Daybreak Season 1 Review

My sister recommended Daybreak to me and I wasn't really impressed by it. But then I had nothing better to do and felt curious about where the show was going, so I decided to watch it. Like what many critics have said, it's a show that is trying too hard to be witty, and trying too hard to insert all kinds of pop culture references into as possible. The show is self-aware and so it tries hard to subvert tropes as well. 

Despite the generic apocalyptic teenage drama type setting (see The Hunger Games and Maze Runner), there were episodes that were good and I really liked the character development in those particular episodes. To make things clearer for you, I have decided to create a graph, courtesy of one of those free graph makers online:

Like I said, the first episode was just 'meh'. I became genuinely interested when it came to episode 3, since it was about Angelica Green. Her backstory was appealing. She's basically a young 10-year-old eccentric genius who was sick of being homeschooled, so she faked mental illnesses to crush drugs into slime and sold the slime at the nearest high school. She wants to be Griselda Blanco and she craves attention but her parents are too busy to give her any.

We see her wanting to make friends with the high schoolers but when she gets rejected she goes nuts. And apparently, she was kicked out of many of the cliques she tried to join during the apocalypse and she now wants to create a group with Josh Wheeler and Wesley Fists. There's a lot of potential for her character to grow and realise that she doesn't need the approval of others since she can shine on her own. Of course it's tragic that her mother has neglected her, but she doesn't have to feel envious about Sam Dean's popularity either.

As you can see from the graph, the next episode was just as interesting because we see how principal Burr tried to do what was best for the students at his school at first. However, he later took a bribe from the parents of Jayden Hoyles and later other rich parents as well, agreeing to change their grades for 'the greater good' of the school. Now, as a Harry Potter nerd, you'd know that this wouldn't end well. Sure, I was glad that Burr got rid of Jayden Hoyles by calling the police on him for having sex with a minor, but two wrongs don't make a right.

Although to be fair, the public school system did fail the teachers and principal Burr because of all the shitty administrative work he had to do just to buy a freakin' pencil and other school supplies. Burr realises that kids are monsters and in the apocalypse, he creates a scary persona for himself (Baron Triumph) whom everyone thinks is Hoyles because of the motorcycle. Josh Wheeler later comes in and "saves the day" (with the help of KJ, but more on that and those inverted commas later) but we do kinda understand why the principal snapped.

Episodes 5 and 7 were the best episodes in my opinion. The former was Wesley's backstory and how he ended up in a toxic relationship with Turbo. It's pretty clear that he should choose to help Josh and his other friends instead of Turbo, because Turbo is a maniac who would kill others out of jealousy. But when you're in a toxic relationship, the path isn't so clear because you're blinded by love and your own insecurities.

Ms Crumble's backstory was just as awesome because she's such a relatable character. Throughout the season, we've been witnessing her moments of brilliance. She thought of putting maggots on Josh's hand and somehow she doesn't behave like a typical ghoulie. In the episode that's centered on her, the biology teacher reveals her smarts at the Cheermazon trials too. Through her flashbacks, we saw how principal Burr took advantage of her as well. He manipulated her to change the scores of students and also started a romantic relationship with her that was arguably just as toxic as Wesley and Turbo's.

So far, I've kinda summarised that characters and episodes that I liked. But there were some really boring and shitty ones too.

Episode 6 was crappy because the focus was on Turbo, the asshole whom Wesley dated. Josh and KJ recruited some gamers to infiltrate the school where the jocks were to take out Turbo, but it was just a trap that Turbo had laid for them so that he could get a victory over Josh Wheeler. Like... wtf? Ok, I get that we needed something like this for Mona to turn on Turbo, but releasing the cannibalistic principal is just as dumb. For a tv show that's trying to be smart, all this ended up becoming dumb. Somehow even though the gamers were captured, Josh and KJ don't seem to feel guilty or concerned about them and they don't even show us what happened to the captives. Instead, they end up making out and probably having sex. Like... huh???

I'm not sure if the writers want us to feel sad that Turbo's father is rarely around or something but to me, those dumb flashbacks didn't work because we know that Turbo kills people for fun during the apocalypse and treats Wesley badly both before and during the apocalypse. Parental neglect doesn't justify murder and being a dick in general, goddamnit.

Episode 8 was by far the worst tv episode I've ever seen in a very long time. As you can see from the graph, my interest in the show went all the way down. That episode made me so bored that I wanted to just switch off the tv. I was so frustrated with the nothingness of this episode and the only reason why I watched till the end was because I thought that at some point, the show would return to the present-day apocalypse. Needless to say, I was wrong and I was very disappointed. The episode also ended way too early, so it was very abrupt. I hated everything about this episode.

Because all the characters that actually appeal to me are just side characters. Even though there are episodes dedicated to their backstories, the main character is still Josh Wheeler, the typical white kid who is so average that he gets Cs on all his subjects. He's such a boring character who doesn't seem to have any other interests apart from skateboarding, Sam Dean, and ignoring his mother's phone calls.

The episode was all about Josh and Sam's boring ass relationship before the apocalypse. He saw a pretty girl and fell in love with her. Ugh.

Let me make a list of things that I dislike about the character Josh Wheeler:

1. Irritating: For the first few episodes, all Josh Wheeler could talk about was Sam Dean. Like sheesh shut up, we get it already. You liked a girl! Whoopee. And all he talked about was SAVING HER, like he was Mario and she was Princess Peach. Like, get over yourself, dude.

2. Not trustworthy: Later in the season, we find out that Sam Dean is with the jocks and she's perfectly fine, helping out by growing fruits and vegetables at the school or something. She doesn't need any saving. Then, Josh Wheeler finally tells the audience that he and Sam actually broke up. Wow. By then, I was like UGH I knew it. There was something off. Sam's fine and Josh shouldn't be trusted. Also, the boy has double standards. He banished Angelica, Eli and Wesley from the mall for their lies but he's actually been lying about Sam this whole time. So who cares? Angelica at least had the foresight to create a community in order to survive, even if Josh's part in it because of a lie. What's Josh's excuse? That he wanted to risk his life and possibly get himself killed over a girl when he doesn't even know if said girl requires saving?

3. He didn't return his mother's calls and he went to blame Sam for his father's death. Like seriously? That's the most screwed up thing in the whole season! And this is a show with cannibalism in it! In the first place, he was an ass to his father just because his father didn't "choose" to keep him around and stayed in Canada or something. Yeah, I get it. His parents got divorced and he's sad. So what? Sorry, I know divorce sucks, but relationships fall apart all the time. It's hard for me to empathise when Josh Wheeler is such a whiny loser.

4. He likes to assume stuff about people. Josh assumes that his father didn't love him because he didn't choose to stay with him. He assumes that Sam Dean is a virgin when she isn't. He also assumes that his mother has nothing better to do than to annoy him with calls. Hey, if your father dies and you didn't manage to call him in time, then it's your own fault for not cherishing your relationship with your father. Sorry not sorry. Just deal with it! Don't blame others for your own mistakes or incorrect judgements.

5. Somehow people keep dying in the show because of him. He stupidly let Hoyles escape at the cereal factory. Guess what? Jayden Hoyles ends up killing Eli when Eli is disguised as Baron Triumph. And you know whose idea it is to use this disguise? It's Josh Wheeler's. Why did Josh Wheeler even let an asshole like Hoyles escape the cereal factory? No fucking clue. Why did Josh not kill principal Burr when he had the chance? No fucking clue. (I initially thought that Burr would drown in cereal but he didn't and they just kept him locked in a cage. So dumb) This is why I mentioned earlier that he "saved the day" because he didn't really. He waited till the last episode to legit save the day and kill Burr with his peanut allergy.

Also, I liked Eli better than Josh. He had a nice but super short backstory about his love for some silly magic cards and he recalls working at a beauty parlour for extra cash. He did explain that his mother was a first generation immigrant so things were tough. And this butthole Josh just comes in, takes Eli's mall and kicks him out? Please, Eli's backstory is much strong than Josh's. At least he doesn't go around blaming people for his family's lack of wealth like how Josh blamed Sam for his father's death and called her a slut. Jeez.

Now it's time for a list of reasons why I dislike Sam Dean:

1. She behaves like a spoiled brat and doesn't know what she wants. Ok to be fair, teens don't know what they want. But she needs to take responsibility for her decisions! She needs to own her shit! She was the one who came up with the idea of going around the mall, making a vlog telling people good things about themselves. Then she somehow blames Josh for uploading it and getting her 1 million followers? She claims that she isn't this "nice girl" that Josh paints her out to be. Yes, while that may be true, you can't just blame Josh for uploading the video cuz it's your freakin idea isn't it? Omg I can't even. What does she even want? If she didn't want the vlog to be uploaded, why did she ask Josh to film it? And she has like a bunch of lines about how she's figuring out who she is. Yeah well so? Isn't everyone else?

2. She's privileged and doesn't seem to appreciate that. Sam Dean is portrayed in the show to be a pretty and the characters repeatedly tell us that she's the most popular girl in school even though she isn't a cheerleader or a typical mean girl. Initially, she gives off the "good girl" vibes, but that could be because Josh Wheeler is an unreliable narrator. But she is privileged because of her popularity. She has a voice and people listen to her. And she doesn't appreciate any of that, thinking that people now have expectations of her. Like, really? Is it really that bad for people to like you? Is it really that bad for people to expect goodness to come out of you?

3. She's a selfish, self-centered person. When Sam was talking to Josh it was all "me, me, me." It was about her identity, her past relationships and sexual encounters, her discomfort with the new "nice girl" persona she now had, her acquisition of 1 million followers etc. And from all that, she seemed like such a bland and shallow character. She's trying to hard to sound "deep" but it all falls flat and she just sounds pathetic, to be honest. And I don't the point of her mini speech at all.

4. She's just too weird and irritating. Sure, Josh shouldn't have thought she was a virgin and slut shamed her. But she's so freakin' weird that if I were Josh I would've asked her to leave my house and not have sex with her at all. Because I would be just pissed if someone ordered food for me without telling me what it was they ordered, and I would be also very annoyed by the amount of food she ordered because of the food wastage. She also looked like she wanted to seduce the deliveryman and the whole scene was just weird. Like why? What was the purpose of that scene? To further confirm that she's a slut but not be able to say it because she would accuse us of slut-shaming? To waste the audience's time? To make us dislike her more? Just... why? And she rudely entered his mother's room without permission. A very irritating house-guest indeed.

I'm surprised that by the end of the season, Eli is dead but Turbo is not. I'm not exactly surprised that Sam refused to go back to Josh and took over as the leader of the jocks instead, because they broke up before the apocalypse and Josh is the only one trying to deny that none of that shit ever happened. But since Sam is now on the throne. it is clear that she and Josh are the main characters and I'm just not going to watch Daybreak if there is ever a season 2 because the two of them are so unlikeable as characters. They are both immature and irritating, like Korra from The Avatar. Somehow kids in The Last Airbender like Aang, Katara, Sokka and Toph are all more mature than Korra, the hotheaded privileged and spoiled avatar who loses it when things don't go her way.

Ughhh. I get that all good, 3-dimensional characters are flawed and realistic. But it still has to be done tastefully, you know? So, no thanks. No more Daybreak, unless it's clear that Crumble, Wesley, and Angelica are the main characters. Please stop making unrelatable and unlikeable characters to annoy the shit out of me and perhaps cause irritating self-centered kids to think that it's ok to behave this way.