S02.E06: Simon Says You Better Pray

[paulvdb]

Premiere date: October 20, 2022

[AnimeMania]

Vanessa doubles down on her investigation into the Murder Club and finds key evidence.

[ybrik]

Okay for a Vanessa centric episode I thought this was very good. However, a big complaint about these people, has no one heard of locking the door. Vanessa just walking into Janae’s house was ridiculous. 

Man Vanessa was like a dog with a bone. Even when it was proven what kind of person Jake was, she still needed to make the Murder Club the bad guys. She was so focused on being right about the big picture that she discards anything that didn’t fit her narrative. 

[peachmangosteen]

On 10/21/2022 at 6:56 PM, ybrik said:

However, a big complaint about these people, has no one heard of locking the door. Vanessa just walking into Janae’s house was ridiculous. 

Janae's dad let Vanessa in. I assumed she just said she was a friend of Janae's. 

[gesundheit]

This was a fun other-POV episode, but it kind of highlighted one of the biggest problems for me with the series. It feels like we're steered to dislike anyone who's against the Murder Club, but to any logical and decent human observer, they are all horrible, awful human beings. (And really, they kind of are in the sense that they will do any shitty thing SS demands of them, no matter how cruel or destructive, to protect themselves from having to tell the truth.) So basically they've all agreed to be cartoonishly horrible people in exchange for their secret being kept, and apparently with no end in sight. 

Essentially seeing it from the outsiders' point of view has made me even less sympathetic to the protagonists than I already was. And sure, maybe that's the point, but I'm skeptical this show is working on that level of sophistication!

This show also suffers from "People Who Do Not Follow Up On Things Any Human Would" Syndrome. Zero chance Janae wouldn't have sat down with the others and come up with some explanation for the murder board to offer to Vanessa. Zero chance they'd just let her walk away and shrug it off after finding out Simon Says is blackmailing her too. I really thought this was going to be the episode that brought Vanessa into the club fold, but nope.