S02.E08: The Box

[AnimeMania]

Will Dawn discover the truth in time to stop the killer… or become his final victim?

Premiere Date: April 25, 2024      Prime Video  

[txhorns79]

I had seen the first season of this show, and while it was not good, it had some interesting ideas, and decent performances. 

This season just got too campy and weird for me, along with feeling very padded.  It was too: Nightmare on Elm Street meets Raggedy Ann and Andy to be taken seriously.  I also get that the character of Edmund was already supposed to be very disturbed when we met him, but I felt like the actor needed to be told to dial things back a bit.  The connection back to the first season felt unnecessary, and now I realize the whole setting in 1991 around the time of Rodney King was more a way to make the connection back to the first season work. 

And honestly, the whole six months later, happy family scene at the end was kind of ridiculous.  Even if Dawn was cleared of murdering that kid, I would think she'd still have a lot of people suspecting that the cops covered for her and she'd be living under constant suspicion.  And that doesn't even get into the trauma of finding out about her twin, the murder he committed, the murders he then committed as a vengeful ghost to get her attention, her son being put in jeopardy and her own adoptive mother's extremely violent and horrifying death.  

On the positive side, I did think Deborah Ayorinde did a good job with what she was given.  Pam Grier deserved better than having her head chopped off.   

Edited April 29 by txhorns79

[millennium]

I first saw this show hyped on an entertainment website.   The article said something like, "The first season was bad, but the second season is pretty good and it works as a standalone -- you don't need to have watched the first season."  So okay, I started with Season 2 and watched it through to the end.   And in the last 15 minutes or so, with the flashbacks of the girl dipping her hand in white paint, and a klan-like confrontation,  I found myself wondering if I had missed an entire episode, or perhaps dozed off during some parts.  Where did all this come from?  It made no sense to me.    And then what that minstrel show guy came pounding up the stairs, I was like WTF?

The ending, like most endings, sucked.  I suppose scary films now are all about ratcheting up the horror throughout and who cares if gets paid off at the end.

The first credit to come up said "Directed by Ti West."

If I had known that at the outset, I never would have watched. 

[txhorns79]

On 5/6/2024 at 3:50 AM, millennium said:

And in the last 15 minutes or so, with the flashbacks of the girl dipping her hand in white paint, and a klan-like confrontation,  I found myself wondering if I had missed an entire episode, or perhaps dozed off during some parts.  Where did all this come from?  It made no sense to me.    And then what that minstrel show guy came pounding up the stairs, I was like WTF?

Yeah, if a review indicated to you that you wouldn't have needed to see the first season to watch this season, then I can see how confusing for you the last episode was.  Everything you described were events from the first season.  The twist was that that Dawn and Edmund's birth mother was the older daughter from the first season of the show.  The minstrel guy tormented the father during the first season.  I thought I remembered the father defeating him, but I guess he came back once again as some kind of representation of intergenerational trauma, maybe? 

[millennium]

11 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

I thought I remembered the father defeating him, but I guess he came back once again as some kind of representation of intergenerational trauma, maybe?

Yeah, I guess, like a metaphor for racial injustice that never really goes away, no matter how much time passes or society progresses.   

But yes, I was really confused there.