User blog comment:JoshTheKing3/Dave Got DERAILED/@comment-4726418-20190412073008

Why is derailment automatically a bad thing? It means to act the opposite of how you'd act, but people keep misinterpreting it in fiction as bad writing of someone acting 'out of character.' The objective truth of Dave is that he was always planned and written to go from the most human and cynical to end up being the most paranoid and hostile of the whole cast, at least of that season. You can like it, you can dislike it, but that's what happened. He's not the only one in the show who went through drastic changes. Courtney in TDA, Scott in AS, Scarlett, and Emma are all examples of this and are predominantly popular. And all go through just as much sudden but logical changes as Dave does. So why does he always get flack by people? Even in his audition, it's easy to tell he's pretty anxious and doesn't know who he wants to be, and if you inspect closely, with each episode he gradually grows more unhinged.

The only example of derailment that I'd call out of character and doesn't make any sense is Gwen in AS. She had no traces left of what she was in the first season. It made no sense. But Dave's 'derailment' does.