Definitely. And I loved the third season, and like @Dinsdale was super-impressed with how they manage to make even the most loathsome characters have some rounding. Hope’s spiral into depravity was over the top, but it’s one of those things that I can kind of see happening: she so desperately wants to be cool, and then she has her Carrie moment, where she’s humiliated in front of her peers, and she goes full-on vicious vengeful psycho.
And if we’re honest, although in the show the kids are just sex-positive lovable buffoons, in the real world, no school on earth is gonna allow a Wall of Dicks or a porno musical or choir number. In a lot of ways Hope was doing what a good administrator would do, until she brought in the abstinence program and the signs o’ humiliation.
The Maeve/Otis relationship reminded me a bit of the Netflix show Love (with Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust), where you are supposed to be rooting for the dorky boy to get together with the edgy, attractive woman, despite the fact that the woman doesn’t seem to show much interest in the potential relationship and they both keep screwing up.
The assembly w/ the video, Nipple song, and the head teacher wrestling w/ Ruby was enough over-the-top to bother me. Like the Penis and Juliet play last season. And Eric really annoys me more than before. In fact, Eric, Otis, and Maeve are the least interesting characters to me.
But I thought it was really sweet when Adam/Madam were in the dog show. And I loved it when Groff told his brother he was an asshole.
With all of its considerable flaws, I still find it extremely enjoyable.
This might be another casualty of short seasons w/ long breaks between.
Watching the first ep, I’m trying to remember why I previously enjoyed this so much. Besides the fact that the young actors have aged out of their characters, pretty much the entire 1st ep was spent shoehorning all of the old characters into new ridiculously exaggerated scenarios.
A few thoughts: (Apologies that I do not know all of the characters’ names.)
-Was the black gay guy always as extreme and clueless as in this ep? I know he was always quite out there, but this just seemed somewhat over the top.
-Gets old that Otis never gets a clue - that he thinks he will just be welcomed as some sexual savior, and that he owns the concept of sex cnslng.
-The college is just too ridiculous. Even moreso than the EXTREMELY liberal HS.
-I’m really tired of the “I just had a baby so now I’m an idiot” meme.
-The AV malfunction at the end was just about the only humorous bit - but IMO was not suffic to save the ep.
-Doubt I’ll be interested in Maeve’s interactions w/ hot guy at college or Big Bang teacher.
Wow - I never made the connection before that the actors somewhat resemble each other. Maybe it was the glasses… I just knew he was someone I knew from another series, and my brain misfired making the connection. Thanks for the correction.