Look, I'm not annoyed that Stella freezes up in crisis situations. I'm annoyed that Stella puts herself and others into those situations, even when there's a possible mountain lion roaming around sick, possibly rabid and attacking people. Told from the mouth of an actual person-- TWO actual people who saw it with their own eyes.
She treats people like garbage. She waves off everything they say as if they're all stupid and have nothing important to say. (Not even mentioning how she treated Duke in her video where she apparently made him look like a paranoid yokel.)
She then freezes up in the middle of the danger that she dragged them into. That is what annoys me.
She's flawed, flaws are good in characters. But that doesn't mean I have to like her character just because flaws are good. I can handle Kaneeka's flaws and Reese's flaws and hell, even Dr. Kelly's flaws because they're all well-meaning in their own way. (Dr. Kelly is wrong, but like, she said he started having episodes when he hit puberty. Violent episodes. Can you imagine your kid turning into a monster and attacking you out of nowhere because of a mood swing??? She handled it VERY wrong but at least I can see the logic and progression of events there. And she's drinking the tea so we don't even know if Sybil 'convinced' her it would be for the best or not.) Stella is the only one actively putting other people in danger because she won't go to therapy and KNOWS that's why she's doing it and still continues anyway. (Some people are arguing there are no therapists in the Holler so I thought I'd put an edited note here. They have phones and the internet and a lot of psychiatrists and therapists do telehealth appointments. She has no excuse for not seeking therapy if that's the only barrier.) Kaneeka never waves off what you say except at the beginning when she's just being a rational person like 'what you saw was probably not magic and something else' but she never denies it was SOMETHING dangerous. She just diminishes it because it frightens her and she's absolutely certain magic isn't real so then what is it? But as soon as she has evidence or eyewitness accounts, she's like damn something is out there, even if she doesn't think it's magic. Reese is hard to convince not to kill dr. kelly because he feels ACTIVELY IN DANGER and is living a hellish life he wants to escape, not because he's inconsiderate or is taking undue risks. He might be running on pure adrenaline, but he's also only feeling that afraid because his mother is POISONING him. So, reasonable. Avery is a delight and has done nothing wrong ever in their life, as far as I can tell. They're a bit... bad at picking people to be friends with but that's about it. And I wouldn't even say Julius was doing anything wrong until people started trying to steal shit from him. Bo was literally there to steal back something that wasn't theirs, right? Or did he plant the baby into the pumpkin that was already growing because I think he said it was a seed? Stella is the only person in the cast who I cannot understand to some extent because she is not being considerate of other people at all, 0%. She doesn't worry for you and Duke when you say there's a mountain lion that attacked you. She doesn't worry for Gretchen despite being so 'attached' to her, she doesn't worry about shit. And that's what REALLY gets me. She puts an elderly pug in REGULAR danger to get her thrills and chills.
This doesn't include Sybil who can choke and die. She is just someone who must be defeated. So she doesn't count as 'cast member' to me, she's 'antagonist' The kids are dumb kids, they are gonna act dumb. Oscar is sweet and while he can sometimes be overprotective or go insane and forget his daughter exists, that's mostly because he's living inside of a Hellmouth.
