Reasons I give the episode a 7-7.5/10
The Good
Thought Pedro killed it in this episode. His scenes with Dina, Gail, Ellie are absolute gold.
Catherine O'Hara absolutely kills it in her scene with Pedro.
Mixed
Isabela Merced (Dina) is getting a lot of praise, probably because of her looks, but I felt that she's delivered her lines significantly worse than in the game, especially the scene at the dance.
I think she has good chemistry with Bella Ramsey, especially when she goes to get her before the patrol and during the patrol, but I thought the scene at the dance was rushed and the delivery of the lines about thinking that they should be terrified of her, felt forced, like it was all one take. Even Bella who generally has good line delivery didn't seem half as good as Ashley Johnson in this scene, in telling her that she smelled bad. When they eventually kiss, it comes across as pretty random.
Merced had a great scene with Pedro, though as mentioned before.
The Bad
Rutina Wesley is probably the worst actor in the show and she's not doing a great job with Maria. It was a problem in season 1 and it's a problem so far in Season 2. I liked her on True Blood, but either her delivery or what they're asking her to do isn't great. It's a hard role to play for sure, but I'd probably give her a D+. Just seems like everything is forced with her.
The introduction to Team Abby just seemed really poorly written and acted for most of it. I think Kaitlyn Dever carries most of this, but the discourse just felt stunted. Especially when they're talking about why Joel might have done what he did or Abby saying they should have followed after him immediately, despite the character knowing they didn't have a way to follow him. It seemed like they were stuck with an explanation of why they didn't go after him and they chose to do an exposition dump to explain it, but it made Abby sound stupid.
Not only is Team Abby a bit wooden, but a lot of the actors that fill up the Jackson crew seem beyond wooden and you'd kind of expect everyone that HBO casts who has speaking lines should be a pretty good actor and maybe they are, and maybe it's just poorly written dialogue. It's hard to tell.
Some of the lines in the game get cut and not in ways that makes scenes better. When Ellie is talking to Jesse, she first says that they'll be back together in two weeks, and then he said no, but then asks if she said something, and then Ellie changes it to 1 week. I thought this was important dialogue and its shortened for no reason, but it's important to understanding that Ellie doesn't think she has a shot with Dina and is convinced she is getting back with Jesse.
Obviously, the second game starts of slower than the first game, but I think there's a lot of risk that viewers may tune out with a less than dramatic opening episode. I think that's why they reoriented the grocery store scene that's supposed to happen later and fit it into this episode. It was great to see Rebecca Ferguson involved in this too in a cameo as the Stalker infected. It sets up for some difficulties for pacing in episode 2 as I think it might not ramp up heavily until Episode 3. I think that's also why they've added this idea of the cordycep network growing in the roots to give more action in episode 2 than there would otherwise be and to change how Team Abby meets Joel.
