S02.E02: Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

[paulvdb]

Quote

Jax, Xander, Ralen, and Matta track the fugitives Tierney and Jax's mother, Eve, to a remote planet with a mysterious secret, only to come into the crosshairs of the planet's strange religious cult, who will stop at nothing to maintain their sinister order.

Airdate: October 11, 2020

[tv echo]

Like last season, I found myself mentally cataloging all of the derivative influences while watching this episode instead of getting caught up in the story. In this episode alone, I was reminded of an old Star Trek episode (civilization killing its own citizens), Logan's Run (everyone over a certain age is killed), an old Charmed episode ("they're in a better place"), and The 100's final season (portal + the Ancients decide the fate of the human race).

There were also a couple of questionable directing/writing choices. The beginning scene of Xander's tiny body floating in space, listening to him recording his farewell love message to Jax, while large beauty shots of Jax were thrown up on the screen next to him, was truly cringe-inducing. Instead of being a touching, dramatic scene, it was unintentionally laughable. Just imagine if, in Avengers: Endgame, beauty shots of Pepper were thrown up on the screen while Tony Stark was recording his farewell message to her.

There was also the really awkward scene where the two Pandoras are arguing with each other. Why is our Jax just standing there, frozen in place and staring straight ahead during this whole conversation, while the other Pandora walks around her? It just didn't look natural.

Then there was the contrived breakup between Xander and Jax. Although the breakup was inevitable (because TV showrunners are scared of keeping couples together), you would expect at least a conversation or, even better, a more compelling reason for the breakup. Although I'm not a fan of this couple, Xander did save Jax's life (not to mention, once again, overlooked her insubordination).

As usual, Jax got away with disobeying orders from her superior officers and did whatever she wanted. Still, this episode seemed more like the Captain James T. Kirk Xander Duvall show than the Jax show.

In the B plot, we have the obvious misunderstanding where the 'bad' guy was not committing a crime, but just moonlighting as a janitor. By the way, if you want people to like the new character Zazie, don't make her so quick to snitch on a classmate.

I seem to remember last season being more of an ensemble show, while this season seems very focused on Xander and Jax, with Ralen and everyone else being relegated to very supporting roles (with two characters who seem totally unnecessary).

Edited October 12, 2020 by tv echo

[ottoDbusdriver]

Is the "other Pandora" really dead ?  I highly doubt it, but it was good to get her out of the way early in Season 2.

How lazy are these colonists ?  Apparently they have had time to build a massive castle in 150 years, but couldn't be bothered to clean up/recycle the ship that they arrived/crashed in.  Then again maybe they put all their efforts into hotpant production to keep the leader happy.

And they kind of glossed over how the energy from the portal was keeping the original colonists alive.

Wouldn't someone have noticed that the leaders were always the same ?  People that narcissistic would likely have paintings/photos displayed all over the play -- especially in a castle setting.

The Zazie/Jet stuff just felt like so much filler.

[paulvdb]

Are all the other characters from season 1 completely gone? And what happened with Jax's returned-from-the-dead boyfriend? He just shows up at the end of season 1 and now there's no follow-up?

[AnimeMania]

9 hours ago, paulvdb said:

Are all the other characters from season 1 completely gone? And what happened with Jax's returned-from-the-dead boyfriend? He just shows up at the end of season 1 and now there's no follow-up?

He is in the season teasers, so he will be back.