I guess it’s a case of “too big to fail”, although I agree that it has been very mediocre so far.

Definitely not, the only discussion I’ve really seen about the second season has been negative.

There’s a very detailed American politics podcast here in Australia called PEP that covered the conspiracy theories in their most recent episode. I thought you might be interested in watching. The main section starts from here (I’ve timestamped the link for you), but there’s also some earlier discussion about conspiracy theories as well as just the incident in general that also might be of interest/useful context.

It’s extremely unique, so I agree. I certainly don’t regret watching it, but it is perhaps the most painful cancellation for me. Shows like that deserve to be funded to completion.

I’m worried it’ll be too influenced by what feels like unfair criticism.

Hopefully not! Like you, I have been loving this show and its deep focus on the two female leads. It’s crazy to me that people think Game of Thrones had better writing. Like maybe right at the beginning, but it was deteriorating the whole way through and basically went into freefall for the last few seasons. This one seems like it will be a more consistent journey and its narrower focus massively helps with that.

All we can be sure of is that Americans eat shit.

If you like it and have time, check out Mike Flanagan’s other stuff. He has done all his series through Netflix AFAIK.

FYI some of these were cancelled early like The OA and Altered Carbon. From memory, Altered Carbon had a pretty open ending to both seasons so you could watch the first or both and feel satisfied, but The OA was very much unfinished and the cancellation was painful for fans.

The thing I keep wondering is can people not get on with so many multi faceted strong female leads? But then everyone loved Daenerys for some reason, so it can’t be that

However, she was also made an object of sexual desire, both within the show and in the surrounding pop culture, from the very beginning. She went full nude very early on, as opposed to the female leads of House of the Dragon whose sexualisation has been a lot more subtle. Daenerys was also straight and played by a cisgendered woman, as opposed to Rhaenyra who is bisexual and played by a non-binary person.

I don’t think all criticism of the show is unfair or bigoted, but the reception has definitely been somewhat influenced by right-wing grifter “reviewer” channels who try to create pile-ons for shows that exhibit feminist and/or non-conservative social themes.

A sad consequence of them retreating to spaces like Lemmy and Bluesky and cocooning themselves from any dissenting opinion.

Destabilising the US from within creates domestic pressure that affect its ability to lead on the global stage, creating space and opportunity for aspiring superpowers like Russia and China to influence and shape the world. It also undermines the trust of US allies and partners.

Most conspiracy theories have some grain of truth or believable aspect to them, that’s part of the reason why people can latch on to them. Trump has a long history of fabricating stories and feeding them to the media to manipulate his public image. However, even if people think it’s a credible explanation here, they are overlooking how much more credible the simple explanation is.

The actual reason, which no one seems willing to admit, is because it’s an easier narrative to weaponise against Trump and MAGA. “Yes we are really trying to kill your hero but keep failing” is kind of hard to use in an internet flame war, but “you guys know he’s just using this to distract from the Epstein files, right?” is a hook that can work on some Trump supporters, who are often very conspiratorial themselves and quite obsessed with the release of the Epstein stuff. In addition, there’s this sort of cognitive dissonance going on here for many people who believe they are on the side of the moral and just, but also condemn violence (including political violence). They can’t accept that people from “their side” might actually be trying to commit murder, so instead they look for explanations that can flip it back to the black and white narrative of “we are the good guys and they are the bad guys”.

The same thing happened with the Brian Thompson and Charlie Kirk murders. Some people cannot cope with the reality that not everyone on “their side” lines up perfectly with their values, so instead they create and believe in a conspiracy theory that frames them as victims of a right-wing plot to damage their public reputation and imprison their members.

That 3 people in the US, a nation with a long history of extreme gun violence and political assassinations, may have attempted to assassinate the most divisive and dangerous president in the nation’s history during a period of extremely toxic and violent political discourse is actually a very rational and logical explanation for the three attempted shootings. Unless your entire identity is bound to this stuff and you simply can’t accept the above premise, there is really no reason to go looking for alternative conspiracies to explain what is happening.

I’m so glad I have Americans around to lecture me daily on the morality of pop culture whilst they simultaneously accelerate extinction-level events and start new wars that fuck the cost of living for the rest of us.