So before I get into some detail, I will say one of my top rules/requirements for a show like this to be likable:
Rule: There must at least one character who is the "rock"--the moral center, the grownup, the one person who you root for and who will redeem some of the bad that may come about. Someone you like or identify with--even if they may be flawed, as we all are, but at least the person has a moral compass...
---SPOILER ALERT--- So Rule #1 above is failed off the bat. There is no "rock" in this show, no moral compass, they are all dirtbags! I don't like anyone in this family and they should all go to jail and the show should end. Maybe the daughter or son of Chandler's character are good people--but they have so little screen time they really don't count. So, considering all the main characters, while some of them do start out likable and morally grounded, we find out that no--they all have done and continue to do horrible things! Not just minor flaw type things, I'm talking fratricide, bribery, corruption, drug dealing, etc, etc. So who's the grownup, and why am I watching a show about what is really a family of complete criminal dirtbags who don't even attempt to "do the right thing"?
Contrast to a show like Shameless, where yes, it's all trashy people, but at least there's some sense of family bond and attempts to do the right thing. Here though, screw family, screw the "right thing". Anything goes.
The first few episodes sort of hooked me because yes, it was intriguing, and I thought I saw morality in a few of the characters, but then I got the sense that the writers didn't even have a long-term plan and they were making stuff up as they went. They just added family secrets and past misdeeds and injected them into the plot which *always* creates huge plot holes. I can see at the writers meetings, they probably went something like: "Screw it, let's have character A have done something in their past that's evil but completely leaves massive holes in the plot." Ok, write it into the next episode!
It just became a senseless mess of tangled plotlines that (as one character said, ironically) "just doesn't add up".
Rule: There must at least one character who is the "rock"--the moral center, the grownup, the one person who you root for and who will redeem some of the bad that may come about. Someone you like or identify with--even if they may be flawed, as we all are, but at least the person has a moral compass...
---SPOILER ALERT--- So Rule #1 above is failed off the bat. There is no "rock" in this show, no moral compass, they are all dirtbags! I don't like anyone in this family and they should all go to jail and the show should end. Maybe the daughter or son of Chandler's character are good people--but they have so little screen time they really don't count. So, considering all the main characters, while some of them do start out likable and morally grounded, we find out that no--they all have done and continue to do horrible things! Not just minor flaw type things, I'm talking fratricide, bribery, corruption, drug dealing, etc, etc. So who's the grownup, and why am I watching a show about what is really a family of complete criminal dirtbags who don't even attempt to "do the right thing"?
Contrast to a show like Shameless, where yes, it's all trashy people, but at least there's some sense of family bond and attempts to do the right thing. Here though, screw family, screw the "right thing". Anything goes.
The first few episodes sort of hooked me because yes, it was intriguing, and I thought I saw morality in a few of the characters, but then I got the sense that the writers didn't even have a long-term plan and they were making stuff up as they went. They just added family secrets and past misdeeds and injected them into the plot which *always* creates huge plot holes. I can see at the writers meetings, they probably went something like: "Screw it, let's have character A have done something in their past that's evil but completely leaves massive holes in the plot." Ok, write it into the next episode!
It just became a senseless mess of tangled plotlines that (as one character said, ironically) "just doesn't add up".
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