it's legit been a hot minute since i've read an LO episode from start to finish so I decided to read the new free episode
wow i'm really not missing a dang thing am i, jfc
I've talked about it before how the dialogue in these comics really feels... non-human, but now I'm at a point where I wouldn't even be surprised if I find out the comic was being written by one of those script bots or some AI Chat GPT tool. It's just so stupidly clunky with very little context or build-up to what's being said, the characters feel like they're just talking at each other rather than with each other, if you know what I mean. It's giving Shenmue 3.
But let's have some extra fun with this and go through it panel by panel.
I'm not gonna talk about the Apollo scene, not yet at least. But I DO want to talk about the dialogue exchange between Persephone and the demigods she's chosen to be judges.
First off, we get this cut to Persephone saying "Thank you so much for coming today." But the stuff that follows really feels like these guys have no idea where they are or why. Like, the first thing the guy on the left has to say is "you're a woman", why is he making this observation now if they intentionally made the decision to join her? If he's supposedly sexist on that line alone (which is what a lot of people in the discussion circles assume) why would he even join her on the boat in the first place if he wasn't willing to listen to a woman?
Oh, okay, so they HAVE had this conversation already, great exposition, Rachel! But again, it still makes no sense why he's making this observation out of nowhere if he already knows he's going to be working with her and chose to come along with her on the boat ride. Why is he repeating what he's already said? Why not just have this conversation happen organically instead of doing the whole sitcom "cut to the middle of what's happening and explain it matter-of-factly for the audience to catch up so we don't have to actually show the entire conversation???" bit?
It's such a cliche overused tactic to try and skip informing NPC's of what the audience already knows but that only works if we, the audience, know what's going on. Such a tactic is meant to benefit the AUDIENCE, not the characters. It's a pointless waste of time for everyone involved if they're doing it the other way around where the NPC's know but the audience doesn't and the characters have to re-explain everything they already know for the audience. It's clunky exposition.
And then of course, we get Persephone acting all high and mighty with people who, again, don't even seem to know what the fuck is going on, they don't even seem to be functioning at full brain capacity with how repetitive and pointless their dialogue is (especially the "I'm a son of Zeus" guy but we'll get to him later). If Persephone's thankful for them joining her, why is she being such a bitch? This isn't a power move, she's not being a "boss babe", she's being that bitchy manager that complains about high turnover rates completely oblivious or uncaring to the fact that she's the reason people quit the job in the first place.
"It's listening to the Queen of the Underworld time", bitch you have done NOTHING to earn that title or demand for respect. NO ONE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE. Anyone who DOES know her only knows her as a consort of Hades from that one tabloid pic from ten years ago. So... yeah, literally no one knows her. Even if they saw her in that weird broadcast during the Kronos fight (which, why would they, everyone was asleep as we were told and that news chopper was from OLYMPUS), she has done nothing to organically earn the respect and admiration of the people. As far as anyone's concerned, she's just this weird pink thing rolling into town and the only reason she has power at all is because the King has a flower nymph fetish and wanted a replacement for the girl that "got away" and married his brother.
IDK if this was an attempt at a joke but I feel bad for this guy because he clearly has no idea where he is, why he's here, or why he's going to work for the Underworld when he's a son of Zeus and would maybe prefer a job in Olympus somewhere. Look at him, those aren't the eyes of a man who knows what's going on.
"RAWR, I'm edgy and in control, shut your whore mouth while I'm speaking, peasant!"
She doesn't even look intimidating here, she looks severely constipated.
This is also legit just a copy paste of the Hera/Apollo/Echo scene from S2 which just further drives home how Persephone is an emotional replacement for Hera and a physical replacement for Rhea (while also satisfying that aforementioned flower nymph fetish).
Again, Persephone has done nothing to earn the admiration or respect of her people (unlike, y'know, Hera) and it's bullshit that she pretended to be all thankful at the beginning of this only to then treat them like shit as soon as she was able. Like, again, she seems to have just kidnapped these guys and they undoubtedly have questions and instead she's steamrolling all over them for zero reason beyond stroking her ego. If she's so bothered by the first guy being a sexist, why is she hiring him in the first place???
girl he's literally trying to escape from your bullshit, why are you treating him like a toddler or a hamster who can't control himself
it's painfully clear now these guys absolutely did not sign up for ANY of this and even if they DID sign up to be judges for Hades, they clearly were NOT aware it would include being berated and snipped at by his moody toddler of a wife, she's the ONLY one here who has zero self control or qualifications. push her in the river, please. put her in the hamster cage.
so yeah, it's not "thank you for coming with me today", it's "thank you for shutting up and being good little hostages so mommy can play pretend ruler, if you even THINK of ignoring me i'll have my daddy Mads Mikkelson- I mean, Hades chop your balls off, teehee!"
seriously can SOMEONE please push her in the river, she's got like 50 pounds of hair, she has zero chance /hj
"i found a way for my husband to do even less work than he already does, like a good little billionaire!"
ms. brian griffin, no one knows what elysium is
we, the audience, haven't even seen elysium
no one knows what you're talking about and no one has anything to thank you for because so far you've spent the majority of your time in the underworld since the time skip dicking around and acting like a Karen
literally sit down and eat your oatmeal
we don't even know what 'nu-tartarus' is, who wants to bet rachel watched sci-fi the week she made this with the 'nu' spelling, jfc
what did she do to warrant the 'nu'
in fact, is tartarus even accessible right now??? what happened to Kronos locking himself up in there and refusing to let anyone in??? Did they seriously dig a hole in the ground and call it "Nu-Tartarus"? Fuck off.
Hermes, pal, you're seeing this shit, right? How can you sit there and watch her act like this??? This ain't the girl you used to make out with in the mountains.
"My husband serves in the military, you know! You'll regret not giving me that 2% discount!"
for those of you in the audience who don't know this, this is what we call panel filler. i.e. pointless repetitive panels that RS uses to fill her panel quota each week. LO always has at least 2-3 of these per episode. Go ahead, fact check it yourself, I'll wait.
Diva Plavalaguna wore it better, honey.
(also why do her ARMS look the same as her hair, they look like sausage casings 😭)
Such a weird cut though, from her making that "lol can you believe the things I put up with ????" face to her just WALKING AWAY FROM THE MEN WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHY THEY'RE EVEN HERE.
what- um, why are we cutting to this? I get that it's RS still trying to exposit instead of write organically but Hermes literally didn't ask and he should probably already be aware of what's going on if he's ON THE BOAT WITH HER. Also why are you explaining to him what a demi-god is? Again, it's Rachel trying to do the "and that's my plan" shtick not understanding that only works for OTHER CHARACTERS who aren't "in on it", NOT THE AUDIENCE. When you try to have your characters explain things JUST for the sake of the audience, it makes them all look stupid and it wastes the audience's time.
Like, never mind the fact that Hermes himself is technically a demi-god in LO as his mother is a non-god.
This would have worked better if she was explaining who these men were specifically, like the fact that they were Kings when they were alive, or why she chose them, but no, she just starts it and leaves it at "well they're related to Zeus, so they're demi-gods" with zero lead-up or context as to why she's explaining this to Hermes of all people in the first place.
WAIT OKAY. SO I WAS RIGHT, THEY LITERALLY AREN'T FUNCTIONING AT FULL AUTONOMY. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE REPEATING THINGS OR NOT SAYING THINGS THAT ARE RELEVANT OR ASKING QUESTIONS.
PERSEPHONE LITERALLY TOOK THESE SHADES WHO HAVE NO ABILITY TO CONSENT OR UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON
AND IS FORCING THEM TO WORK FOR HER HUSBAND, THE SLAVE DRIVER.
PERSEPHONE HAS BECOME A SLAVE DRIVER.
"THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING WITH ME TODAY" ????
"THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEING GOOD LITTLE SLAVES. YOU WORK FOR ME AND MY HUSBAND NOW. WE'LL GIVE YOU BACK ENOUGH OF YOUR AUTONOMY TO MAKE YOU GOOD FOR WORKING BUT YOU WILL NEVER HAVE FREE WILL."
THIS IS LITERALLY THE PLOT OF HADESTOWN BUT IT WANTS US TO CHEER FOR HADES' POINT OF VIEW IN THE END.
Also, "Hades is going to restore some of their humanity"??? Guys, do you realize the implications of this?
If this is something he's always been able to do, that means he's always had the ability to grant the shades working for him autonomy and will, but chose not to.
Give them enough sentience and autonomy to work, but not enough to question why they're working for the system in the first place.
Great job Persephone, this is soooo much better than what Hades was doing before. You've made life so much better for the dead.
Fucking hell. I started this essay with the intent of talking about the weird clunky dialogue exchanges and as I sat on it and wrote on it longer and longer it just got so much WORSE and turned into discussing Persephone's lack of morals and how she's become the very thing she always claimed she stood against.
I say "great job Persephone" but we also have to give credit where credit is due - great job Rachel, this is soooo much better than just ending the series in the first two seasons or actually resolving the plot threads you started in Season 1. You've made your comic so much better to please the stans and spite the haters.
Christ. I'm not even done talking about everything I wanted to talk about regarding this episode but I figured I should cut it off here to at least keep it all on theme. I do wanna talk about that Apollo scene and the Hermes/Persephone conversation but I'll probably do that in separate posts.
Despite how fired up I got, I am glad about one thing - I really am not missing anything. I have lost nothing from unsubscribing from LO and uninstalling the WT app. And frankly, neither will you if you've been contemplating on promoting yourself to a non-reader. There is zero FOMO here. I get just as much if not more entertainment from just following along with the hilarious conversations in the Discord and subreddit each week, because at LEAST those are fun and don't make me feel dead inside like LO does. LO isn't entertaining, it's hardly even so-bad-that-it's-entertaining at this point, maybe it still is for you, but I'm assuring you right now for those of you "hanging on", it's not going to magically "get better", even the episodes that some people CLAIM are better really aren't because of how low the bar is nowadays. I am giving you full permission to free yourself of these shackles if you've been looking for a way out. Take this as your metaphorical key.
The LO we all fell in love with is long, long gone.
