Sigh. There really is the heart of the matter. For every Beastie that thinks the word "bitter" every time Season 2 Issues comes up, it really comes down to the triangles.
And NOTICE, I don't call them "love" triangles, because there was not a jot of love to them, AND THAT was the problem: when you tout a show as being about an "epic love," then you don't show how easy it is to just throw it all away and start anew and seemingly prefer lust (or simply a warm and willing body) to love.
And I have noticed that each and every Beastie seems to be angrier at EITHER Cat or Vincent. Arwenfan and I went round and round this one on the original Everything Thread. For me, I COULD understand Cat's actions. Vincent threw her away like so much trash. He chose Revenge over love, and he could have killed Catherine in that car accident to get Reynolds. He was careless with her feelings and callous and uncaring about whether she lived or died. So that is where my bitterness comes towards Vincent. YET I UNDERSTOOD and agreed with Arwenfan's arguments over how much Vincent had been traumatized and dragged through to the point that he WAS at his breaking point and no one I recognized.
(And I was GLAD for Arwenfan's viewpoint: it made me ultimately come around to seeing motivation for Vincent's actions, although I couldn't be as willing to give him the equivalent of a free pass. I often defended Catherine, yet I'm still inwardly mad at her too. I WANTED MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS TO BE STRONGER and less like the ACUTAL HUMAN BEINGS that they were. I guess that THAT is the Heart of the Matter for me: I wanted my escapism and for my favorite couple to not be so human and able to break. They made arguably realistic choices, BUT I WANTED epic. And I FELT I HAD BEEN PROMISED epic by the shows WHOLE PREMISE.)
Which made Catherine's seeming lack of sympathy as the main thing that so off-put the fans. For ME, I felt Catherine had ALSO gone through hell looking for Vincent, had basically been broken, seen her job overhauled and cases overturned due to JOE's OBSESSION, an obsession she KNEW the roots of, plus all of Cat's family drama, including seeing who she THOUGHT was her father be MURDERED in front of her JUST LIKE HER MOTHER. So my sympathies were with Cat. No wonder she had NOTHING left to give.
And that was the Season 2 problem: Tess, Vincent and Catherine had basically lost everything and been hurt and betrayed in every possible way. Rather than turn towards one another, they all sniped about their individual issues and had neither time nor sympathy for others, which really IS a phase that trauma victims have to go through. THEY HAD NOTHING LEFT TO GIVE. Hard to watch bitter people trying to find direction on the screen. Made for bitter viewers in return.
But it was PAINFUL and gloomy and AWFUL to watch at times. And EPIC LOVE didn't seem to enter into the picture or be ANYTHING that could be relied upon to help the characters lost in their own individual hells. SERIOUSLY, what is appealing about that, IF YOU ARE TUNING IN FOR A LOVE STORY THAT CAN'T BE DENIED.
I felt that after the way Vincent had treated her, I could UNDERSTAND why Catherine chose Gabe, who was made to LOOK just LIKE Vincent at that time. He was "the new Vincent," sorry for what he had done as a beast and desperate to make up for it. He even seemed willing to risk his life to make amends. OF COURSE, we later saw that it was not that simple. But to Catherine, DESPERATE to no longer feel pain (and unable to understand that she no one else COULD be Vincent, and that she would ALWAYS love him, no matter what), she went for the Vincent-substitute, only to wonder why she LACKED passion or love for the guy.
Again, came down to seeming character-assassination when it was really character extreme-trauma.
And EVERY character was made to be tarnished somehow. THE GOAL of BK and the writers was to for the characters to be put through THE WORST and to come to understand that although they could try new relationships, IT WOULD NEVER COMPETE with the epic love of VinCat. BUT the problem was, IT NO LONGER SEEMED LIKE SUCH AN EPIC LOVE.
So there you have it. I GET why Vincent AND Catherine made the decisions they did, given the circumstances presented to them. But it left me with a BAD taste in my mouth.
HOWEVER, that was what made me LOVE the end of Season 2: you have two characters (actually ALL the characters) realize what they ACTUALLY want AND WHAT IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR. Vincent struggled to regain his humanity and the life he wanted to live, WHICH HE WANTED to be with Catherine. And vice versa. Nothing else could compete. So although Tori and Gabe SEEMED like they could give VinCat what they needed, NOTHING was what they had originally had.
But the characters were often whiney and why-me-ish and lacking in sympathy at times to the plights of others--it took VinCat working TOGETHER to find EACH OTHER's HUMANITY. --Yet many fans DIDN'T like seeing them HAVE to lose their humanity at all--just looked like character assassination to many.
So that is the Season 2 conundrum. It actually made for interesting drama that made you think about the psychology of human suffering IF IT JUST HADN'T have been BATB!!! Especially after the characters had had to overcome so much in Season 1.
So I GET why we lost fans. AND I get the bitterness for some. STILL LOVE MY SHOW and VinCat. STILL THOUGHT THEY brought up many interesting ideas in Season 2--I just could have done without VinCat thinking it was so easy to just turn to someone else. BUT that was supposed to be the point, anything LESS than VinCat could NEVER be epic.