S2 premiere was so great. Heard great things about Ep2 tonight, will watch tomorrow.

Allison is one of my favorite characters on TV right now, but honestly they're all great. Tatiana Maslaney could have the entire world chanting her name in unison and it still wouldn't be enough praise. Every other actor on that show (aside from Felix and Ansley) seem mediocre in comparison.

I liked watching Season 2, but I honestly get confused sometimes with where the allegiances of people lie. I get disappointed when there are episodes without Allison and Donny.

I asked someone to explain to me the political dynamics of the show on Reddit and it helped me a lot. Here it is for all interested:

Spoiler

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Top Side is a cabal of multinational corporations who believe that genetic engineering is an eventuality and they wish to profit from it. That's why they are lobbying for changes to patent law, meeting with both the Koreans and taking trips to Asia etc. DYAD is under Top Side and manages Project Leda with Top Side's financial backing. They are a biotech company who has some involvement in vaccinations etc. There's some stuff about curing polio mentioned (ahem, even though Jonas Salk cured polio while employed by Pitt, WHATEVER SHOW). They also have a big Neolutionist/eugenics contingent on staff. Rachel is a Top Side employee who is over Aldous Leekie, who is the head of the DYAD institute. She is kidnapped by Aldous when she's about 8-9 and then raised to be self-aware as a sort of neolutionism experiment (bc Amelia took her Leda babies and got the fuck out o dodge). The Duncans did not want this for Rachel, if Ethan is to be believed, and Susan Duncan was killed (by Leekie) for it. Project Leda & Castor were both US military projects originally (I'm assuming US bc it's all US military insignia thusfar & bc US is the country with the money to pay for it). They abandoned Leda because they wanted soldiers (remember: project Leda/Castor were developed in the 70s and were executed in 1983.). The Duncans were persuaded to go through with it by their new bosses at the DYAD for "proof of concept." Ethan doesn't truly know what DYAD wants with Leda beyond little girls (they tried over 300 times to recreate Leda, and Charlotte was the only second gen Leda girl). Ethan also says to Rachel, "since neither of us know what you're here for, your attempts should be met with failure." Castor seems to be raised together on base. So their purpose is what Cosima says, "the perfect ghost soldiers. Untraceable." They have some disease that is manifesting differently than the pollups/coughing up blood thing. They're now hunting down Ethan Duncan/source DNA to try and cure it.

I like that the show finally made Delphine into an interesting character.

I thought it was a little farfetched to have Alison on the ready as Sarah. Why not just have Alison play Rachel in the first place? They're pretty similar. Maybe Sarah just knows Rachel better.

Sarah gets on my nerves with her "I CANT BELIEVE U MRS. S WAT THA FUCK" stuff. I hate stubborn protagonists.

That's fair. Just seems like information Delphine would've told Sarah so Sarah didn't seem so "omg wtf".

Alison & Donny are working their way up to my favorite TV couple

This past episode was the best of the series IMO. Glad Paul got some airtime.

This episode was really good. I usually hate when shows detract from the main plot for side characters, but I love the Alison/Donny plot too much. Thought the Cosima thing was a bit of poor writing, but it's forgiven.

Liked Episode 9, thought the final twist was a little silly but hopefully they can make it a little more sensical.

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Also, Shay being a red herring was so fucking obvious. Never thought it would be Gracie though, that was well done.