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A Series of Unfortunate Events Season Two



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Points: 15020
Reviews: 260
Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:42 am
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TriSARAHtops says...



So... I just finished watching the second season of A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix and I have some THOUGHTS, and would like to know yours, if you've seen the episodes.

I will be discussing spoilers, but I'll enspoiler them, so open the spoilers at your own risk.

This is also going to be a pretty long-winded post.

General non-spoiler-y thoughts
For me, there's something really, genuinely special about seeing these books brought to life, with all the characters and places that I read about (many, many times, in the case of the first seven or so books) when I was growing up (THE LAST BOOK CAME OUT OVER TEN YEARS AGO I FEEL OLD HELP). There's a few things I could quibble about, sure, but just SEEING all these characters and locations and everything that happens to the Baudelaires is really cool and I felt like a nine-year-old kid reading and falling in love with these books for the first time all over again. ASoUE was the first series of books I really obsessed over, and at the start of each new episode I was excited to see how they'd interpreted the new guardians/locations, etc that I was so familiar with.

I think the second half (The Vile Village onwards) of this season was stronger than the first, although I think that my opinion of that might be coloured by the fact that The Ersatz Elevator was the first book in the series I read (yep, I started with book six) so it has a very special place in my heart so I wasn't happy with some of the changes they made in that one - which I feel was the most different to the book out of all the episodes (maybe?). For the first few episodes of this season I felt like the new characters (ie the ones not in the books) were playing too prominent a role, rather than just adding to the backstory like in the first season, but from The Vile Village onwards I think the balance was better. I've been cool with a lot of the changes they've made, but I also think the show is strongest when it doesn't diverge too far from the source materiel - which in the Ersatz Elevator episodes I felt like it did.

I remember getting really confused when I was originally reading these books at around book eight and so far everything seems to be making a lot more sense than it did when I first read the series. Which could be because I'm quite a bit older, but I think the series has introduced all the mysteries really well.

I've been really impressed with the casting and portrayal of pretty much all the characters. I do still feel like Neil Patrick Harris isn't as strong a Count Olaf as Jim Carrey was, and I generally prefer him as Olaf-in-disguise than as just Olaf, but he's growing on me. All the other characters I felt were soooo well cast for their roles, even if they weren't quite how I'd expected them. Esme Squalor in particular is spot on.

So glad that we see more of the henchpeople in the show.

I know the books got pretty grim, but this season gets dark. There were some seriously creepy scenes in the last four eps. Heimlich Hospital gets pretty scary.

Spoiler-y thoughts
Spoiler! :
KLAUS' BIRTHDAY. I remember this scene from the book really well and how sad it was and this scene broke my heart.

I was not a fan of the addition of Olivia at first (well, technically until The Carnivorous Carnival, so for most of the series) and didn't really get what the point of her character was. BUT I think the payoff was so worth it. I know having her as Madame Lulu was a divergence from the books but I think it worked. And her death by lion, gah.

On a similar note, I have mixed feelings about the VFD characters. I think Larry Your-Waiter is a great character, and I really liked Jacqueline in the first season, but I felt like they played too prominent a role at several points in this season.

The Jacques Snicket tape where he says there may be one survivor of the fire... so well done. I knew that it was coming but ack it was good. I cried a little bit.

"It feels like we've been waiting here for months... Sunny's looking more like a toddler than a baby" so good

Was not a fan of the weird balloon invention in The Ersatz Elevator. I don't understand why they changed it from the tie/powercord rope? I know the show (and the books) are always a little bit ridiculous but that felt a bit too ridiculous, and then when they were in the net Sunny just went and got a rope? Like if there was a rope why didn't they just use that in the first place? Some of the changes made sense but this one (even though it was a smaller one) irritated me.

All the Duncan and Isadora bits were very sweet, although I do wish we'd gotten to learn more about them, like seeing more of Isadora's couplets and Duncan's book, since they're so integral to them as characters, and also to the plot. Words cannot express how EXCITED I am for Quigley Quagmire and they haven't even confirmed a thrid season (TOUCH WOOD)

That's all I can think of


So in general, I was pretty impressed with this season. For those who've seen it, what did you think? Do you agree with any of the points above? Anything stand out for you?
if we wait until we're ready
we'll be waiting
for the rest of our lives
  





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Gender: Female
Points: 7
Reviews: 4
Thu May 24, 2018 5:33 am
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DauntlessDagger says...



They made Olaf and his henchmen (or women, no, people) much better characters and lot nicer too (I love the hook handed man's relationship with sunny) In the end, you feel like Esme is the only truly evil one. I think they made her a lot creepier then in the books
Dauntless Dagger
  








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