#being dramatic with the caption sorry 😂 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

missshezz · 3 years

Text

Okay, so I want to make a post about something bugging me three episodes into season two of Prodigal Son: consistency.

In writing, consistency means essentially keeping all the details consistent throughout the story. You have to write with a consistent vision. You have to erase anything that potentially can distract a viewer/reader. You have to remember the dumbest of details.

I’m sure we’ve all read a book where a name was misspelled by accident. That happens, it’s an annoyance, but we move on. Have you read stories where characters completely changed names or appearances halfway through the story? Lot more annoying because it’s no longer consistent with the first half of the book.

Prodigal Son right now is engaging in what I call “writers remorse.” They’re changing Malcolm’s characterization to fit their sudden idea of who his character needs to be this season and completely ignoring the areas where they established these parts of him in the first season. Example:

His tremor. In the current episode, Malcolm tells Dani:

Ignoring the piss-poor caption job here... 😂

We have a flashback from season 1 where we clearly see young Malcolm with that tremor:

youtube

That’s not years, it is weeks. Maybe months. Can we say he maybe didn’t recognize his tremors until he was older? Yes. However, the narrative implies differently. They’re saying years. It’s inconsistent characterization.

And no, Malcolm being an unreliable narrator doesn’t justify it.

Second point of inconsistency. All season 1, Malcolm is haunted by his fear of the girl in the box and what he might have done to her. He’s upset by his recalling he stabbed John Watkins in an act of self-defense. His stabbing of his father (contrived by Martin as a way to manipulate and control Malcolm as to help catch the Carousel Killer) torments him to the point he and Dani have a falling out over it.

But we get this (sorry, no video of this scene on YouTube for me to grab so I am linking to a blog with gifs):

So, Malcolm essentially plans out an entire act of revenge on a kid who bullied him at boarding school that almost kills the kid and is totally fine with it?

I don’t think so.

Inconsistent characterization.

If he was okay with essentially pushing a kid into an asthma attack and giving them their “empty” inhaler (okay, he “saved” him in the end but still), he’d have had no problem in shooting Endicott. He was justified in shooting Endicott. The man had a hand in his “girlfriend’s” (less girlfriend, more user, sorry) murder, in his father nearly being killed/sent to Rikers, his being framed for murder, murdering his lawyer, having Gil stabbed, and essentially assaulting his sister (to the point she snapped and killed him).

Yeah, Malcolm okay with almost murdering a bullying classmate is not tracking well here, and no, unreliable narrator doesn’t cover it. This is writer remorse. They had places they wanted to take Malcolm in season 1, reversed on them at some point, and are now trying to shoehorn those things in now as character development. It’s inconsistent. Can they still pull this together in the remaining ten episodes? Sure... but I’m not optimistic given the choices they have made so far.

Especially since the laziest writing of all was perpetrated in episode one by them having Malcolm chop up and dispose of Endicott. That is called jumping the shark. All suspensions of belief were basically ignored as they went with the safest and most predictable angle they could to explain the end of season 1 without having to revisit the missing elements from season 1 (thanks to the Whu Whu bug). Does it add drama? Sure. Is it good drama? Not really. I can think of a number of ways they could have gone with this that were as dramatic and built a story they could have worked into season 2.5 or 3 (depending on what happens in the next few months).

Let’s be blunt here: show runners had a mess on their hands because of the Whu Whu bug, restrictions on filming, and a reduced number of episodes to tell a story in. They just have made some fundamental errors that toss me, as a viewer, out of the story. Do I still love the show? Absolutely. The ironic thing is that one can love a fandom and still critique it. Critiquing the show also doesn’t make me less of a fan (as some will claim). Being a fan means loving something for what it is and accepting it as it is. I accept that PSon is a bit messy at this moment. I’m still here for the ride. I’m still invested in the characters and their stories. I just have issues with the choices made.

#prodigal son #malcolm bright #tom payne #mini-rant #inconsistent characterization #consistency issues #writers are hard asses #prodigal son season two #Youtube

44 notes · View notes