Drops of God Season 2 Episode 1 got release a few days ago, I know this is a small drama a lot of ppl either dont know about or just dont care but I do enjoy it for some reason, like the first season wrapped everything up pretty nicely with Camille and Issai finally finding some peace after that intense wine competition and now here we are getting another letter from dead daddy Alexander Leger because apparently one season of his mind games was not enough for anyone involved. The episode is trying to do this whole artistic pivot thing going from the high energy wine battles we got used to in season 1 to this slow burn mystery vibe and Im still thinking if thats a smart move or just the writers not knowing what else to do with these characters outside of there fathers shadow because honestly this is the type of thing that remains as a mini series. The free diving scenes in Okinawa look absolutely gorgeous no doubt about it, all that blue water and silence showing us how empty Issai feels inside even though he won the estate or at least half of it witch should have been enough but clearly was not, but damn it takes forever to get anywhere with the actual story and at some point you start wondering if they are just padding the runtime with pretty shots of bubbles and water. The whole unlabeled bottle mystery is interesting on paper because it flips the script on Camille and Issai completely, she cannot taste anything from this perfect wine while he suddenly gets these crazy visions of floating in the ocean witch is the complete opposite of season 1 where she was the natural and he was the robot with facts and data about soil types and vineyards. That role reversal could have been cool to watch play out but then Camille goes and pours the rest of this priceless wine down the sink like a damn child throwing a tantrum because she did not get her magical vision moment, I get that she is trying to reject her fathers control from beyond the grave but come on that bottle could be the key to everything and you just trash it because your annoyed at a dead man who cannot even respond anymore.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6867482/
- Platform: AppleTV+
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The mystery itself turns into this fetch quest where Issai is running around talking to lawyers and auctioneers and old Spanish families and some lady with dementia in Marseilles, it feels like a video game side mission more than the intense wine drama we signed up for when we watched season 1 and the pacing just drags when it should be picking up speed and getting us excited about whats coming next for these two. Issai almost drowning twice in one episode to get clues is getting old real fast too like yeah we get it he is desperate and depressed and looking for meaning in his life after he literally told Camille she took everything from him but are we really going to watch him black out underwater every week for a whole season because that sounds exhausting, I thought the free diving stuff was beautiful and worked as a metaphor for his internal darkness but doing it over and over again just makes it feel repetitive instead of meaningful. The best part is when Camille finally shows up at the hospital after Issai nearly kills himself diving into a cave at 17 meters deep witch is insane without proper training but he said he have done like 40 before and pass out trying to do 50 so why pass out with a weak as 17m dive, but she is doing her sister stuff and she agrees to join the hunt not because she cares about the wine or her fathers games but because she does not want her brother to die chasing ghosts that might not even exist in the real world. That actually felt like real character growth for her and set up this buddy cop dynamic that could be interesting if they do not screw it up by making them fight every episode over stupid things, the chemistry between these two actors is still fantastic and probably the main reason to keep watching this thing even when the plot feels like its spinning its wheels trying to justify another season of content when the first one had such a satisfying ending for everyone involved except maybe the dead guy. Overall this premiere looks expensive as hell and the acting is solid especially the chemistry between Camille and Issai witch is what actually makes the story worth watching, but it feels like the show is trying to be two diferent things at once and those two vibes are fighting each other hard for control of the steering wheel.
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The opening with Issai doing free diving in Okinawa is visually stunning but also confusing as hell because your not really sure what your watching at first, hes just sinking into this dark blue water trying to reach 50 meters on a single breath witch seems completely insane and dangerous for someone who is not a profesional diver with years of training under his belt. The show spends what feels like 10 minutes just watching him sink into the darkness and almost black out from lack of oxygen, its supposed to represent his internal emptiness and depression after winning the competition but losing his sense of purpose in life but honestly it just felt like the director wanted to show off how good there underwater camera work was. When Issai finally tastes the unlabeled wine later in the episode he gets this vision of the Sea of Tranquility witch is aparently the part of the moon where the Apollo astronauts landed back in the day, but its also just him floating in this calm ocean under moonlight and you cannot really tell if its the actual moon or just some weird coral or jellyfish being lit in a strange way by the underwater lights. The vision thing is interesting because in season 1 Camille was the one who got all the visions and memories from tasting wine while Issai was just a walking encyclopedia of facts and data, but now the roles are completely reversed like an UNO card and shes the one left in the dark tasting nothing while he gets transported to this beautiful peaceful place that he desperately needs in his life right now. The problem is Camille does not understand his vision and basically dismisses it as nonsense instead of taking him seriously and asking more questions about what he saw and why it matters to him so much, she treats him like a child who needs protecting instead of a partner who deserves respect and thats going to cause problems between them as the season goes on and they try to work together on this quest there father left behind.
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The actual detective work part of the episode is where things really start to drag and lose momentum, how the fuck is he in so many different places in such a short amount of time, the episodes really didnt take in consideration the aspect of time, Issai talks to Talian the lawyer who points him to an auctioneer in Paris named Lecatra who then points to the Lopez family in Spain who finally point to this old widow named Audrey in Marseilles who has dementia and can barely remember her own husbands name let alone details about a wine bottle he bought 30 years ago on some trip. Its just breadcrumbs leading to more breadcrumbs and none of it feels urgent or exciting and he just gets to this dead end and though why not going diving the thing that almost killed me. Issai just keeps moving from place to place asking the same questions over and over again to people who dont have real answers for him witch gets boring fast compared to the high stakes blind tasting competitions from last season. The Spanish winemakers scene was kind of cool because it showed us a new location and they had a perfect opportunity to introduce a bit of more mystery but they just ditch it when the Spanish winemaker said immediately he didnt know anything about the two bottles without label, I mean nothing like a dead end, that make it felt rushed and underdeveloped like they didnt have time to really explore the culture or add some sauce to the mistery before moving on to the next clue in the chain. The whole episode feels like its setting up Issai as this self destructive character who will risk everything including his own life to find meaning and purpose again, but it also feels like the show is going to repeat this same beat over and over again every episode and that sounds like the perfect path to disaster if they dont switch things up soon and give us some actual progress on the mystery instead of just near death experiences.
The episode does have some strong moments that make me want to give it another chance but again I think Im bias since I liked the first season so much, the birthday dinner scene where Camille and Issai open there gift for each other and discover they both got the exact same thing was actually kind of cute and showed how connected these two are on a deeper level despite there cultural diferences and the fact that they barely knew each other a few years ago. The journalist interview where Camille gets compared to her father and told she is just living in his shadow was predictable how it was going to end the moment she got with the spicy questions and suggestion that all lead to Caminlle not been enough or at the same level of her father, you could see how much it hurt her even though she tried to play it cool and act like she didnt care what this person thought about her work on the vineyard, that scene set up her main struggle for the season witch is going to be breaking free from Alexander Legers legacy and proving shes her own person with her own ideas about wine. The ending where Camille shows up at the hospital and agrees to help Issai find the origin of the wine is the strongest part of the episode but it also feels force, in my opinion she not only did it to avoid seen Issai kill himself but to get away from the vineyard because she is not that into it I guess, this shifts there relationship from rivals to partners and gives them both a reason to work together again, she is not doing it for her father or for the wine itself but because she really cares about her brother and does not want to see him destroy himself chasing something that might not even be real in the end. I am going to give this season a few more episodes to see where its going and whether the mystery pays off in a satisfying way but right now I am not totaly sold on this detective treasure hunt format after season 1 gave us such a perfect ending that didnt need a sequel at all, it feels like they are undoing all that peace and closure just to justify another season that can turn into something frustrating when you think about how rare it is to get a good ending these days, for me a classic 7 out of 10 for now but that could go up or down depending on where episode 2.
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