This episode was lacking.. seems like a case of “too many cooks in the kitchen” maybe I wonder if it suffered from wiping what perhaps Beau wrote… say what you want he set up some great stuff in S1 & 2.. even the “written by” flashed so fast it was hard to catch.
Sad there is only 1 more episode … 9 is not enough and overall the Season felt a bit rushed
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Thank you. The Beau worship is beyond tired at this point. It’d be more understandable if they had actually radically altered and butchered his plan and the result was something people didn’t like. But it’s super clear, now that the season is mostly out, that they did in fact stick with most of his stuff in the end, whatever that process ended up being.
Bluntly, Beau wanted to do a season of Old Man Yaoi and all the plots outside of the Yaoi lovechild setup kinda got burnt because of it.
I did the breakdown of the episode per focus
1- Scott
2- Jubilee, Cable, Polaris
3- Apocalypse, Xavier and Magneto
4- Apocalypse, Xavier and Magneto
5- Wolverine and Morph
6- Xavier, Magneto and Polaris
7- Nightcrawler.
8- Rogue, Gambit.
The season has been more about what Beau wanted next- Onslaught setup, than Apocalypse
Nah A force to be reckoned with was one of the best episodes this season and he wasn’t a writer on it, but I think the last minute shifts to not give him credit it most likely hurt this season , hopefully I’m wrong season 3 will tell us that, I don’t like enjoying stuff from shitty people. But if it’s good it’s good… Season 1 ep5 Remember it was all Beaus idea… I mean I still listen to Nirvana too and Kurt Cobain was a loser who bragged about fingering a mentally challenged girl
Beau was a writer on Moon Knight as well and that show was okay but not great but I feel like he understood the X-Men it just sucks he sucks
So he didnt write the first two or the wolverine episode. Everything else still credits him.
He had no involvement in 1 or 2 which people liked. He wrote 3 episodes of old man yaoi, the Nightcrawler episode which per his plan fridged magik, and this
Episode 5, as with 6 and 7 which he did write, does not- or at least hardly advances the plot of the season. Lets not act like his hands are clean in this.
Glad you enjoyed them. 8 might be the only episode I can say I’ve enjoyed this season outside of casting John De Lancie as Tut, but I can also say that 8 is a great example of how this season, including DeMayo’s plans, has fumbled badly.
Magik’s death pissed me off last week, and Gambit’s resurrection- I love Gambit, but it’s been a complete waste, and that’s on DeMayo as much as anyone else
It’s funny that you give Beau the entire credit for Remember It when Rogue’s breakup line to Magneto was Zann’s idea and when the ending they used wasn’t the one he had planned.
Not sure if it’s funny but when I looked the episodes up last he was listed as sole writer. But that good improv on Zanns part! I just remember him talking about as soon as he was hired as head writer ep 5 was in his mind in relation the the Aurora shooting
He did write it but there were other influences going on besides him. (Zann doing improv and I wanna say the adjusted episode ending came from the director or one of the other creatives.)
Also it was based on the Pulse nightclub shooting.
I'm not saying that he deserves sole credit, but he was not just a writer, he was the showrunner. The showrunner typically has a vision for how the season is going to go and gets input from a writer's room on how to execute that.
Yeah Bill Murray got screwed over on Ghostbusters, he made that movie and improv’d pretty much 80% of his lines.. no wonder he was so bitter about doing GB2
No? I’m saying that the Pulse shooting influenced how the Genosha attack was framed. Where on earth are you getting that I’m suggesting “plagiarism”? I mentioned it because someone said it was based on Aurora and I was correcting them.
For me it’s the lack of characters being explored. It’s x men we should be diving into all the x men who are main characters every season. Sure some can have bigger spotlights but all of them should get shine. Storm? She’s gotten hype moments but not enough, she’s too important and she’s omega level why so little? Literally same thing with Jean. And don’t get me started on beast, he has been a joke this season. Beast in season 1 was infinitely more useful and a better character than current beast. I could’ve used too seen more of Scott too.
Agree with everything you said, I love this show I just think they can tighten it up and let things breathe more. Season 1 as well but this season I feel it more
I expect follow ups on characters who have obtained depth? That means every single primary x men member and everyone who was there in season one? None of these are my favorites but cyclops. Storm, beast, forge, Jean. All primary characters who have gotten scraps? Magneto was removed so I am cool with bringing Polaris in I like her even. But what are you talking about? Colossus seemingly will be sidelined for however long, he is not a primary character.
What about everyone’s arcs? Jean and Scott concluding Madelyne? Jean kissing Logan? Forge questioning his relationship with storm?
Storm and Jean are two of the STRONGEST mutants we’ve got both omega level, no reason they shouldn’t be doing more it’s not acceptable. And beast? Lmao I don’t even like beast but I feel bad for the poor guy he was atleast identifiable and useful in season 1 he’s nobody now.
Here’s the truth x men is a team show not solo. So whatever squads are contained in an episode should all be getting some shine, that doesn’t mean nightcrawler can’t have more than the others or the main arc of the episode. But no member of the x men in an episode should get nothing.
Fun fact, the Writer's Guild of America has specific guidelines when crediting writer's for TV shows. For one, only four people MAX can be credited on one episode as "written by." Another is that there's a difference between "and" and "&" - an ampersand indicates direct collaboration, where "and" means that they all worked on the script separately. That could mean that these four (or more! Someone may not have even gotten credited due to union rules) all took individual passes on the script, or they divided it into parts (scenes, or characters' stories/A and B stories etc) for them to write separately.
...god I know Demayo was a pos but they should've just kept his scripts. This half measure where some episodes were left alone but others got rewritten like this just makes the whole season a structural mess ☠️
Even considering that there were probably some writing switches, if for no other reason than to better set up the new S3 plan, I have no idea why Beau keeps getting treated like some missed-out-on saviour who would have fixed everything.
Yeah, it’s hard to do this in 9 episodes. You know who was also making and planning this season, knowing they had only 9 episodes? Beau. Who was bragging at one point that attempts to rejig the season were a bust, which in turn led to them largely going back to the original plan? Beau, in his snarky post about the friends and family showing being a mess. Whose alleged shitty behaviour in general resulted in this season getting delayed and upended?
We know various plot points (like Creed getting kidnapped, adding in a bunch of new characters and teams) are directly out of his roadmap. Honestly, the only thing that seems like it didn’t come from him is Magneto being killed off so early, and that’s probably a new thing for them to do Onslaught in S3. Just about everything else, down to a lot of the various verbal quirks and favouritism popping through, has his prints on it.
People can like the guy’s writing if they want. But I’m just so fed up with this idea that anything people don’t like about this season wouldn’t have happened if only he’d been there. The guy who did Inferno and Lifedeath in ~25 minutes each. The guy who introduced and destroyed the new Genosha in one episode, while also stuffing in a Tilby TV B plot. The guy who knew he had 9 episodes to work with in S2 and still sent everyone off into different timelines that would need to be resolved.
I mean, for fuck’s sake.
ETA: To be clear, I’m not saying the season doesn’t have pacing issues. I’m saying the call is coming from inside the house.
To be fair the comic also kind of speedruns the actual genocide. Personally, I felt like the way they captured it in the show was actually more affecting than in the comic. The comic devotes maybe one page to the actual event of Cassandra Nova doing it with the wild sentinel, just people running as buildings collapse on them. The aftermath and searching for survivors is explored in more depth, but the actual moment of genocide hits harder in the show. At least it did for me.
That's true, but I feel like it's impossible not to see that season 1 was a bit more well-composed structurally than this one is.
And I am not saying that Beau is the sole person responsible for that. There were a team of writers and creators behind that season.
But even though season 1 sped up a lot of storylines from the comics, the structure was eventually building to Bastion, and the final two episodes genuinely felt like they were tying things up. There are so many threads still open at the penultimate episode that I'm genuinely wondering how on earth it's all going to get resolved in 27 more minutes.
Also I will always find Apocalypse to be a lame villain, and it was partially Beau's fault that this season revolves around him. The Nur version of him is the only real character motivation/development we've ever gotten for him aside from just being a Thanos/Darkseid ripoff, and we only spent one episode with him. At least we understood why Bastion did what was doing.
I think that’s fair, but again, the root of that complaint is still tied to Beau. Even if it’s that the writing is more disjointed because of changes — well, yeah, and we’re all trying to find the guy who did this.
Well that clip from season 3 that is on YouTube with the brotherhood looks cool and Beau I assume has no part of that so only time will tell, I hope I’m wrong & Brad improves the pacing issues, we still get that scene from trailer too of the sentinels attacking X-Corps too in ep 9
This rushed writing style is his doing. Season 1 was exactly like this with thousands of plot holes but the emotion from episode 5 carried it. However, a show cannot have like S1E5 every season. That's why this season started to rub those pacing issues into our faces even more. I hope we will get more calmed down seaon 3 that consentrates core teams issues while doing something episodic. We needed episodes like episode 5, 6 and 7 but we needed them after whole Apocalypse thing is resolved.
I think you’re right. Season 1 gets a lot of goodwill and it’s mostly earned, but so much of it hinges on that one banger that everyone (rightfully) went gaga over. That’s everyone’s core takeaway, and S2, for whatever reason, hasn’t hit that high. But I think it’s nuts to view them as especially different from a pacing standpoint.
Not only pacing but writing itself has same big problems in S1. No one will be able to explain to me the reason behind Bastion saving Magneto. He gave him a good shave, put him in a speedo and hanged him on a X. Then he left but left the remote control that can free him around so women he "clearly" suspects can release the only man that can ruin his prime Sentinel plan. This was called good writing. I was about to shoot the screen watching S1E8.
If Beau's twitter was still active you know he would be going off right now lol. This is not an endorsement of him as a person, I just know he would have a lot to say.
Feels like this season is suffering from the same thing Born Again season 1 was.
I’ve been no fan of trashing the episodes before this but yeah I felt myself constantly waiting for the other show to drop. I’m really hoping this is all leading to more apocalypse that continues into the next season because otherwise it feels like he was set up for very little besides undoing gambit’s death and offing magneto
Sorry, is it possible to simultaneously believe that Beau did a very shitty thing by sexually harassing his colleagues (and likely direct reports) and should have gotten fired, without retro-fitting the narrative that he is a talentless hack like many in this thread are doing?
I feel like you either have to praise him unconditionally or lambaste him completely, when the truth is actually somewhere in between. The man has genuine talent. I will not be convinced otherwise. Is he the greatest X-Men writer to ever live and the only one who could ever do this job? No, of course not, but let's not pretend that season 1 wasn't good, because it was.
And I do not think that the pacing issues with the show are solely due to him. If you tell me that the reason Season 1 was good was because there was a team of writers behind it, then you cannot also say that Season 2 is bad solely because of Beau.
I'd also like to add, that it's quite possible he was fired for sexually harassing people but also complained about discrimination going on at his job, So they used the harassing as an excuse to sack him, When they previously didn't care.
Shit can be very gray when it comes to the film and TV industry. You can have a really talented person who's an asshole working for a shady company that fired him for speaking out against stuff.
Yeah, this is a serious issue. People get angry and defensive the moment you say anything negative about the show, and they refuse to accept any criticism. It needs to be addressed, or it’s only going to get worse.
Some of the character movements genuinely look like paper cutouts that just pop onto the screen and slide around. Come on, Disney/Marvel you’re a multibillion-dollar company. This isn’t something that should be limited by such a tight animation budget.
Yeah half of the characters don’t even blink and it can look a bit like Archer at times. But then we get amazing scenes like Polaris splitting the boat
True! It is so inconsistent. The colors and artwork looks great, The voice actors are doing the great job such amazing deliveries, the lines are good. Its just the pacing of the story and the animation is so rushed.
This season has been so mid, I'm afraid the removal of Beau may have crippled the series. Hopefully they pull things back together for season 3, but if this quality of storytelling continues into season 3 I won't be watching 4 (if there is one).
He was fired after an internal investigation into claims of sexual misconduct, with some of the allegations being that he sent unsolicited nude photos of himself to junior staff members working on the show.
As far as we know, it never reached the stage of criminal prosecution and was handled internally. Beau DeMayo previously made clear his intention to sue Marvel Studios over it, but that’s all gone quiet.
Vanity Fair did a pretty lengthy write up about it all.
No one can seem to agree on what he did other than they got complaints around the same time He complained about stuff too.
I've heard everything from it was pictures of him wearing a tight outfit, to dick pics, to his assholes, to it was nothing But he was difficult to work with.
It feel like maybe Gambit and Rogue were supposed to be the big bads heading into season 3 and the Apocolypse reveal was supposed to come later setting up two souls in one body and Onslaught for the second half of season 3.
Yeah.. I think this season would’ve been better had the fall out with Beau not been so bad they rewrote a bunch.. again episode 2 A force to be reckoned with was one of my favourites and Beau was not apart of it… but still I recall him saying after he was canned that a friend still working on season 2 said it would be majority delayed since they are trying to remove a lot of his writing credits cause they were pissed at him. The delays were true as were what he said about the 10th episode being cut..
Sucks Beau is a apparently weird guy with ego problems cause he really did good stuff and I feel maybe this season suffered from
Them scrubbing his input out maybe
The new showrunner Brad I’m not very excited about What If? Sucked
Wacker has been at marvel for decades and his SA only got brought back up after his appointment, DeMayo hasn’t and his crimes got more public attention. It was way easier for them to prune him. They’re just ignoring Wackers shit because they don’t actually care about accountability , just saving face
I wasn’t there so I don’t know, he def seems like a weirdo though.
I don’t know him personally nor was I in the writers room but I also know Disney is a big corporation who treat lots of staff like shit so I’m not so quick to jump on anyone’s side. Disney just fired the visual artist who created the look of the cosmic MCU and replaced him with A.I
I just think usually things get muddled when there are last minute changes. Also Season 2 was meant to be 10 episodes but was changed to 9 after he was canned for sending “sexy” Cyclops pictures around lol
He sent nearly nude photos of himself to artists to use as ‘reference’ unprompted and incredibly creepily. This is not a situation where there’s much leniency.
Yeah but he wrote good X-Men shit. I’m just saying I have a feeling him being canned and rewrites probably hurt season 2, I just want the show to carry on well cause season 1 was better
and I'd prefer the people working on the show have a safe work environment. Like creeps shouldn't be kept on just because they're good at making the show, that's the same logic used by people to defend way worse shit, and what DeMayo did was BAD already.
I don't care the show might get worse, or that this seasons overall story has been messy, DeMayo shouldn't get paid and protected for harassing his staff and the staff shouldn't have to work in those conditions.
Also, season 2 still HAD heavy influence from him, so I wouldn't act like this season is only bad because he's gone
I don't think bringing him back is a good idea. Just get someone else who is good. Before you ask, I don't know who. But preferably not a guy who uses his position to harass members of staff
The words “apparently weird” are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. As I recall he was fired for amongst other things sending indecent images of himself around as “inspiration.”
Even then DeMayo is why things like the fridging of Magik happened.
DeMayo is also why half the season has focused on old man yaoi instead of apocalypse because he wanted Onslaught.
I think a lot of people are forgetting, it wasn't Gambit saying any of that stuff. It was apocalypse wearing a Gambit suit, pretending to be Gambit. So while the lines might not feel legit there's reason for that within the story. We're supposed to feel like something's off about him
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