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Notes -
Breaking off into gay love story in the third episode lost some momentum for the overall story. Perhaps it’s too low of bar to call something woke for adding a gay love story. And this is more of a 20 years ago liberal theme that’s now mainstream accepted.
There’s a bit of semantics I’m picking up in the comments that anything that feels well done and natural by definition can’t be woke. Woke by definition can only be things we don’t like. If we like it then it’s good pre-wokism liberal.
I own a bunch of wbd stock. It’s been cheaper than Netflix for a while but I’ve always had a thesis HBO has much better content (and the other brands they’ve rolled up). I had about 2 years where I didn’t like anything new HBO made. So I’m glad to see them hitting on characters again.
I agree the episode slowed the momentum of the overall story, but I enjoyed it for its world-building. It showed that besides the authoritarian enclaves and lawless bandit ridden country outside of them, there were tiny pockets of civilisation that resourceful and competent people had made for themselves.
Pretty believable to see how he created his own little paradise, and the non-romance aspects of this episode is really red meat to certain red tribe 'prepper' aligned types. It was great that the prepper knew what he'd built was a target for raiding from the start rather than having a scene of him trusting someone to have them pull a gun on him like in similar media (like The Walking Dead) where protagonists need to be taught what kind of world they're living in now. Pre-apocalypse, this attitude would be seen as delusional paranoia, but it was clearly what saved him from the FEDRA death squads. He also immediately sees the truth in Joel's advice of 'They'll come at night, quiet and armed'.
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