Queerness visibility debate aside, one of the things I'm finding frustrating about the sequel is that while there are some great character moments, there are also so many inconsistencies and weird omissions in the film that could mean something, or could just be bad writing/editing, that it's really hard to work out which - if any - of those actually mean something and what's just us putting more thought into it than anyone involved in the writing/editing decisions did.
Take the opening heist. On first watch, this was one of my favourite parts and I do still think it's a lot of fun with some good character details, but on reflection the concept doesn't really add up with what we saw in the original.
In the first film, Andy's so concerned about staying off the public radar that she goes out of her way to delete a holiday snap that she appeared in the background of off someone's phone, and they all seem to take the weight of killing people seriously. Here, they're apparently fine with doing an extremely unsubtle shoot-'em-up car chase through a populated area, not as an unavoidable escape tactic but as a planned strategy. Is this supposed to mean the characters now don't care about visibility or collateral damage to bystanders (sure, maybe Copley could scrub the CCTV later, but that wouldn't do much good if they'd hit a bus full of random people on that road), or did the writers just want a cool car chase and not bother to consider the implications? I assume it's the latter.
In the first film, Nile insists on going in to Merrick's alone rather than let mortal Copley come with her, and once they find out Andy's mortal, they're all shown to be shielding her as much as possible. Here, they're all - Nile included! - apparently fine with a plan that involves the two mortals going into a firefight alone, without kevlar or anything (sure, they snark about Copley undercounting the guards, but there's nothing to suggest that they weren't expecting anyone to be shooting back), while immortal Nile's seemingly just expected to be the get-away driver. Is this supposed to mean the characters have become overly cocky and/or simply stopped giving a fuck about protecting the mortals, or did the writers just want to do a cool fight scene and give Copley some action and not think about anything else? Again, I assume it's the latter.
Now this is pretty standard action movie stuff, but it's disappointing when the first one didn't go the standard action movie route on these things, and it wouldn't have been that hard to do the cool stuff in a way that made more sense - before I saw the film, I was expecting that both the car chase and Andy & Copley fighting in the mansion with no protective gear would be the result of things not going according to plan, rather than that being the plan.
And it just keeps going from there. Are any of the many, many ways the whole 'last immortal' business doesn't make sense supposed to be a hint that some or all of what we've been told about it isn't actually true, or is it just bad writing? Is the fact that Tuah only tells Booker about the immortality transfer thing - not Andy, the only one of them he seemingly has any relationship with, not Nile, the person it's actually ABOUT - supposed to be a hint that he's secretly in league with Discord and/or has some other agenda of his own, or is it just bad writing? I genuinely have no idea.
When Booker re-joins the group, do we see nothing even resembling an apology or contrition from him because he's actively supposed to be even more of an asshole now, or did the writers just forget that he did actually somewhat recognize how badly he'd fucked up at the end of the first one? Is his whole generally weird vibe supposed to hint that he has something more going on that we don't know about yet, or is it just clunky writing? Again, no idea.
Discord tells Quynh "I pulled you from the ocean because I needed you by my side" - it's not "I saved you when Andy couldn't", it's "I saved you because I wanted something from you". And Quynh doesn't really react to that. Does she not notice the implication that Discord would've left her there if she didn't need her? Does she not care because she didn't expect anything from anyone other than Andy? Does she not care because she never really with Discord as such anyway, just using her resources while it was convenient? Or does she not react because it didn't occur to the writers that there was anything in that statement to react to? No idea.
We see Joe and Nicky still fighting when Andy comes in with Tuah, and then we don't see them interact again until the cliffs of Moher scene, which is a lovely scene in its own right, but doesn't really acknowledge the earlier fight. Are we supposed to assume they did make up to some extent at some point in between, but either it was cut or never written in the first place because it wasn't considered important? Or are we supposed to assume that they haven't properly made up, that moment was just sort of a time-out because they have bigger more immediate problems and they still need to figure things out between them later? Or that that was the extent of them making up, they weren't fine before that scene but it's all good after it? I'm assuming it's the first one because it's my preferred interpretation and I feel like it fits best with how Luca and Marwan played it, but who knows.
In the final sequence with Andy and Quynh, Andy doesn't have the necklace at first, and she doesn't have it at the very end either (Quynh is wearing a necklace with seemingly the same sort of cord at the very end but I can't tell for sure if it's the necklace). But there is a shot partway through (just before the blanket bit) of Andy sitting on the steps in a tank-top where she clearly is wearing the necklace (along with another longer pendant that she was also wearing in the port scene and when first meeting Tuah, but I think not again after that). Does this mean Quynh gave it back to her and they didn't bother to show that, despite it being such a focus earlier, and then they forgot at the end? Or Quynh gave it back to Andy and then Andy gave it back to Quynh all off-screen? Or is it just a continuity error, they forgot Andy wasn't supposed to have it at that point when filming that bit and either never noticed or didn't bother to fix it later? It's probably the last one, but again, who knows.
I'm all for some good speculation, but it's frustrating when it seems like the most likely answer to most if not all of the 'what does this mean' questions is just 'it means nothing and that's not a deliberate choice, they just didn't care'. It's not like the first one was perfect in this regard either (why did Andy say "it's been 200 years" like that was a lot when it seems to actually be the shortest interval between new immortals they've had apart from Joe & Nicky's two-for-one special; how was jumping off the train in the middle of nowhere going to help her get to Afghanistan; etc.) but I feel like more of the probably-careless 'wait what' stuff there was easier to write off because it didn't really matter to our understanding of the characters the way these things do.
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