I struggled to get through season 1 of the Jason Momoa series SEE because of the fact that it is boring. The only reason why I stuck around was because according to online reviews, season 2 is much better but you wont know what is going on in season 2 unless you suffer through season 1.
After the rather lackluster performance of season 1 it is amazing to me that they even greenlit a 2nd season but I think there were a lot of people that will just watch anything that AppleTV makes because, and let's be fair here, they are one of the better content providers in the streaming game right now.
I entered season 2 really expecting things to become amazing but here I am, on episode 4 and all that has really happened is a complete reversal or just ignoring of the events that took place in season 1.
There will be spoilers in this so I encourage you to turn around unless you have already seen this or have no intention of watching it. Know that I do NOT encourage most people to watch this show because while the concept of the film is sound, the entire thing is drug out over the course of a now, 12 hours, when it all could have been encapsulated in a 90 minute to 2 hour film, easily.
So in season one we spend a grueling 8 hours getting our way to an objective that we don't really see that much about but only hear about and briefly see. It is about a man called the easily forgettable name of "Jerlamarel " who is rumored to be one of the first people in existence on the earth that has the ability to use his eyes for sight. As you may recall the entire premise behind the whole series is that when humanity destroyed itself, the people that remained were genetically altered to not have eyesight and the entire population of the planet has been blind for centuries.
We are on a path to find this Jarlamarel for almost the entirety of season 1 and when we do finally meet him in the final episode the interactions are very quickly dismissed and thrown aside despite the fact that honestly, almost everything that was put on screen for 7 hours up to that point was based around the absolute importance of finding this man. He is in and out of the picture in 1.5 episodes and is only briefly referred to from that point forward.
I will refer to him as "Jel" from this point forward because I can't be bothered with remembering how to spell his ridiculous name.
Jel's children that BabaVoss (Momoa) has been raising for 18 years finally make it to his stronghold far from the village that they started in by a bizarre and completely implausible set of twists and turns. When we encounter the pathway that leads to the entrance of his palace of sorts, we are greeted by blind archers who have incredibly pinpoint accuracy based solely on someone stepping on a leaf. This is impractical at best, most likely impossible. It is also a situation that could easily be worked around simply by having some people make a huge amount of noise near this chokepoint or waiting for a thunderstorm. Realism be damned though, right?
Well, the two children of Jel are allowed through and it is at this point that we find out that he has like a dozen people staying with him, all of which have sight. He also has a ton of blind henchmen that work to help him defend the palace despite the fact that, as we are told, the entire world is very opposed to the very notion of sight because it has been declared that sight is what destroyed the world. Everyone in the series other than the people that were born with it, don't even know what "sight" even means. It is a concept that they cannot even fathom.
Our time in Jel's palace ends quickly because despite the rather ludicrous and seemingly pointless amount of effort that Jel put into creating his isolated palace and the fact that he is the only person on earth apparently that has fucking assault rifles, he is subjected to the demands of a nearby tribe of warlords who do not have the ability to see. A rational thing to have happen in this situation would be that he and his group of 12 or so people that occupy his fortress, which is a PRISON by the way and therefore would be very difficult to break into.... well they would just blast them with bullets or arrows before they even had the chance to get near it.
The only way to even get there was through the ravine that has blind archers at the tops of it as well as a bridge with massive cement barricades on the other end. It seems to me like this would be an easily defended chokepoint where the defenders regardless of their numbers could easily hold off any number of potential invaders.
Baba Voss (Momoa) initially stays behind at Jel's request because he is aware of the fact that there is no way that he could make it to the other side alive. Well I guess that notion disappeared off screen for "some reason" because less than an hour later he pops up magically on not just the other side of the bridge but at the back of the prison fortress that can only be accessed by passing through the ravine and bridge as well as the entirety of the locked prison itself. He does this in the nick of time right at the exact moment that his adopted son is about to be executed.
This sort of "fast travel" with no explanation as to how it might be possible at all is something that annoys me in anything on screens big or small. I don't like the "somehow" aspect of anything. It irritated the hell out of me in Star Wars and it irritates me with everything else as well.
After getting his son back, Baba Voss goes through a drawn out and very unlikely fight with Jel, again, who has both guns and the ability to see, where of course Baba emerges victorious simply by turning off the lights. In this scene, which is wonderfully choreographed by the way, Jel, who now can't see anything, would merely need to run to the entrance of the now dark library to the light that exists outside and wait for Momoa to come staggering out there and then shoot him. Does this happen? Of course not. Instead he wanders around the dark bookstacks until he is eventually overcome by his blind opponent.
I don't have a problem with Baba Voss winning this fight. I have a problem with HOW he achieved victory because it is so ludicrous. Oh, all of his henchmen are not around for any of this fight for, i dunno, I guess it was their lunch break or something.
After this Baba and his newly recaptured son who just moments ago he was willing handing over to Jel are now headed to where Baba's other sighted child has been taken, the city of Trivantes.
This shell of a once modern city is inhabited exclusively by sightless people.... well, kinda. Although we have spent the entire show up to now being told that nobody has the ability of sight, we keep running into more and more people who have sight and while I am not saying the original storyline was actually good, to completely reverse it at this point for whatever reason makes even less sense. It kind of loses the unique aspect of it all as we are introduced to person after person that has the ability to see when the entire premise of the show is that sight is something that nobody has.
Dave Bautista is introduced into the cast as Baba's brother and I presume that this was just because they needed someone as big as Jason Momoa to make it believable. It is believable, and it is also stupid because yet again, the rather intense and "impossible to enter" defenses of this long-held stronghold of a city is easily thwarted by just a few people and once again, despite the fact that the daughter is apparently something that absolutely must be protected she is rather easily rescued.
Chained to a gurney, Baba Voss' daughter is being watched by a single woman guard and this reminds me of Austin Powers and how they would always place him in easily escapable situations. Of course this guard is revealed to also have the ability of sight even though she pretends as though she doesn't. She has somehow managed to keep this a secret from everyone in the city and the military, from childhood to her adult years. Oh and this is still AppleTV+ so of course we have to throw this in there.
Whatever. I've just gotten used to it at this point and if they were to not throw some sort of homosexual something or other in to a series on Apple I would be genuinely surprised.
So far, I have been through 4 hours (fell asleep during hour 4) in season 2 and essentially nothing has happened except a drawn out rescue of the daughter by the hands of Baba Voss being able to somewhat seamlessly infiltrate what is meant to be the best stronghold that this part of the world is aware exists. He is able to do this without ever having been to these locations and without the gift of sight. Seems plausible, right?
There are other things going on as well but as of yet but the mad-with-power Queen side of things is even less interesting and slower-moving than what is going on with Baba Voss and his giving his kids away only to need to rescue them an hour later sort of thing. I don't really even pay much attention to it.
So basically, what started out as an interesting take on dystopian Earth with a very clear mission of finding this "Jel" person to immediately eliminating him from the story almost entirely. Now, because we went on this mission to find him at all in the first place, we are creating a "backtracking mission" of reuniting the parents and their children which wouldn't be necessary if they hadn't gone on the mission in the first place.
If this sounds stupid trust me, watching it with your capable eyes is just as bad. The series has some good action, but I can only watch Momoa scape his sword on the floor searching for people to stab so many times before this stops being interesting. We need to also remember that most of the major battle characters have been stabbed, slashed, shot with arrows, left unconscious inside of a burning building, and even shot with guns at this point yet no one is showing any ill effects from this despite the fact that there is no modern medical care available at all, anywhere.
They even managed to fuck up the once quite inventive intro sequence. Previously they had attempted to silently show what the world might "look" like to someone without sight but in season 2 they made some sort of really cheesy change to an intense Game of Thrones type of thing where they show major parts of where the story is taking place with an absolutely horrible song going along with it.
The story is also extremely drug out because it is clear they NEED to fill up 8 hours with just anything they can get their hands on.
This was a "maybe" before and for some people it still might qualify as such. But I will admit I am getting dangerously close to downgrading this to "stay away." I suppose I can still see the merit of this show because the scenery and costumes are epic but unfortunately it comes with an absurdly impossible story that rarely makes any sense at all.
Barely
