Dante

On Betrayal

I wanna preface this by stating that Jack & Joker absolutely was one of my favourite series in 2024. The things I'm about to say come not from a place of hate but of love and the subsequent disappointment I had watching this because it was like watching a loved one ruin their life in front of me while I remain helpless and unable to change anything.
Because, yes, if I'm honest, maybe some plots in Jack & Joker could've been even better if they'd had a little bit more time but, all in all, the series wrapped up pretty nicely.
It's true capitalism and evil rich people can't be defeated in the blink of an eye and sure Jack and Joke were still up to have some issues in their relationship bc they've got baggage, it's also true, but we didn't need to see that. We could imagine it and trust it would happen in a way that made sense to the kind of series we'd been offered.
A wedding could be fun, though.
But this whole thing? Was this new plot and potential new season necessary? Do these characters need to suffer more? Are there enough lose threads that they can explore here? Is there an arc here that would be narratively fulfilling to explore?
Honestly? I don't think so.
For what was meant to be a passion project, I just can't help but think they went very cash grab about this special and this hinted at season 2.
And it saddens me, you know? That something good seemingly lost its core. And for no good reason.
I'll still love Jack & Joker, of course, but when it comes to this entire thing here... I'll ignore it, I think. It's for the best.

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Nothing Hurts More Than When Your Child Sucks

When I started watching it, I was so absolutely excited.
The mystery was good, the characters were compelling... And then it all went downhill so fast.
I wanted this series to be good, I wanted to believe this narrative but what if felt like was that they had a good premise and then they decided to do a huge totally unnecessary flashback and then when they came back they realised they didn't have enough episodes to conclude this series properly and so they concluded it with literally the first thing that crossed their minds just to be able to say it has an ending.
It's disappointing, honestly.
I'll take the friends I made discussing this on Tumblr and creating a brand new Discord server just for it out of this, though. It'll always be my child that I birthed myself. It's just that my child started doing hard drugs and I couldn't save it from overdosing.

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Don't Destroy the Audience

People will comment a lot about the sex and, sure, I'll admit it's a huge part of this series but we all knew that coming in and if you're complaining about it out there: you did this to yourself. You don't have to watch everything, sometimes things just aren't for you or about you and that's okay.
This being said, that's never what bothered me (except maybe in the 1st episode but I think it's purposefully meant to shock you and disgust you at certain points so I won't hold that against the series bc I think it's intentional).
What I am gonna say, though, is the following: contemporary series productions work so hard to have huge plot twists and revelations and to surprise their audience (I'm staring right into your soul, Game of Thrones) that they forget the point of a narrative is to tell a cohesive story. The point of a narrative is for it to make sense.
Sure, it can be surprising and, by all means, when we have a mystery and so many stories overlapping and characters intertwined with each other, yes, surprises are good but after the initial shock the explanation has to make SENSE.
This "ending" that they gave us, though? It makes no sense. It kills the narrative, kills a lot of the characters and their arcs and what they were and makes the entire series a shaggy dog story that simply has no reason to be except that someone out there felt like wasting hours of people's lives on what I can only assume is one of the biggest pranks of all time.
It just... Feels like the people involved in creating this story (not the actors or the people in production but the writers and executives and the director) don't actually care about the audience, or the story they made themselves, but only about being mediatic and getting people on social media to talk about it.
Ig any press is good press, after all, huh? Well, it might be good press but it surely isn't a good series. Do with this information whatever you want.

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Maybe It's Not For You, But It Was For Me

Jack & Joker is an extremely clever series. It criticizes real world situations by cranking them up to 2000 and extrapolating the situation in order to highlight how stupid and messed up it is.
Which, of course, might not land well with everyone, I get that. The way it does things might read to some as mockery and stupid humour and that's okay.
Nevertheless, I think the way it balances itself between humour and criticism; fun and sadness is the sort of delicate harmony you need in order to tell a story like this: about the common tragedy of everyday people suffering under the hands of the rich in late stage capitalism.
It's perfect in what it does. At least, to me.
You believe these characters and you like them even when you disagree with them and their actions because you understand them. You relate to them and empathise with their struggles.
And maybe it's not the most orthodox BL out there, for sure. And it's not a umami taste on everyone's tongues either. But I think that's exactly why it's so good: it does its own thing and it does it spectacularly well.

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I Dropped It

I see a lot of people in the comments so eager to defend their favs they can't even tolerate people not enjoying this.
So let me tell you right now before you use your predetermined defense to ignore my points that I LOVE a good mystery. I loved the 1st half of DFF, all the Knives Out films, am thoroughly enjoying GBYFD and also sorta intrigued by DYTD; I watch murder mysteries and documentaries all the time, one of my all time favourite series is The Haunting (both Hill House and Bly Manor).
The problem with Melody of Secrets? The mystery simply hasn't proven itself to be good.
Nor did anything else, really.
The chemistry is non-existing, the plot doesn't move one bit, the characters barely even work at their jobs. They keep trynna sell you confusion but what they're selling you is actually frustration because nothing happens, nothing changes, nothing moves.
And then after this lukewarm still water 3 episodes they try to get you with a predictable plot twist and a hand full of nothing. How am I supposed to say it's good? Honestly? It sucks. That's it. It just sucks.

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