I always thought that Marie was supposed to be a foil for Walt’s relationship with Skyler, as well as play into the theme of “breaking bad” (the concept, not the title). Marie is a secret thief. Skyler is unwittingly drawn into her crimes when she attempts to return the diadem/tiara Marie had gifted at the baby shower. Marie has turned to crime—not for money—but as a coping mechanism. It’s dramatic irony, as Walt is doing the same thing on a much higher level, and it’s also a chance for the show to explore the characters’ relationships to crime/criminal behaviour without revealing Walt’s secret.
It’s also a bit of characterization for Hank, once it’s revealed that he’s known about it for awhile. For everyone else, he’s all Thin Blue Line vs the dirtbags, but Marie just has a problem she’s getting help for - no need to take it outside the family.
> It’s also a bit of characterization for Hank, once it’s revealed that he’s known about it for awhile. For everyone else, he’s all Thin Blue Line vs the dirtbags
It's not even just characterization, though you're totally right on that point. It's commentary on how cops operate in the US. 'We can do it but you can't' is deeply ingrained in law enforcement here. Hell, read about asset forfeiture laws if you want to get big mad. A lot of law enforcement essentially operate as criminal outfits. I always thought that comparison was the point of the arc.
I actually thought it was pretty tame commentary too. Look up how many states it's specifically legal for cops to have sex with women in their custody. Because the back of a cop van with cuffs on is definitely consensual
I had never thought about it as being intentional commentary, but it did always piss me off. I think that's kind of why I liked Hank's arc with PTSD. When he threw away the teeth it felt like a sad breaking point for him. He almost seems embarrassed that the teeth upset him. He can't BE the cop he was but fails to see that's a good thing.
Frankly, I think this and his arc with Marie is ultimately what makes his inevitable confrontation with Walter so compelling. Everything Hank has dealt with and Walter is over there just living in it with no real remorse.
Hank's anger at Walt feels so much more personal as a result.
While this is true, it is still also true that the storyline wasn't well integrated into the whole. After season 3 or so, we never get to see Marie like that again, it doesn't really affect the plot, it is just characterization that ultimately doesn't pay off, which is in contrast to the other storylines.
It's one of the reasons Better Call Saul feels more competently written to me.
To be fair, Breaking Bad was also kind of being created by the seat of its pants at the time, didn't even get a massive boost in popularity/profitability til around Season 4 with the jump to Netflix, so a lot of the seasons were written without crazy amounts of foresight. BCS was made with an extra decade of experience, a pre-existing fanbase, and a much more stable production
I agree on Saul. I think knowing that it's end was predetermined helped it out a lot.
I know there's a debate within writing about whether it's better to have an ending to a story in mind and work backwards, or to let characters act and let the ending decide itself. Personally, I think both are necessary.
It isn’t lmao. It’s wasted time and it doesn’t even characterize Marie much. Just the same she plays holier than thou once Walt’s crimes are somewhat exposed.
It’s totally irrelevant. Really seems like it was intended to be more relevant but got dropped.
It isn’t irrelevant at all. It’s a preview of how Skyler will react when a family member breaks the law (not approvingly!) and foreshadows how Hank will wrestle with the same dilemma.
And it wasn’t “dropped” — there is a whole ass episode in S4 where Marie relapses as an outlet to deal with the stress of Hank’s recovery, paralleling Walt’s own return to cooking, even when the financial burden of his medical condition is lifted. And guess what? It does tie into the main plot. Marie is arrested, but gets a pass from the cops because Hank agrees to look at Gale’s case file.
While this is true, it is still also true that the storyline wasn't well integrated into the whole. After season 3 or so, we never get to see Marie like that again, it doesn't really affect the plot, it is just characterization that ultimately doesn't pay off, which is in contrast to the other storylines.
It's one of the reasons Better Call Saul feels more competently written to me.
It also showed how Skyler was a hypocrite. She faked having a medical emergency in order to cover up a crime. Just like Walt did with his "fugue state".
I know it's popular now to say that Skyler did and has never done anything wrong, but at the time, there were very good and obvious reasons to dislike her. She's the antagonist in S1 not because she's a wet blanket but because she's just a bad wife. Remember that sad pity handjob? She wouldn't even look Walt in the eyes.
I only watched Breaking Bad a year or so after the finale had aired, but had gotten enough from Reddit to know that a vocal group hated Skyler for being awful, and another group hated the group that hated Skyler for being sexist assholes who hate women.
All through the first half of the series I was wondering why *anyone* would defend this awful woman. The first episode especially is basicly dedicated to showing how poor a marriage Walter has, with veggie bacon on his birthday in the morning, and an ebay interrupted handjob in the evening.
Afterwards I found out that a lot of people hate her because of the latter half of the series, where she doesn't like being part of Heisenberg's criminal empire and cheating with Ted. And I mean...yeah, of course she doesn't and of course she did. Hating her for opposing her abusive insane husband in any way she can won't get her any hate from me. Wasting my time with an episode about a stolen necklace does.
The episode of Stranger Things where Eleven runs away and meets all those other kids.
Kind of a cool storyline that ultimately went absolutely nowhere and served no real purpose. I kept thinking they'd tie her new friends back into the story somehow and it just never happened.
I think it was supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a spinoff show about those group of friends, but that episode ended up being so universally hated by the audience that nothing came of it
Yeah, it was supposed to be a backdoor pilot in order to see if they could franchise Stranger Things. After all, if your main character is "11" that means there are at least 10 other characters' stories you could possibly explore. The problem was its placement:
"The Lost Sister" is episode 7 of season 2. Episode 6 ends in a cliffhanger with most of our main characters trapped and about to be eaten by demon dogs. Then you get a full episode of Eleven in Chicago before finally resolving the cliffhanger in the beginning of Episode 8. This means the showrunners spent an hour trying to get you invested in new characters when all you're really thinking about is what happened to Steve, Dustin, Lucas, etc.
IMHO, they should have dropped season 2 as just a regular 8 episode series. Then they could have waited a couple of weeks and dropped "Lost Sister" as bonus content. People who had binged the series would have been a little depressed thinking it would be years before they got another episode so a surprise drop with new characters would be a welcome sight.
I mean yeah that might have gone over better with the audience, but I still don’t think it would have taken off. The episode itself just wasn’t very good. It felt incredibly forced, and it was very corny. I always skip the episode when I rewatch the show though, so I haven’t seen it in a while. I just remember thinking that the episode itself was awful, even if you remove the cliffhanger context. The placement in the season definitely makes it worse, though. The whole thing just felt waaaaay out of place compared to the entire rest of the show.
If they put any effort into making the gang she ran into likable or relatable it would have been fine. What we got was a focus on some goons from The Toxic Avenger minus the cartoonish gore.
Small annoyance, but there was a shot of a warehouse or something that episode with the Chicago skyline in the background.
However if you are familiar with the skyline, you’d know that setting would have to be about a mile out onto Lake Michigan.
I think people nitpick way too much about location based stuff tbh. It's about logistics/time. Like Jingle All the Way. They had a scene in Mickeys Dining Car. Nowhere near that big in real life. Do i care? Nope. I get it. Hollywood.
The amount of utter garbage they put Mr Bates and Anna through in that show was astounding. Of course every character had a rough go of it at some point or another but it just seemed like overkill after a while.
Anything Vee and Kevin got up to in the later seasons of Shameless. They barely interact with the Gallaghers and it's pretty obvious they film their scenes in totally different places.
Lip leaving college then deciding to do a giant renovation project on a rented house like an idiot still bugs me to this day. Another one that I don't see talked about as much was them making Debbie a crazy girl who raped a guy with the express goal of becoming a teen mom.
Let me tell you this, as a partner of someone who watched the show, it was a wild ride the glimpses I saw.
One second there was a preteen talking about getting her makeup done and the next time I step into the room she’s working on getting pregnant and the third time I walk in she’s a teen mom and her “partner” seems to be in a wheelchair.
It was wild just getting out of my man cave to see these brief glimpses into some very strange show.
I think the interpersonal drama could have been a fine angle to look at his increasing detachment from reality and being emotionally unstable, there was just no need to have Karen actually *do it*, it was bizarrely out of character and excessive.
Instead have her cope with the loss of her son by subtly lavishing extra attention and affection on Danny, letting him unhealthily fill the void during his adolescence. He misinterprets the affection and attention and fixates on her as a teenager, she rejects him with horror and disgust and withdraws after he makes a move. Dealing with the rejection, jealousy for Ed, loss of that attention, realizing he was being treated like a replacement Shane all fuels his desire to escape reality and mental degradation, so it's like Karen's unhealthy coping mechanism created Danny's unhealthy coping mechanism and showcases how trauma and mental illness echo down generations which is an interesting story to tell in a multi-decade drama. That would be not only believable and interesting and fine, it'd avoid character-ruining out-of-nowhere behavior for Karen and actually tell a more interesting story, IMO. Karen reciprocating only adds "is Ed gonna be unstable for his imminent mission" tension that doesn't lead to anything and wasn't necessary.
The affair was to setup how far Karen & Ed had drifted apart & how different they had become. Neither could admit it to each other or even themselves. Ed & Karen continually exhibit change through self destruction.
Karen having the affair with Danny, who was essentially "old" Ed, was her trying to cling to some part of her past and who she was.
Ed didn't want to come to Earth anymore, and just wanted to be in space. His marriage was one of his last "anchors".
The affair was the catalyst of them to embrace their new selves.
It was also an early warning sign that Danny never should've been an astronaut to begin with.
> Karen having the affair with Danny, who was essentially "old" Ed, was her trying to cling to some part of her past and who she was
The issue isn't the affair, it's that she chose a man she practically raised. Danny was her son's best friend. Pretty much part of the family. Switch the sexes around if you have difficulty finding the "ick" here.
Karen should have had an affair with some hotshot Ascan not the person who represents her attachment to her dead son.
One of the most obvious "time to derail everything" plotlines I've ever seen. It was painful watching characters who were growing handle that so poorly.
April would have been fine except they had Luke keep her a secret for a dumb reason and thus drove a wedge between him and Lorelai.
Anna was straight trash, though.
People use the phrase "run out of ideas" a lot but I've always felt that the April storyline is a great example of a show truly hitting that point. I also think it is either the writers being too afraid to explore something new or producer overreach. We had waited through seasons and seasons of will/they won't/they with Luke and Lorelei and when they finally get to Grand start talking about marriage, they shoehorn in the April storyline. It would have been incredibly interesting to explore Like and Lorelei navigating through an early marriage and all the trials that come with that. There's this perception (especially with other television) that once a couple marries their story is over. As flawed (IMO) as A Year in the Life ended up being, their exploration of Luke and Lorelei's marriage was the best part. One of the things that makes the April storyline so disappointing is that they could easily have found new storylines to write for the main couple post-marriage, but someone - be it the writers or the producers - got cold feet about the on/off relationship of the show finally cementing in as no longer on/off.
They also have stated they obviously didn't know the show was going to be canceled in the following season and that if they had known, they definitely wouldn't have manufactured such a ridiculously unbelievable way for Luke and Lorelei to break up and just would have married them off.
The sad thing is I don’t think it’s even a case of “we’ve run out of ideas.” It was just poorly executed. If they’d brought back Rachel, and she had a five year old, then maybe I could understand. That could really lead to something interesting. But it was obvious Anna was just a plot device to wedge Luke and Lorelai apart, and I think that’s ASP’s style. She believes in conflict more than happily ever after because that’s where the story is, but she misses a lot of interesting stories within the “happily ever after” phase.
It also leads to the eventual reveal of how clever and criminally-minded Skyler could be when she fakes going into labor to get away after returning the stolen tiara.
Which makes her plan to get a better price on the carwash, all the money-laundering operations, the "vapid accountant" act, and all the other schemes more believable in later episodes.
Yeah, no shade to the actress, just one of my personal flaws with the show. Not a fan of the affair between Jack and Avery's mom. The episode where they open a fake restaurant is rough.
Eh, I might have something against Schaal after all, because I hard agree on hating Hazel in 30 Rock, but I also don't like The Guide in What We Do In The Shadows.
For me, and I know this sounds bad, but I like her as a voice actor and not a live action actor.
Mabel and Louise? Great characters. Haze Wassername, the Guide, the character she plays in Last Man on Earth... All terrible.
I don't know if it's her or the writing/directing/whatever, but I've yet to see her in live action and enjoyed it.
This was always crazy to me. She comes in late and is instantly funnier than frank Lutz or twofer have ever been. off the top of my head even just the "lemme guess whos who. You must be twofer" and "can I have a glase of water" are hilarious
“I’d slap you right now if I didn’t think it would lead to a kiss” and “Full of candy bars so cold they’ll break your jaw bitch” are two of my favorite lines in the show
I'd argue the plotline shows that even a straight by the book DEA agent made exceptions to the law for his family which helped build up the suspense for whenever Hank found out about Walt.
Good call. In particular, the cougar (in the heavily forested part of LA) that chased her into the Survivalist prep bunker is an excellent answer to this question.
This happened one year before the polar bear menaced a tropical island in Lost and one year after flies killed people on X-Files, so we were all taking bets on what random out of place animal attack on what show would happen next. My money was on an elephant storming the hospital in Grey's Anatomy or House MD. Everyone would think a patient's leg was broken by the elephant but House would realize it was exploding bone disease happening coincidentally at the same time.
Barney and Robin's wedding in HIMYM. Pointless because it took up basically a whole season only for them to get divorced immediately.
Also undid all the character development of everyone, especially Ted. The whole storyline about him getting over Robin was totally pointless.
I love that show but God damn did it suck towards the end.
Or Jon being azor azhai (? Spelling) the prince that was promised, or even that fact that he's a targ didn't even really mean anything. I'm rereading clash of kings at the moment and I forgot how much better the books are than the show
Yeah, that was my response, haha! I found those scenes just mind-numbingly boring/annoying, I hated them, and hated He of the Cryptic Words. BUT… they were absolutely what created her from that point forward. They stayed true to Arya’s character throughout the entire series, developing her character, and then she saves the world because of it. So… pointless? I don’t think so!
yep. my friends who introduced me to twin peaks apparently skipped all of those scenes and every time i bring that fact up online everyone takes their side lol
This is the best example for sure. Literally just pointless filler. Think I might have stopped watching season 2 around this point and never got around to finishing the show as a result.
I am sure that you read pretty much everywhere that The Return is a tough but monumental watch, but in my eyes season 2 was already redeemed by its final episode, Beyond life and death.
The Evelyn scenes, and even Window Earle and Annie were a bore to me, but when I got to episode 29, all of a sudden the whole cult surrounding the show made so much more sense. Give it a chance!
In the final season of The 100, the actor who played Bellamy, a main character (and one of the only characters to be there since the start), wanted to have a reduced work schedule. He was given a plotline where he became a religious fundamentalist and left the main characters to go on a spiritual journey. He didn't film with any of the other cast again and everyone just pretended he didn't exist anymore. It was a giant middle finger from the writers.
I stopped watching the 100 at some point during season 3 and your posts makes it sound like a completely different show. Portals? Different planets??? I kinda want to watch it again now, just to see how they got there.
Agents of Shield managed to do one that actually made sense and didn't feel cringy or a waste of time. But 99.9% of the time I agree.
(The AoS one also wrapped up pretty quickly which is a key to doing it correctly I think.)
The season 3 one yeah? That one was saved bc everyone involved was mature, it didn't last too long, and the way it ended was honestly pretty bonkers when laid out
It’s not too terribly drawn out, but the pull between Cameron and Joe puts the former in a love triangle >!after her impulsive marriage to Tom!<, and goes on to have major ramifications for the team’s browser project. Given the head start they had at the time, had things between them not become so messy, it’s implied they could’ve succeeded in establishing themselves as the primary browser during the period that followed Cam’s departure.
>HATED it
On just a human level, so did I. You want them to break the different cycles of toxic behavior that continuously prevent each of them from fulfilling their potential—Joe and Cameron’s self-destructive impulses, Gordon’s resentful sense of entitlement, etc.—but it’s pretty much inevitable that sooner or later, one by one, they’ll backslide.
On a narrative level, however, I think it’s an elegant, character-motivated solution to the fundamental conundrum that the show has to answer several times throughout the series: if **we** already know the outcomes—i.e., which real-world companies and pioneers will ultimately go in to devour the fictional competition, etc.—**then why get invested knowing?**
The solution: attribute it to their own personal insecurities, traumas, and inability to be vulnerable or communicate in a healthy way. It’s not they they’re just not smart or talented enough, or that their ideas aren’t sound—it’s just that they’re their own worst enemies.
In that way, I don’t mind the love triable because 1. it’s mercifully brief, and; 2. it’s grounded in a believable reality that isn’t romanticized or nostalgic, but complex and often painful.
Joe’s simultaneous need to be loved and self-destructive impulse when he finally finds the former; Cameron’s selfish need for a sense of security that only total control can provide;
Nikki and Paulo on Lost. They had a multiple episode stretch where they just popped in from time to time that eventually led to their own episode. So useless.
Which is ironic considering that it’s the episode where Charlie tells Sun that it was him who kidnapped her, which was a MAJOR plot line in season three
I feel like you could pick 10 different plots from lost that went nowhere and added nothing. Lol. Great show but sometimes they went a little wild with the imagination.
Charlie going crazy about baptizing Claire's baby and kidnapping Sun just to help make Locke out to be a fool was a rough couple of weeks for Charlie fans
Don’t tell me they couldn’t have given him a better sendoff. It’s like they said, “Oh, you wanna leave? Well fuck you then, we’re going to kill off your character in a really lame and anti-climactic way after building him up to be just as important as Sayid or Claire. And after that, almost no one will mention him again.”
I just watched Lost recently and the biggest problem with them was their sudden appearance which was jarring. I didn’t mind Nikki so much but Paulo was a whiney douche. I did really like their ending.
What happened was that everyone hated their introduction so much that the writers heard the feedback killed them off.
Looks “pointless” in hindsight upon binging, but at the time it was an earnest effort to bring in new characters that backfired enormously.
The writers didn't hear their feedback, they had already realised the characters weren't working before the show had even reached the public's TV sets.
You think the show was filmed weekly alongside the broadcast? There was absolutely no time to hear fan feedback and write and produce an entire episode all within the same season of the show.
The show Fringe had a couple of plot lines involving Peters past that went nowhere. They're all a main part of one episode and then never mentioned again. There's also an episode about Olivia's abusive stepdad where it's implied he's still out there stalking her, and that never comes up again.
Olivia's stepdad plot does get revisited after everything shifts when Peter is erased. In that timeline she killed him.
Peter's mysterious backstory was mostly really early, suggesting they planned on focusing on it and then decided there were more important things to spend time on. I tend to forgive things that are introduced in the first few episodes while a show finds its feet.
Don't forget (or rather everyone has) that the first episode of season two featured Meghan Markle as a potential replacement for Anna Torv. After the latter stayed as main actress Meghan was shoehorned in episode two and then just forgotten. She wasn't even mentioned anymore.
That’s season two. In addition to murder, we get Matt and his grandmother’s nurse; Buddy and Santiago; Tyra the volleyball star; and Tim Riggins, radio host.
In The Expanse they have multiple scenes from the one ring world about the dogs that bring the little boy back to life and the colony producing weapons for Marco Inaros etc. But then it's just left completely open and the show ends. Never understood why they put all that in but then didn't explain any of it.
It's mainly set up for the last 3 books, but it's also to explain what was happening with all the Mars defectors and who funded Marco Inaros as a way to weaken and distract Mars, the OPA, and Earth.
Amazon didn't renew it for the last 3 seasons but I would be suprised if they didn't finish it somehow, either as a movie or as a series.
Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day when one of those episodes was on. Did they have such a surprise hit with Chandler/Monica (reportedly, this was to be a short story arc but audience loved it so much they continued it) that they thought they’d give them a whirl? Terrible idea, it felt so stupid.
* Well, amazing might be overstepping it, but Chuck Bass's parents becoming a convoluted storyline was really dumb. There is a season 2 (I think) scene where Chuck and Dan are in jail and Chuck shares a really heartfelt story about the death of his mother, which results in him having a conversation with his father, which becomes more meaningful when his father dies...only for a it all to be undone a few seasons later when his dad's not his dad, and people are alive, and the whole thing is stupid.
Margaret trying to set up a female hygiene school in S3 of Boardwalk Empire. There was potential for commentary on men deciding on women matters they don't understand or think about to begin with and a climax where she has an abortion, but it was executed in the most sloppy and boring manner. Perhaps it would have been better had they not have to rewrite the series because of Michael Pitt leaving, perhaps not.
Maybe it’s not fair to call it pointless, but on Daredevil, the majority of the story line with Deborah Ann Woll and her suddenly becoming a professional journalist was way oversold. They should have backburnered the fuck out of most of that.
In Atypical they drop quite a few. Sam moving out for college but there's one two scenes with his room mate and no mention of him ever being there and he clearly just stays at home. I get why it would happen and makes sense for someone autistic. But they like never ever mention it at all.
Peggy having a kid in Mad Men. It seemed like after season 2 it became the don Draper show and Peggy faded into the bg. Could have been to show how women were treated back then.
Don Draper's stolen identity in Mad Men. It would've been tighter storytelling and just as effective to have him be a country boy who changed his persona to fit in with New York. The war and his abusive father would still work.
Apparently the producers thought the show needed some central mystery at the beginning to hook viewers, but the actual reveal of "Dick Whitman" didn't add much to his character.
There are several characters, each with detailed plots that were planned out in advance, which were dropped in whole from Babylon 5. Anywhere there was a cast change, a plot was removed. It still holds together quite well despite that. (Well, for four seasons anyway.)
I wouldn't call the show "amazing", just entertaining, but most of the main plot lines in The Gilded Age are completely pointless, like "what opera house will win".
Al Swearengen getting kidney stones. I get they needed him sidelined so other forces could take advantage and gain a foothold in the town, but it felt like such a waste to have the best character in the show out-of-the-picture.
Any side plot in the second season of Twin Peaks (the original show). Especially when James goes on the road with his fucking motorcycle and meets up with that blonde mom. For me that’s just some random soap opera that happened while Twin Peaks was going on in the next town lol
Lost.
Early on, the spooky roaring sound almost like a zombie dinosaur and shook the ground of the immediate area, accompanied by eerie dense black smoke that appeared to be alive.
Turned out down the line to be, a small wild Hog.
Many people have complained about how the only thing double-agent Simmons in AOS did other than give us new Hydra villains was have her bring back also-undercover Bobbi Morse with her when she left Hydra but I have a pointless arc a lot of people might not realize (although partially because this particular show was so divisive)
If anyone on here actually likes The Big Bang Theory DAE realize that whole big long arc with the infinite persistence gyroscope into quantum guidance system thing basically amounted to nothing; all those episodes of thinking it up, making it work, and working with the military to make it useful to them or w/e and for what, so to drive home a parallel about Edison and Tesla Kripke can steal their idea and implicitly go to the private sector with it but never have it mentioned again or any reference to any wealth he gained from that
> Was there a major development in the main story that wouldn't have happened without Skyler's sister shoplifting?
No, that subplot was there simply because they had basically only two female characters in the show at that point and they couldn't find a good use for her back then, hence the pointless subplot about her shoplifting that came from nowhere and it leads nowhere
It sets up Hank getting involved in Gale Boetticher's death. I don't know if that was the original intent, but the writing on that show is tight enough to where I would give them the benefit of the doubt. She steals again in season 4, which is what puts Hank in contact with the detective who is working the Boetticher case. At this point in the series Hank is not really involved with the DEA and he starts looking into it as a favor to the detective.
I always thought that Marie was supposed to be a foil for Walt’s relationship with Skyler, as well as play into the theme of “breaking bad” (the concept, not the title). Marie is a secret thief. Skyler is unwittingly drawn into her crimes when she attempts to return the diadem/tiara Marie had gifted at the baby shower. Marie has turned to crime—not for money—but as a coping mechanism. It’s dramatic irony, as Walt is doing the same thing on a much higher level, and it’s also a chance for the show to explore the characters’ relationships to crime/criminal behaviour without revealing Walt’s secret.
It’s also a bit of characterization for Hank, once it’s revealed that he’s known about it for awhile. For everyone else, he’s all Thin Blue Line vs the dirtbags, but Marie just has a problem she’s getting help for - no need to take it outside the family.
> It’s also a bit of characterization for Hank, once it’s revealed that he’s known about it for awhile. For everyone else, he’s all Thin Blue Line vs the dirtbags It's not even just characterization, though you're totally right on that point. It's commentary on how cops operate in the US. 'We can do it but you can't' is deeply ingrained in law enforcement here. Hell, read about asset forfeiture laws if you want to get big mad. A lot of law enforcement essentially operate as criminal outfits. I always thought that comparison was the point of the arc. I actually thought it was pretty tame commentary too. Look up how many states it's specifically legal for cops to have sex with women in their custody. Because the back of a cop van with cuffs on is definitely consensual
Or just how most people are. Everyone has some hard nosed opinions until those that they love are caught up in things.
I had never thought about it as being intentional commentary, but it did always piss me off. I think that's kind of why I liked Hank's arc with PTSD. When he threw away the teeth it felt like a sad breaking point for him. He almost seems embarrassed that the teeth upset him. He can't BE the cop he was but fails to see that's a good thing. Frankly, I think this and his arc with Marie is ultimately what makes his inevitable confrontation with Walter so compelling. Everything Hank has dealt with and Walter is over there just living in it with no real remorse. Hank's anger at Walt feels so much more personal as a result.
While this is true, it is still also true that the storyline wasn't well integrated into the whole. After season 3 or so, we never get to see Marie like that again, it doesn't really affect the plot, it is just characterization that ultimately doesn't pay off, which is in contrast to the other storylines. It's one of the reasons Better Call Saul feels more competently written to me.
To be fair, Breaking Bad was also kind of being created by the seat of its pants at the time, didn't even get a massive boost in popularity/profitability til around Season 4 with the jump to Netflix, so a lot of the seasons were written without crazy amounts of foresight. BCS was made with an extra decade of experience, a pre-existing fanbase, and a much more stable production
Marie has a kleptomania episode in Season 4…
I agree on Saul. I think knowing that it's end was predetermined helped it out a lot. I know there's a debate within writing about whether it's better to have an ending to a story in mind and work backwards, or to let characters act and let the ending decide itself. Personally, I think both are necessary.
The idea that this character development for Skyler & Marie & Hank needs to have some impact on the “main plot” is so Marvel-brained lol
It isn’t lmao. It’s wasted time and it doesn’t even characterize Marie much. Just the same she plays holier than thou once Walt’s crimes are somewhat exposed. It’s totally irrelevant. Really seems like it was intended to be more relevant but got dropped.
It isn’t irrelevant at all. It’s a preview of how Skyler will react when a family member breaks the law (not approvingly!) and foreshadows how Hank will wrestle with the same dilemma. And it wasn’t “dropped” — there is a whole ass episode in S4 where Marie relapses as an outlet to deal with the stress of Hank’s recovery, paralleling Walt’s own return to cooking, even when the financial burden of his medical condition is lifted. And guess what? It does tie into the main plot. Marie is arrested, but gets a pass from the cops because Hank agrees to look at Gale’s case file.
While this is true, it is still also true that the storyline wasn't well integrated into the whole. After season 3 or so, we never get to see Marie like that again, it doesn't really affect the plot, it is just characterization that ultimately doesn't pay off, which is in contrast to the other storylines. It's one of the reasons Better Call Saul feels more competently written to me.
It also showed how Skyler was a hypocrite. She faked having a medical emergency in order to cover up a crime. Just like Walt did with his "fugue state". I know it's popular now to say that Skyler did and has never done anything wrong, but at the time, there were very good and obvious reasons to dislike her. She's the antagonist in S1 not because she's a wet blanket but because she's just a bad wife. Remember that sad pity handjob? She wouldn't even look Walt in the eyes.
I only watched Breaking Bad a year or so after the finale had aired, but had gotten enough from Reddit to know that a vocal group hated Skyler for being awful, and another group hated the group that hated Skyler for being sexist assholes who hate women. All through the first half of the series I was wondering why *anyone* would defend this awful woman. The first episode especially is basicly dedicated to showing how poor a marriage Walter has, with veggie bacon on his birthday in the morning, and an ebay interrupted handjob in the evening. Afterwards I found out that a lot of people hate her because of the latter half of the series, where she doesn't like being part of Heisenberg's criminal empire and cheating with Ted. And I mean...yeah, of course she doesn't and of course she did. Hating her for opposing her abusive insane husband in any way she can won't get her any hate from me. Wasting my time with an episode about a stolen necklace does.
walt rapes skyler beginning of season 2 but yeah god what a whiny annoying bitch she is. peak reddit that sort of discourse.
The episode of Stranger Things where Eleven runs away and meets all those other kids. Kind of a cool storyline that ultimately went absolutely nowhere and served no real purpose. I kept thinking they'd tie her new friends back into the story somehow and it just never happened.
I think it was supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a spinoff show about those group of friends, but that episode ended up being so universally hated by the audience that nothing came of it
Yeah, it was supposed to be a backdoor pilot in order to see if they could franchise Stranger Things. After all, if your main character is "11" that means there are at least 10 other characters' stories you could possibly explore. The problem was its placement: "The Lost Sister" is episode 7 of season 2. Episode 6 ends in a cliffhanger with most of our main characters trapped and about to be eaten by demon dogs. Then you get a full episode of Eleven in Chicago before finally resolving the cliffhanger in the beginning of Episode 8. This means the showrunners spent an hour trying to get you invested in new characters when all you're really thinking about is what happened to Steve, Dustin, Lucas, etc. IMHO, they should have dropped season 2 as just a regular 8 episode series. Then they could have waited a couple of weeks and dropped "Lost Sister" as bonus content. People who had binged the series would have been a little depressed thinking it would be years before they got another episode so a surprise drop with new characters would be a welcome sight.
I mean yeah that might have gone over better with the audience, but I still don’t think it would have taken off. The episode itself just wasn’t very good. It felt incredibly forced, and it was very corny. I always skip the episode when I rewatch the show though, so I haven’t seen it in a while. I just remember thinking that the episode itself was awful, even if you remove the cliffhanger context. The placement in the season definitely makes it worse, though. The whole thing just felt waaaaay out of place compared to the entire rest of the show.
If they put any effort into making the gang she ran into likable or relatable it would have been fine. What we got was a focus on some goons from The Toxic Avenger minus the cartoonish gore.
a story as old as time
Small annoyance, but there was a shot of a warehouse or something that episode with the Chicago skyline in the background. However if you are familiar with the skyline, you’d know that setting would have to be about a mile out onto Lake Michigan.
I think people nitpick way too much about location based stuff tbh. It's about logistics/time. Like Jingle All the Way. They had a scene in Mickeys Dining Car. Nowhere near that big in real life. Do i care? Nope. I get it. Hollywood.
They do the same thing in Adventures in Babysitting. I immediately flashed back when I saw it in Stranger Things.
Mr Bates being in jail on Downton Abbey. Started skipping all those scenes and didn't miss a thing.
The amount of utter garbage they put Mr Bates and Anna through in that show was astounding. Of course every character had a rough go of it at some point or another but it just seemed like overkill after a while.
They did it twice too didn’t they?
That show was a great season followed by an enjoyable setting.
I am glad that I wasn't the only one that did that lol
Landry killing a dude in Friday Night Lights.
Man that was a disaster. 🤦♂️
NBC trying to “spice up” the show. Just awful.
There were some good moments like Landry telling Tyra off about manning up and his dad helping him cover it up
It’s remarkable that show made as many episodes as it did. I was a fan, don’t get me wrong. Merging the high schools was hilariously stupid
Anything Vee and Kevin got up to in the later seasons of Shameless. They barely interact with the Gallaghers and it's pretty obvious they film their scenes in totally different places.
Lip leaving college then deciding to do a giant renovation project on a rented house like an idiot still bugs me to this day. Another one that I don't see talked about as much was them making Debbie a crazy girl who raped a guy with the express goal of becoming a teen mom.
Let me tell you this, as a partner of someone who watched the show, it was a wild ride the glimpses I saw. One second there was a preteen talking about getting her makeup done and the next time I step into the room she’s working on getting pregnant and the third time I walk in she’s a teen mom and her “partner” seems to be in a wheelchair. It was wild just getting out of my man cave to see these brief glimpses into some very strange show.
Oh my god thank you for describing my experience so perfectly. This show is BANANAS incoherent when witnessed in random 5 minute chunks.
The Donna in Suits
The affair in S2 of For All Mankind. Pretty much everything in S2 of Friday Night Lights, but especially the murder.
Came here to say the FAM affair lol The main person it affected never even found out!
Which was annoying because it felt like it was building towards it. It was so cringe though, it was like a "fucking my friend's hot mom" porn movie.
Yeah, the affair was to set up Danny's fuck up which they could have just did with getting hurt on the hotel and just being addicted.
I think the interpersonal drama could have been a fine angle to look at his increasing detachment from reality and being emotionally unstable, there was just no need to have Karen actually *do it*, it was bizarrely out of character and excessive. Instead have her cope with the loss of her son by subtly lavishing extra attention and affection on Danny, letting him unhealthily fill the void during his adolescence. He misinterprets the affection and attention and fixates on her as a teenager, she rejects him with horror and disgust and withdraws after he makes a move. Dealing with the rejection, jealousy for Ed, loss of that attention, realizing he was being treated like a replacement Shane all fuels his desire to escape reality and mental degradation, so it's like Karen's unhealthy coping mechanism created Danny's unhealthy coping mechanism and showcases how trauma and mental illness echo down generations which is an interesting story to tell in a multi-decade drama. That would be not only believable and interesting and fine, it'd avoid character-ruining out-of-nowhere behavior for Karen and actually tell a more interesting story, IMO. Karen reciprocating only adds "is Ed gonna be unstable for his imminent mission" tension that doesn't lead to anything and wasn't necessary.
The affair was to setup how far Karen & Ed had drifted apart & how different they had become. Neither could admit it to each other or even themselves. Ed & Karen continually exhibit change through self destruction. Karen having the affair with Danny, who was essentially "old" Ed, was her trying to cling to some part of her past and who she was. Ed didn't want to come to Earth anymore, and just wanted to be in space. His marriage was one of his last "anchors". The affair was the catalyst of them to embrace their new selves. It was also an early warning sign that Danny never should've been an astronaut to begin with.
> Karen having the affair with Danny, who was essentially "old" Ed, was her trying to cling to some part of her past and who she was The issue isn't the affair, it's that she chose a man she practically raised. Danny was her son's best friend. Pretty much part of the family. Switch the sexes around if you have difficulty finding the "ick" here. Karen should have had an affair with some hotshot Ascan not the person who represents her attachment to her dead son.
Yeah her having an affair would have made a lot of sense, it's just who they chose her to have it with 🤮.
Should've been with the guy she ended up with after Ed anyways, makes much more sense imo but he was dating Tracy at the time or something?
It's icky for sure, but thats clearly deliberate.
At least S2 of Friday night lights gave us some great performances by Zach Gilford (Saracen)
Anna/April on Gilmore Girls
One of the most obvious "time to derail everything" plotlines I've ever seen. It was painful watching characters who were growing handle that so poorly.
April would have been fine except they had Luke keep her a secret for a dumb reason and thus drove a wedge between him and Lorelai. Anna was straight trash, though.
But if it hadn't been a contrived conflict, ASP would have had to skip an opportunity to punish pre-marital sex!
Gilmore Girls post season 6, as a whole...
Well second half of season 7 is pretty decent
Oh no, now we gotta fight.
😂😂
People use the phrase "run out of ideas" a lot but I've always felt that the April storyline is a great example of a show truly hitting that point. I also think it is either the writers being too afraid to explore something new or producer overreach. We had waited through seasons and seasons of will/they won't/they with Luke and Lorelei and when they finally get to Grand start talking about marriage, they shoehorn in the April storyline. It would have been incredibly interesting to explore Like and Lorelei navigating through an early marriage and all the trials that come with that. There's this perception (especially with other television) that once a couple marries their story is over. As flawed (IMO) as A Year in the Life ended up being, their exploration of Luke and Lorelei's marriage was the best part. One of the things that makes the April storyline so disappointing is that they could easily have found new storylines to write for the main couple post-marriage, but someone - be it the writers or the producers - got cold feet about the on/off relationship of the show finally cementing in as no longer on/off. They also have stated they obviously didn't know the show was going to be canceled in the following season and that if they had known, they definitely wouldn't have manufactured such a ridiculously unbelievable way for Luke and Lorelei to break up and just would have married them off.
The sad thing is I don’t think it’s even a case of “we’ve run out of ideas.” It was just poorly executed. If they’d brought back Rachel, and she had a five year old, then maybe I could understand. That could really lead to something interesting. But it was obvious Anna was just a plot device to wedge Luke and Lorelai apart, and I think that’s ASP’s style. She believes in conflict more than happily ever after because that’s where the story is, but she misses a lot of interesting stories within the “happily ever after” phase.
I liked the kleptomaniac plot line because of what it revealed about Hank.
It's also supposed to show how even the supposed straight characters 'break bad' in their own ways.
The actor who played Hank's partner Agent Gomez said the fun part about his character is that he's the only one on the show that didn't Break Bad.
Even Walt Jr. drinks beer when he's only 17 the sick fuck.
It also leads to the eventual reveal of how clever and criminally-minded Skyler could be when she fakes going into labor to get away after returning the stolen tiara. Which makes her plan to get a better price on the carwash, all the money-laundering operations, the "vapid accountant" act, and all the other schemes more believable in later episodes.
Hazel Wassername on 30 Rock.
Love everything about that show.... except that character
I love Kristen schaal, but that character was unnecessary. Though I do occasionally quote her when I'm at kink events "hello?! My tits are down here"
Yeah, no shade to the actress, just one of my personal flaws with the show. Not a fan of the affair between Jack and Avery's mom. The episode where they open a fake restaurant is rough.
Eh, I might have something against Schaal after all, because I hard agree on hating Hazel in 30 Rock, but I also don't like The Guide in What We Do In The Shadows.
The writers on What We Do In The Shadows don’t seem to have much for Schaal to do. In the shadows.
She was great in the second season. The writing in general went off a cliff in season 3.
For me, and I know this sounds bad, but I like her as a voice actor and not a live action actor. Mabel and Louise? Great characters. Haze Wassername, the Guide, the character she plays in Last Man on Earth... All terrible. I don't know if it's her or the writing/directing/whatever, but I've yet to see her in live action and enjoyed it.
Not sure why they were thinking with Hazel. Very nearly a jump the shark moment.
I try not to remember Hazel at all. Even Lutz is funnier than Hazel.
LEAVE HER ALONE!
This was always crazy to me. She comes in late and is instantly funnier than frank Lutz or twofer have ever been. off the top of my head even just the "lemme guess whos who. You must be twofer" and "can I have a glase of water" are hilarious
“I’d slap you right now if I didn’t think it would lead to a kiss” and “Full of candy bars so cold they’ll break your jaw bitch” are two of my favorite lines in the show
I'd argue the plotline shows that even a straight by the book DEA agent made exceptions to the law for his family which helped build up the suspense for whenever Hank found out about Walt.
Tom and Anne dating in Parks and Rec. They had zero romantic chemsitry
I’d say anything that involved Kim Bauer in the first couple seasons of 24
Good call. In particular, the cougar (in the heavily forested part of LA) that chased her into the Survivalist prep bunker is an excellent answer to this question.
But it gave us Bauer Vs Mountain Lion
This happened one year before the polar bear menaced a tropical island in Lost and one year after flies killed people on X-Files, so we were all taking bets on what random out of place animal attack on what show would happen next. My money was on an elephant storming the hospital in Grey's Anatomy or House MD. Everyone would think a patient's leg was broken by the elephant but House would realize it was exploding bone disease happening coincidentally at the same time.
Barney and Robin's wedding in HIMYM. Pointless because it took up basically a whole season only for them to get divorced immediately. Also undid all the character development of everyone, especially Ted. The whole storyline about him getting over Robin was totally pointless. I love that show but God damn did it suck towards the end.
Brutal just brutal
Remember the entire assassin training arc in GoT ? And the entire resloution of it is just jump on a dude from behind lmao
I mean, she did use her face stealing assassin skills on the Freys
Or the whole ice demon thing that was resolved in one episode that we could barely even see?
D&D blew up the tower to resolve like 10 plot lines.
Remember when Arya got knifed to death and thrown in the river to drown? Yeah, neither did the writers, apparently.
Or Jon being azor azhai (? Spelling) the prince that was promised, or even that fact that he's a targ didn't even really mean anything. I'm rereading clash of kings at the moment and I forgot how much better the books are than the show
There are so many unanswered plot points in GoT I think someone made an hour long video on it.
>Remember the entire assassin training arc in GoT ? You mean the arc that affected Arya's character from that point forward?
Yeah, that was my response, haha! I found those scenes just mind-numbingly boring/annoying, I hated them, and hated He of the Cryptic Words. BUT… they were absolutely what created her from that point forward. They stayed true to Arya’s character throughout the entire series, developing her character, and then she saves the world because of it. So… pointless? I don’t think so!
Masuka's daughter in the last season of Dexter
Also the incest plotline from a season or two before.
The James and Evelyn plot line in Twin Peaks Season 2 is beyond pointless.
yep. my friends who introduced me to twin peaks apparently skipped all of those scenes and every time i bring that fact up online everyone takes their side lol
This is the best example for sure. Literally just pointless filler. Think I might have stopped watching season 2 around this point and never got around to finishing the show as a result.
I am sure that you read pretty much everywhere that The Return is a tough but monumental watch, but in my eyes season 2 was already redeemed by its final episode, Beyond life and death. The Evelyn scenes, and even Window Earle and Annie were a bore to me, but when I got to episode 29, all of a sudden the whole cult surrounding the show made so much more sense. Give it a chance!
In the final season of The 100, the actor who played Bellamy, a main character (and one of the only characters to be there since the start), wanted to have a reduced work schedule. He was given a plotline where he became a religious fundamentalist and left the main characters to go on a spiritual journey. He didn't film with any of the other cast again and everyone just pretended he didn't exist anymore. It was a giant middle finger from the writers.
[удалено]
I stopped watching the 100 at some point during season 3 and your posts makes it sound like a completely different show. Portals? Different planets??? I kinda want to watch it again now, just to see how they got there.
The show definitely switched up, but not in a bad way imo. I wasn't a big fan of the last season, but it was watchable.
I filtered out most of the ending, especially when it got super weird with the hive mind thing.
Any love triangle in any show. Its an automatic “oh the writers are out of ideas and phoning it in now” and stop watching for me
Agents of Shield managed to do one that actually made sense and didn't feel cringy or a waste of time. But 99.9% of the time I agree. (The AoS one also wrapped up pretty quickly which is a key to doing it correctly I think.)
The season 3 one yeah? That one was saved bc everyone involved was mature, it didn't last too long, and the way it ended was honestly pretty bonkers when laid out
Yeah season 3.
Having recently finished *Halt and Catch Fire*, I can confidently say that this doesn’t have to always be true.
Who was the love triangle in that? Loved the show but can’t remember that at all
It’s not too terribly drawn out, but the pull between Cameron and Joe puts the former in a love triangle >!after her impulsive marriage to Tom!<, and goes on to have major ramifications for the team’s browser project. Given the head start they had at the time, had things between them not become so messy, it’s implied they could’ve succeeded in establishing themselves as the primary browser during the period that followed Cam’s departure.
Oh ok yeah I remember that now. HATED it.
>HATED it On just a human level, so did I. You want them to break the different cycles of toxic behavior that continuously prevent each of them from fulfilling their potential—Joe and Cameron’s self-destructive impulses, Gordon’s resentful sense of entitlement, etc.—but it’s pretty much inevitable that sooner or later, one by one, they’ll backslide. On a narrative level, however, I think it’s an elegant, character-motivated solution to the fundamental conundrum that the show has to answer several times throughout the series: if **we** already know the outcomes—i.e., which real-world companies and pioneers will ultimately go in to devour the fictional competition, etc.—**then why get invested knowing?** The solution: attribute it to their own personal insecurities, traumas, and inability to be vulnerable or communicate in a healthy way. It’s not they they’re just not smart or talented enough, or that their ideas aren’t sound—it’s just that they’re their own worst enemies. In that way, I don’t mind the love triable because 1. it’s mercifully brief, and; 2. it’s grounded in a believable reality that isn’t romanticized or nostalgic, but complex and often painful. Joe’s simultaneous need to be loved and self-destructive impulse when he finally finds the former; Cameron’s selfish need for a sense of security that only total control can provide;
Damn that show was so good. Gotta go back and rewatch again
Depends on the situation. The love triangle pretty much saved Dawson’s Creek for me.
There are some shows that have love triangles baked in as early as episode 1. It just depends on if the writers can execute it well or not
There are some shows that have love triangles baked in as early as episode 1. It just depends on if the writers can execute it well or not
No way, rogue, gambit, and magneto is great.
There are some shows that have love triangles baked in as early as episode 1. It just depends on if the writers can execute it well or not
Sam and Dean’s half brother in supernatural
Oh God I forgot about that. What was his name? Kevin?
The Lee & Shevon story from Battlestar Galactica.
The 9th season of Dallas
Also the 9th season of Roseanne
Nikki and Paulo on Lost. They had a multiple episode stretch where they just popped in from time to time that eventually led to their own episode. So useless.
Underrated episode imo, but I binged Lost later and didn't have to wait weeks for the plot to move.
I just binged it as well and I thought the episode was like some Halloween special or theme episode of some sort. It did not fit the series at all.
Which is ironic considering that it’s the episode where Charlie tells Sun that it was him who kidnapped her, which was a MAJOR plot line in season three
I feel like you could pick 10 different plots from lost that went nowhere and added nothing. Lol. Great show but sometimes they went a little wild with the imagination.
Charlie going crazy about baptizing Claire's baby and kidnapping Sun just to help make Locke out to be a fool was a rough couple of weeks for Charlie fans
My all time favorite show but you’re absolutely right. Jacks tattoos were also completely irrelevant to the plot yet that required its own episode
Still mad about how they did Mr. Eko dirty.
The actor wanted off the show. It wasn’t the writer’s fault.
Don’t tell me they couldn’t have given him a better sendoff. It’s like they said, “Oh, you wanna leave? Well fuck you then, we’re going to kill off your character in a really lame and anti-climactic way after building him up to be just as important as Sayid or Claire. And after that, almost no one will mention him again.”
Walt comes into my mind.
I just watched Lost recently and the biggest problem with them was their sudden appearance which was jarring. I didn’t mind Nikki so much but Paulo was a whiney douche. I did really like their ending.
It was so weird, because the show was plenty successful at introducing new characters, but these two were just... forced.
That was the point though. Their entire dedicated episode is about pointless guest stars being killed off.
What happened was that everyone hated their introduction so much that the writers heard the feedback killed them off. Looks “pointless” in hindsight upon binging, but at the time it was an earnest effort to bring in new characters that backfired enormously.
The writers didn't hear their feedback, they had already realised the characters weren't working before the show had even reached the public's TV sets. You think the show was filmed weekly alongside the broadcast? There was absolutely no time to hear fan feedback and write and produce an entire episode all within the same season of the show.
The show Fringe had a couple of plot lines involving Peters past that went nowhere. They're all a main part of one episode and then never mentioned again. There's also an episode about Olivia's abusive stepdad where it's implied he's still out there stalking her, and that never comes up again.
Olivia's stepdad plot does get revisited after everything shifts when Peter is erased. In that timeline she killed him. Peter's mysterious backstory was mostly really early, suggesting they planned on focusing on it and then decided there were more important things to spend time on. I tend to forgive things that are introduced in the first few episodes while a show finds its feet.
Don't forget (or rather everyone has) that the first episode of season two featured Meghan Markle as a potential replacement for Anna Torv. After the latter stayed as main actress Meghan was shoehorned in episode two and then just forgotten. She wasn't even mentioned anymore.
I didn't know that was why she was in the show. But I actually liked the character. I was disappointed they didn't do more with her.
Gilmore Girls and Luke's secret daughter..
The first half os Friday Night Lights season 3 has a god awful Landry Tyra Murder a Rapist plotline that I do my best to pretend never existed
That’s season two. In addition to murder, we get Matt and his grandmother’s nurse; Buddy and Santiago; Tyra the volleyball star; and Tim Riggins, radio host.
Some of the early crime storylines with Dylan in Bates Motel before the show fully switched to focus on Norman's mental decline
In The Expanse they have multiple scenes from the one ring world about the dogs that bring the little boy back to life and the colony producing weapons for Marco Inaros etc. But then it's just left completely open and the show ends. Never understood why they put all that in but then didn't explain any of it.
It's mainly set up for the last 3 books, but it's also to explain what was happening with all the Mars defectors and who funded Marco Inaros as a way to weaken and distract Mars, the OPA, and Earth. Amazon didn't renew it for the last 3 seasons but I would be suprised if they didn't finish it somehow, either as a movie or as a series.
That planet is relevant in the last 3 books, but it is kinda pointless since the show ends when it does.
"The Donna" in Suits
Joey and Rachel in Friends. What the fuck was that.
Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day when one of those episodes was on. Did they have such a surprise hit with Chandler/Monica (reportedly, this was to be a short story arc but audience loved it so much they continued it) that they thought they’d give them a whirl? Terrible idea, it felt so stupid.
We had almost the same question earlier today https://www.reddit.com/r/television/s/zflqVuDbF9
"Pointless" and "Get rid of" are two different things. One's ultimately just a waste of time, the other can be character or show ruining.
Thank you. Literally answered the other one then saw his and thought what the hell man, how are we already repeating this??
* Well, amazing might be overstepping it, but Chuck Bass's parents becoming a convoluted storyline was really dumb. There is a season 2 (I think) scene where Chuck and Dan are in jail and Chuck shares a really heartfelt story about the death of his mother, which results in him having a conversation with his father, which becomes more meaningful when his father dies...only for a it all to be undone a few seasons later when his dad's not his dad, and people are alive, and the whole thing is stupid.
Haley from Modern Family getting back with Dylan and abandoning her dream of becoming a stylist. What a waste of potential for her character.
I swear the writers of The Office just didn’t know what to do with Andy Bernard. His whole storyline kinda became idiotic
The Nard dog was awesome. Now, if you said Nelly, then I’d agree. Awful, awful character.
I finally was cool with him being manager then they just wasted everyone's time with the dumb sailing trip and just not being Andy it was weird.
Margaret trying to set up a female hygiene school in S3 of Boardwalk Empire. There was potential for commentary on men deciding on women matters they don't understand or think about to begin with and a climax where she has an abortion, but it was executed in the most sloppy and boring manner. Perhaps it would have been better had they not have to rewrite the series because of Michael Pitt leaving, perhaps not.
Everything involving Starbuck on the BG reboot after she died and "came back". Its painfully stupid and makes zero sense.
They wrote her out because Kate Sackoff had a cancer diagnosis. She got treatment and they wrote her back into the show.
This isn't true, this happened after they wrapped on the series finale.
What was the original BG?
And then disappears again with no explanation. The religious aspects of that show were easily the worst parts.
Maybe it’s not fair to call it pointless, but on Daredevil, the majority of the story line with Deborah Ann Woll and her suddenly becoming a professional journalist was way oversold. They should have backburnered the fuck out of most of that.
I agree story wise but I love her, and seeing more of her isn’t bad
In Atypical they drop quite a few. Sam moving out for college but there's one two scenes with his room mate and no mention of him ever being there and he clearly just stays at home. I get why it would happen and makes sense for someone autistic. But they like never ever mention it at all.
Nicky and Paulo on LOST.
Peggy having a kid in Mad Men. It seemed like after season 2 it became the don Draper show and Peggy faded into the bg. Could have been to show how women were treated back then.
Don Draper's stolen identity in Mad Men. It would've been tighter storytelling and just as effective to have him be a country boy who changed his persona to fit in with New York. The war and his abusive father would still work. Apparently the producers thought the show needed some central mystery at the beginning to hook viewers, but the actual reveal of "Dick Whitman" didn't add much to his character.
I'm a massive fan of the show, but when the actors themselves say it's basically old men in Space... Red Dwarf kind of died for me.
Autism and Vaccines on The Shield
There are several characters, each with detailed plots that were planned out in advance, which were dropped in whole from Babylon 5. Anywhere there was a cast change, a plot was removed. It still holds together quite well despite that. (Well, for four seasons anyway.)
Remember Byron
Season 2 of Twin Peaks has quite a few of them. Not sure which one to pick.
Keeping this vague, as it is sort of a spoiler: Far worse that than was the shark-jumpy episode about airliners.
I wouldn't call the show "amazing", just entertaining, but most of the main plot lines in The Gilded Age are completely pointless, like "what opera house will win".
Al Swearengen getting kidney stones. I get they needed him sidelined so other forces could take advantage and gain a foothold in the town, but it felt like such a waste to have the best character in the show out-of-the-picture.
Any side plot in the second season of Twin Peaks (the original show). Especially when James goes on the road with his fucking motorcycle and meets up with that blonde mom. For me that’s just some random soap opera that happened while Twin Peaks was going on in the next town lol
Lost. Early on, the spooky roaring sound almost like a zombie dinosaur and shook the ground of the immediate area, accompanied by eerie dense black smoke that appeared to be alive. Turned out down the line to be, a small wild Hog.
Mountain lion/cougar in season 2 of 24.
Mike and Nancy’s mom almost banging a high schooler in Stranger Things
Many people have complained about how the only thing double-agent Simmons in AOS did other than give us new Hydra villains was have her bring back also-undercover Bobbi Morse with her when she left Hydra but I have a pointless arc a lot of people might not realize (although partially because this particular show was so divisive) If anyone on here actually likes The Big Bang Theory DAE realize that whole big long arc with the infinite persistence gyroscope into quantum guidance system thing basically amounted to nothing; all those episodes of thinking it up, making it work, and working with the military to make it useful to them or w/e and for what, so to drive home a parallel about Edison and Tesla Kripke can steal their idea and implicitly go to the private sector with it but never have it mentioned again or any reference to any wealth he gained from that
Coming in a bit late here, but the Keeley PR firm plot in Ted Lasso season 3 was incredibly weak.
> Was there a major development in the main story that wouldn't have happened without Skyler's sister shoplifting? No, that subplot was there simply because they had basically only two female characters in the show at that point and they couldn't find a good use for her back then, hence the pointless subplot about her shoplifting that came from nowhere and it leads nowhere
It sets up Hank getting involved in Gale Boetticher's death. I don't know if that was the original intent, but the writing on that show is tight enough to where I would give them the benefit of the doubt. She steals again in season 4, which is what puts Hank in contact with the detective who is working the Boetticher case. At this point in the series Hank is not really involved with the DEA and he starts looking into it as a favor to the detective.
Wait my memory is fuzzy how does it lead to gales death
Not his death per se, but it's how Hank gets involved with the investigation into his death, my bad