It was all over the place, without the steady escalating tempo of the original. Even the fight scenes were clipped and visually abbreviated - switching to these dramatic vinettes in a bunch of the Warwick and Vi combat scenes.
S2 had some interesting and clever movements… but yeah. It was 2-3 seasons crammed into one, and it showed.
I don’t even not like the “Perfection isn’t something you attain, it’s something you pursue” moral at the end of the show. But season 1 felt so dialectical. You had these historical moments building on themselves to a stunning climax.
Season 2 was handed this dramatic historical pivot, kinda-sorta looked like it was going to grapple with the fundamentals appeals and consequences of fascism, but then stumbled back down into “Everything gets solved when the Special People duke it out”.
The fundamental plight of Zaun, the cost of pollution and the failure of equitable distribution, is lost in the race to fight Evil Foreigners and Fifth Columnist Traitors. A real squandered opportunity.
I mean, the capitalist approach is to identify people with autism and groom them into being sports gamblers and Funko pop horders.
Then you tell them they need soul crushing careers in finance, sales, and logistics in order to cover the cost of their habit.
Getting folks engaged in more socially productive careers (autistic or otherwise) sounds more attractive than getting them addicted to consumerism and threatening their high to squeeze them for their labor.