Made for Love: Season Two
May 6, 2022 10:02 AM - Season 2 (Full Season) - Subscribe

Last season, Hazel made a deal with the devil. Will she be able to navigate Hell any better a second time around?

Made for Love streams on HBO Max, with two episodes premiering each Thursday.
posted by Etrigan (5 comments total)
 
Oh man. I don’t know if I can do this. Season one ending was such a heartbreaker.
posted by sixswitch at 3:25 PM on May 6, 2022


Oh thank you! Season 2 wasn't even on my radar but I thoroughly enjoyed season 1.
posted by porpoise at 5:33 PM on May 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


I love Byron. Obviously, that's a weird thing to come away with, but he's such a perfect character and so well acted. The writing walks this fine line with him loving Hazel so much, like we, the audience, do, that in some moments, Byron can actually sort of be sympathetic. And then we see him do something horrific just remind us who he actually is.

I'm also really impressed at how many plot strands the show keeps me invested in. I'd forgotten about Fiffany and Herringbone stuck out in the pasture cube, and I'm still interested in seeing them escape.
posted by gladly at 10:55 AM on May 7, 2022 [1 favorite]


This show is the gaslighting Olympics! We are loving it.

Her dad needs to convince hazel that he doesn’t know that she is trying to convince him that she doesn’t know that he is living in a simulated world ahhhhh
posted by lazaruslong at 1:33 AM on May 9, 2022


I love Byron. Obviously, that's a weird thing to come away with, but he's such a perfect character and so well acted. The writing walks this fine line with him loving Hazel so much, like we, the audience, do, that in some moments, Byron can actually sort of be sympathetic. And then we see him do something horrific just remind us who he actually is.

I feel exactly the same!

Byron is so wildly codependent that I default to pitying him too often. I also find it poignant that he's created this perfect, quiet, fake little world and doesn't want to leave. He just shrinks further and further into his shell, where he can watch everything from a safe and impenetrable distance. God on his mountaintop... I mean, if God were a micromanager incapable of seeing the big picture.

But I also feel bad that I feel bad for Byron, because he is not only an actively bad person, forcing employees to sign their life away to work at the Hub and sending them "out to pasture" when he's done with them, but is basically irredeemable since his utter self-absorption makes actual compassion impossible for him. That he cured cancer by accident and has no interest in going public with any of it because he's too focused on his pseudo-immortality consciousness uploads to bother... I feel like that says all you need to know about Byron's ability to be a good guy! I don't think he's evil, but he's so blinkered that he might as well be.

Then I go back to thinking that a lot of what makes him a bad person, though, is just that he's an emotionally stunted human being with way too much power -- so much power that even simple thoughtlessness or naivete wind up creating grotesquely outsized and awful consequences for the rest of the world, let alone the people around him. So much power that any imperfection on his part (and of course there are many deep and terrible imperfections!) would make him a villain. I mean, any person is going to have imperfections -- so is any person with that much power just doomed to be a life-destroying monster?

Probably... I mean, I don't trust Hazel with that power any more than Byron. In fact, perhaps less, because at least Byron is limited by his own fears and inability to connect with others, whereas Hazel is more capable with people and is willing to grab for the brass ring. I love Hazel because she is very alive, but she is not a particularly good person. The moral high ground that she had over Byron before was that he violated her bodily autonomy horrifically... but then she violated her dad's by drugging him and medicating him against his will, and then she violated Byron's by trapping him in his own body. So I don't really think she has the moral high ground anymore.
posted by rue72 at 11:51 AM on June 6, 2022 [1 favorite]


« Older Podcast: The Besties: Showcasi...   |  Meltdown: Three Mile Island: (... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster