Random rant about things in The Music Freaks that genuinely make my blood boil
1. The Background Characters.
Look. I’m not expecting them to be fully fleshed out or anything but THEY ALL MAKE ME MAD. Like 99% of the time they just blindly go along with what Jake says (yes I know he’s popular but I wasn’t expecting the ENTIRE SCHOOL to bend to his command or something) and when they aren’t doing that, they’re FLIMSY ASS LOSERS (going from supporting the club to making fun of them??? the switch up is WILD).
2. HOW ARE THE CLUB MEMBERS STILL FRIENDS??
We do see them interacting with each other, but half of it is either taking jabs at each other (which I’m ngl friends do that so I’m not saying they have to be all happy go lucky all the time) or just…fighting with each other.
We’re told they’re a family but I don’t REALLY see that, like at all. They’re barely there for each other when it counts.
The closest we get of that is in episode 5 where Sean and the club encourage Zander to talk to Luke(and that goes to shit anyway because of a character we’ve up until this point never seen before and never really see again afterwards). It’s kinda seen they all care about Hailey as seen in episode 9, but most of their positive interactions are just dumbed down to flashbacks or montage moments in GCMVs and it just bothers me.
Milly and Hailey are some of the worst offenders in this regard. Luke would be a close second, but we don’t even know anything about him.
Most interactions with these two is just Hailey going “Milly, don’t do this thing/how many times have I told you not to do this thing”, with Milly responding with something along the lines of “You’re not the boss of me!!” or whatever.
This applies to basically almost every character who isn’t Jake(which only continues to piss me off beyond belief)
The ONLY time Hailey and Milly have actually talked and attempted to comfort each other is in episode 3(and even that goes to shit because we need Jake to solve everyone’s problems)
From what I can tell, not a single character has heard of the concept of basic communication. Look, I know they’re teenagers so obviously they won’t be perfect(teenagers are well known for doing dumb things), but considering how TERRIBLE they are at talking to each other, HOW ARE THEY FRIENDS?!
I don’t hate this episode because it’s filler or anything, my issue with it is that an episode that’s meant for Sean is just shoved aside because…Jake??
These moments make me wonder if this series was supposed to be called The Music Freak, because for a show called The Music Freaks, the other titular freaks really took a backseat to Jake’s development.
This episode centered Sean’s conflict—he lost his laptop, and he’s worried about the consequences that he will face. But ig we don’t care about that because Jake pinned Hailey to a wall and Jake is avoiding his friends and the problem is solved because Jake offered to solve it. (Like good on Jake for being generous but would it kill you to have these characters solve their own problems??)
Also the build up to Take Me Away feels near anticlimactic in hindsight because they don’t even end up using the song(like what was the point then??)
Sean discusses his parents arguing but never even CONSIDERS confiding in the club about this. If this doesn’t lead to a revelation that Sean was suppressing his feelings to seem like a helpful older figure and avoid being like his parents then I don’t know what to say.
This also ties back into the “damn near every single character completely fails at communicating but somehow faces minimal consequences for it” thing.
4. Milly is consistently getting sidelined and it bothers me beyond belief
My biggest point of contention is the fact that Rosy keeps torturing her characters for what feels like no reason.
Some characters use it to explain their actions and it does actually go somewhere (Hailey’s stage fright, Jake’s past) but as for Milly’s past with being bullied, why does that go nowhere?
Like I honestly think it’s beyond just “I hate Zoey grr”.
Redemption even reinforces this, as the people Milly beat up aren’t just Zoey clones, but other people.
Which kinda hints that Milly’s actual problems go beyond just hating Zoey and are actually are about a bigger problem with a majority of the girls at the school(plus how she’s often cast aside and vilified for defending herself).
The implications are very much interesting and many people can relate to that, but it just goes…nowhere???
Like they kinda sorta bring it back in the spinoff but it ends up taking a backseat to Elliot’s problems.
However, her not being big in the spinoff is something don’t necessarily have an issue with since the spinoff is about Elliot and the gardening club specifically, but the main series has no excuse because MILLY IS LITERALLY ONE OF THE TITULAR MUSIC FREAKS.
WHY IS SHE(and most of the other club members by extension) FORCED TO TAKE A BACKSEAT TO WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A GLORIFIED TROY BOLTON????
(Also why tf did nobody in the club EXCEPT Hailey—and Jake to an extent—gaf about Milly other than seeing her as a liability??)
I really hope season 2 fixes this and gives Milly her own episode (AND GIVE HER SOME DAMN AGENCY INSTEAD OF FORCING JAKE OR LUKE TO SAVE HER)
5. I NEED AN EPISODE WITHOUT JAKE IN IT.
Not every character needs to be in every episode. This applies to the Jomies(especially Drew), but it absolutely NEEDS to start applying to Jake. There are 5 other protagonists of this series, HE DOESN’T NEED TO BE THE CENTER OF ATTENTION ALL THE DAMN TIME.
He doesn’t need to swoop in and solve everything and the fact that him doing that robs most of the other titular music freaks of agency makes me genuinely mad.
I need him to walk into a situation that he can’t just solve in 2 episodes. Also one he didn’t cause himself
Like say Zander gets himself hurt or sick which knocks him out of commission.
Jake can’t play piano, Milly and Luke obviously can’t play piano, Sean kinda can but he’s the music producer so he still needs to play his role.
Daisy’s too busy and Lia is DOING HER OWN THING
Which would then prompt HAILEY to act (since Sean DELIBERATELY STATED she can do anything when it comes to music).
And it hits harder because Hailey is his stepsister.
Granted I don’t see this ever happening in an episode but it’s a scenario where Jake can’t just solve people’s problems
I’m feeling exhausted and frankly I don’t think I’m even remotely making sense anymore so imma just call it here
