. Mary and Edith were both flawless (kissing married farmers aside). The Dowager Countess continues to be the best. It remains gorgeous to look at and with great music. But it didn't work for me like S1.
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Ugh. Where to start? I thought the entire Robert plotline was stupid and made me actively hate him. They killed Lavinia My Girl for no reason. The forcing-Daisy-into-marriage thing never got called out by any of the other characters except Daisy (poor girl!). Thomas didn't get any development at all. The pacing was all wrong with the flitting through WWI just here and there and making things that should be one episode be more than that and things that should be more than that be one. All of the men got to play martyrs. Anna had zero plotline aside from Bates. Not enough Mrs. Hughes and Carson. Everything skewed too much upstairs without enough development downstairs. Instead of doing something actually interesting with Sir Robert, they just turned him into a caricature of a bad boyfriend. Sybil was totally wasted as a character. Plus, as you say, bungling Sybil and Branson, which I had loved so much in S1. There are other things that just aren't coming to me at the moment.
[eta] Oh! And I forgot about the utterly predictible stupidity that was the Matthew's paralysis plotline. Did anyone actually think it wasn't going to happen exactly as it did? The writing in general this season seemed dumb and lazy to me (some Violet quips aside), though I continued watching because the acting is just so great. I love these characters, even when the writer's making them do stupid things.
That doesn't mean there weren't things I liked. Mary and Edith were both flawless (kissing married farmers aside). The Dowager Countess continues to be the best. It remains gorgeous to look at and with great music. But it didn't work for me like S1.