And so, the 2nd season of C&D has reached
conclusion, and what can be said about it?
Well, no, first the obligatory disclaimer: real life…sucks.
Sometimes. Other times it is bearable, or outright weird, seeing how a pair of
raccoon dogs are currently running around the U.K. countryside. Despite their
name, they are actually a part of the dog family than the raccoon one, but
otherwise? They are not very closely related to any wild dog at all, and they
look quite strange – a mix of raccoon and fox features. No matter how hard TV
shows try, they just cannot quite beat real life for weirdness.
C&D, meanwhile, did its’ best to wrap up its second
season on a high note; the episode’s very name is ‘Level Up’; and yet…
And yet it is a mess. On one level, everything is
straightforward: Ty and Dy go to fight Andre, who is now a god, while back in
the mortal world Mayhem is helping Evita hold the fort. Simple, right?
The problems with this statement start with the question:
Andre is the god of what? Is he even a god or a loa? Yes, he is the villain of
the season, no doubt about it, but that said? He is less of a juggernaut as
C&D the show tried to set him up, and more of a trickster, as he messes
with the minds of Ty & Dy and the rest of his flock as he attempts to stave
off his migraines and co. and- what? He has shed the mortal coil and is now a
supernatural entity, what is his endgame now? Honestly, it does not fully fit.
No, let us try again. Andre was dying because of his
migraines. (Did he have cancer or some similar sickness?) Roxxon gave him
powers, inadvertently. Those powers made Andre a psychic vampire, an abuser, a
pimp, and also a trickster. (He was a kickass musician before everything else,
note). Fine. However, the catch was that his psychic vampirism allowed him to
stave off his death only temporarily; the disease always returned. But then he
died and became a god, so why all the kidnappings and psychic vampirisms? Did
his ego need this still or what? Moreover, his M.O. – he is a trickster,
something that made him somewhat morally ambiguous, something that C&D
probably did not want for him, not in the end game.
Ambiguity moves us onto the other villains of the season –
Connors and Lia. Fine, Connors’ is dead. The fact that he had tried to help
Tyrone and his family and they killed him? Not so good, and the fact that
Mayhem then hangs his corpse upon NOPD’s firing range is crude. Yes, Mayhem is
crude, obtuse and chaotic; she’s random in her nature; she is randomness and
chaos aka mayhem. Odds are, she is not even fully human anymore, (thanks to
Roxxon, again). Again, this works, but…
It’s not even that hanging Connors corpse wasn’t really
productive, it’s more like how did she know where to find it, how did she know
that he was dead? Tyrone’s family aren’t in touch with her, she was more on
Tandy’s side of the equation, and now Tandy is leaving New Orleans as the
season ends, and now what?
Honestly, that is anyone’s guess. The numbers for C&D S2
were not very high, but the same could be said of S1. If AoS is keeping afloat
because Disney/MCU supports it as some sort of a sponsor, then some people have
used C&D – made by Freeform – as a message vessel outright: the episode
finales constantly ended with breaking-the-fourth-wall messages about
abductions, and suicides, and the like. It is a good idea, but since C&D is
not the most popular Marvel show yet, maybe it was used prematurely. Maybe AoS
(or ‘Runaways’) would be a better fit?
Back to Mayhem? As Brigid she was a human being with a wide
range of emotions; as Mayhem, she just breaks things and destroys people; she
was on the side of angels in S2, but she was almost more trouble than she was
worse, as she’s kind of crazy, certainly amoral, almost invulnerable and super
strong. She is the next member of the club initiated by Faith the Vampire Slayer
from the original BtVS and Jessica Jones from the now finished Netflix series –
but both of them became more rounded and likable people over the course of
their series; they rediscovered their hearts, their consciences, and their stories,
both past and present improved. Mayhem so far does not have that – her emotional
pool has only rage in it and similar emotions; anything else is much reduced. One
of Andre’s shadow minions (?) tried to mind-trick her by pretending to be her dead
ex-boyfriend – she just blew him up with a grenade. Girl power and all, it is
cool, just as Evita shooting the rest of Andre’s shadow minions in the back
with some gun (Mayhem’s?), but it does make for a very poor script, with ‘poor’
meaning ‘rushed’. Evita and Tyrone broke up? That is sad, though regardless, I
am rooting for Ty and Dy here, because they are the team. Whatever problems ‘Level
Up’ had, Ty & Dy kicked ass; the way that they had switched their fears and
almost made ‘Level Up’ a comic episode, it was great!
…And now Tandy is leaving town, but obviously, she is going
to be back. C&D are a team and cannot really function apart from each
other: this is how their corner of MCU works. Yes, C&D the show kept its
main stars apart while having them slowly coming together at the same time, but
sooner or later this will have to end, as otherwise, C&D will end up as
AoS, where the FitzSimmons are constantly kept apart to a point where it’s
almost a joke and the fans don’t care – they just put the FitzSimmons together,
period; where Daisy (Chloe Bennett) seems to be a permanent bachelorette, (she
and Deke could’ve made it work, actually); and as for Gregg (Coulson/Sarge) and
Wen (Melinda)…some people are theorizing that their relationship ended both
tragically and off-scene because AoS wasn’t comfortable with making an
interracial ship. Maybe this is why Yo-Yo has broken-up with Mack and is trying
to make a relationship with a new character named Keller – but we are
digressing.
The point is that C&D S2 was good, but it was rushed
through in places, especially at the end. Yes, the dynamic duo defeated Andre,
but at the end Andre appeared to be almost a being of pity than of scorn (or
anything else, really). Is he gone or is he coming back? Lia is alive and is
doing time, (though how exactly anyone connected her to the missing girls’ case
is another question? Tandy had Mayhem pull strings or what?), and that is good,
but we have no indication that she’s going to clean up her act; as Grant Ward
on AoS and Roman on ‘Blindspot’ showed, this sort of thing can go very bad very
fast, so it would be good if Lia isn’t left twisting in the wind but is given
therapy; maybe by father Delgado; and father Delgado…
Father Delgado had very little to do in the S2, and
especially in the finale – yes, Adina had given him the documents that allowed
Connors’ cohorts (including his relative the senator) to go into the slammer,
but why him? (Also – Connors’ didn’t lie? In this case, Adina has some bad
karma coming her way, I am afraid). He is just a priest; how could he have jump-started
that entire legal process? Adina, at least, was some sort of a city politician,
I think… What is next?
The next AoS episode – ‘Code Yellow’ – is coming up
tomorrow, and then it is on hiatus until June 14. Never liked that approach,
but then I was never a part of MCU. I will see you then, and as for C&D?
Good luck to them. So far, there is no sound of a S3, and no teaser trailer
unlike at the end of S1. This does not bode well, but we will have to wait.
Until then – and I will see you soon.
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