Tokenized Human on Warpcast

Content pfp

0 reply

0 recast

0 reaction

Tokenized Human pfp

Tokenized Human

@tokenizedhuman

I'm a bit further into the Madness now (squid Game 2 is on hold while I finish this), and although I like it, and think that story has been teased out well, it's way way way too convoluted. Plus I'm not sure they've nailed the tone correctly because there's this undercurrent of humour, which just doesn't seem to work for me, and leads to some scenes that have been put in to support that, or create atmosphere that supports it, that just don't need to be there. Acting is good too. Liking Muncie, and Quiñones, and Stu Magnusson looks familiar but I can't place him.

2 replies

0 recast

3 reactions

Kent Babin pfp

Good point about the tone. Something did feel off, however my conclusion was that it was so that we could endure the madness along with Muncie, along with not knowing who the actual villain was until near the end. It was a solid 6/10 for me.

1 reply

0 recast

1 reaction

Tokenized Human pfp

Tokenized Human

@tokenizedhuman

I think that can be done without some of the weirder scenes being in there like the guy wanking at the ticket machine in the metro station, and then the subsequent short conversation he has with the staff member afterwards - it's a short scene so you may not recall it. That's in there for humour but it's entirely gratuitous. In contrast, there is a scene where Quiñones dips his hotdogs into his coffee, which is also to support the particular tone they are going for, but it's useful where the other scene isn't, because it tells us something about one of the main characters. My main issue so far (I'm at episode 7, I think) is just how convoluted the story is, which wouldn't bother me if they telegraphed it a little bit more earlier on. Not doing so gives the impression they are just making it up as they go along, to pad air time. It's still engaging me, though, because despite the overall story arc being needlessly complicated, I think the dialogue is scripted well, and it's well acted.

3 replies

0 recast

1 reaction

Kent Babin pfp

Re: convoluted plot - it didn't bother me as much, but that's just how my brain works. What I do sense is that trap we fall into where instead of achieving depth, you tack on more stuff to fill the word count or episode length or whatever. Depth is hard. I'm always in awe of writers that can write a whole book about a single day.

1 reply

0 recast

1 reaction

Tokenized Human pfp

Tokenized Human

@tokenizedhuman

Maybe I'm being a little harsh. I like it overall, and agree with your assessment. It just felt a little confusing, and maybe not very believable. Convoluted is fine but you have to be careful not to confuse the audience, and keep things believable. I think they lost me with the Mark Simon teaming up with the youtube journo to expose Revitalize plot thread because that just felt like something convenient to hang the story on. Depth is hard - it's layers really, which also comes from building up characters and their arcs and knowing the story inside out from start to finish. The Wire always did that very well across all of the seasons. And thinking about it now, maybe the madness didn't have enough mini story arcs to justify the season length which may have made it feel a little lacklustre in parts.

1 reply

0 recast

1 reaction

Kent Babin pfp

Great point. All the story arcs were based on Muncie: getting framed, establishing a relationship with his kids, not succumbing to the same fate as is dad (speaking of which, the dad part kind came out of the blue but felt like it should've been given more weight). The only other mini-arc, sort of, was Mark Simon's wife. Even Quinones didn't have one. He was kind of just there and then he wasn't anymore.

1 reply

0 recast

1 reaction