S02.E04: Sh*t Talk

[formerlyfreedom]

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As Sam and Peter comb through digital clues, they hope a technology glitch might open up some new leads. But a low-tech discovery leaves them reeling.

 

[gik910]

Wrong episode post! 

 

Loving the pacing this season.

Edited September 20, 2018 by gik910
Posted in wrong thread

[Slovenly Muse]

I know the current binge-culture makes individual episode discussions kind of moot... just about everyone here has basically blasted through the whole season in a day I bet. But my partner and I don't get a lot of TV time together, so we're taking this one episode per day, and just got to this one... I got to say, I've been enjoying the season so far, but this is the first episode that made me wrinkle my eyebrows and go, "wait, huh?" Last season, it was clear that the conceit of the show (two high school AV club guys filming a documentary at their school) did not match the form of the show (an expertly-polished series with high production values), but we were sort of expected to go along with it. I like that they addressed that critique in the first episode of the new season. However, it seems like THIS season, the thing we're supposed to just shrug and go along with is the kind of access these boys now have at a swanky private school they don't even go to. For one thing, the Turd Burglar has supposedly been identified and punished. So why are the faculty so willing to talk about the case with Peter and Sam? I was amazed that the secretary they talked to just told them everything they wanted to know about whatshername's comings and goings, with no question about why they wanted the information, or what they thought she had to do with the Turd Burglar case everyone must have known they were investigating. "Oh, you want us to tell your camera crew the detailed schedule of the school's wealthiest family's abductable young heir for anyone with Netflix to see because you want to accuse her of a crime? No problem! I'm not afraid of offending our top donors at all!" I could understand it if the faculty were so dazzled by the idea of being on TV and helping out the famous Netflix documentarians that they ignored proper procedures and common sense to get their minute in the spotlight, but I didn't sense any of that at all. And if there WAS a conspiracy among the faculty to hide a poop crime, as they theorize at the end of this episode, then why does everyone seem so willing to talk, and no one is going "We got the guy, what are you even doing here asking questions about this other totally innocent person?"

Furthermore, the "glitch" in the text evidence is so sketchy, and unless this comes back in a later episode, VERY sloppy.

BOTH of the posts that contain the glitch ALSO contain capital I's unaffected by the glitch. If the glitch is selective, then how is its presence or absence relevant at all? And if kids had figured out how to compensate for the glitch by typing, say, a lowercase "L," and only remembered to do that selectively, then it still invalidates the glitch as evidence. Especially in the second post, because no one uses the wrong letter in a hashtag just to make it look like a capital. The hashtag would be useless. And if the glitch only affects capital I's written on their own (with no other letters connected) then, again, they could easily get around it by using a lowercase "L." It's not hard to figure out, and they look pretty much identical.

Even if they do circle back to this in a later episode, it feels really dumb to waste time on something that is immediately and demonstrably nonsense, and pretend that it might be a factor in advancing or eliminating suspects. This is the first time an episode has really disappointed me, and left me feeling like the actual procedural angle (and realism of the context) was totally ignored in order to spin some wheels and kill some time. I hope the show wins me back soon, because I really like what it's doing in general. But taking a show slowly can sometimes highlight where the weak spots are, and this episode was so lazy it was downright insulting.

[iMonrey]

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I was amazed that the secretary they talked to just told them everything they wanted to know about whatshername's comings and goings, with no question about why they wanted the information, or what they thought she had to do with the Turd Burglar case everyone must have known they were investigating. "Oh, you want us to tell your camera crew the detailed schedule of the school's wealthiest family's abductable young heir for anyone with Netflix to see because you want to accuse her of a crime? No problem! I'm not afraid of offending our top donors at all!" 

This part threw me too. The only thing I can come up with is that maybe the schedule is a matter of public record and Peter and Sam could have looked it up themselves had they been so inclined.