Hii, I've seen you answer the asks about odaat. The supermoon was great and it really felt like odaat again, up until a point. It's been bugging me and I have to get this off my chest. Don't you think they are regressing Schneider so much, to the point that he feels like s1 Schneider again? He doesn't feel like the part of the family anymore and it sometimes even looks like Pen is shutting him out deliberately? Like the last scene of the ep when he tried to say sth about Berto, who he def knew!
i completely agree about this!! it felt a little bit that way in the first episode, but i figured they only had so much time for reintroductions and reducing him to their overly-involved neighbor was forgivable since he is that, though he’s not just that anymore.
but by supermoon there’s really no way to justify it, especially that moment, which pissed me off--and i’m very mild mannered! despite what my opinionated blog posts might lead you to believe. :)
schneider absolutely knew berto; we saw them meet. he managed the building for some of the time that berto and lydia lived there, if only sporadically. but what’s more important to me is that even if schneider and berto never bonded...even if berto always thought schneider was an annoying hipster white guy and penelope therefore didn’t want him including himself in their goodbyes...
schneider DID know lydia. schneider was close with lydia long before penelope would eventually be his best friend. so he was close with lydia when she lost berto, and she was like a mother to him, and of course he would want to honor that by honoring her dead husband!!
they’ve regressed dr. b back to a man who isn’t sure what his relationship is with lydia, they’ve regressed schneider back to a sober guy with an extended cuban family who tolerates him being around, and so far the penelope/max and syd/elena relationships could just as easily be happening in s2. if it wasn’t for a pregnant avery and alex’s new girlfriend, it would be hard to prove this is s4 at all.
i don’t know if maybe what they’ve been aiming for all along is a way to reboot the show back to what made people love it starting from the pilot...like a do-over, but with established romances to play with this time.
if that’s the goal though, they’re failing, because what made the show so lovable was all the character/story evolution that happened in the first three seasons, and they can’t ignore that without losing the magic too.
sober schneider playing happy family with avery has no depth if you ignore how hard it was for him to get sober again, how toxic his past relationships were because he didn’t think love was real, how badly his blood family treated him, and the fact that he and avery broke up once before trying again. he had good reasons for shoving his way into penelope’s family and saying ‘you’re all mine now’ and being grateful when they loved him back. those reasons should affect what’s happening now! i don’t get setting all that aside.