Thread:TDIFan13/@comment-1037137-20131203062620/@comment-1037137-20131203220341

Well let's not forget that the writing, most especially that of Ed MacDonald, probably played a hand in this. That's probably why those behaviors came off as sudden rather than gradual.

Personally, I really don't see a problem with her portrayal on most counts. She made some terrible mistakes in TDA and TDWT and I see her as trying to redeem herself and make up for them, because what she did in those, especially TDWT, was so offensively OOC for her. TDWT was truly a low point in her portrayal, making her selfish, impulsive, and a liar. And that was painful to watch. As for her being upset over being a villain, I saw that as a good thing, she was paying a price for her dishonest actions and started to realize the scope of her mistakes. It's not the first time her image concerned her, she was greatly troubled by how people would receive her after the events of TDA, where she was scorned by many and trying to explain herself.

Well I can't say I am upset about the Gwuncan breakup, I felt that that needed to go. But it could've played out a lot better. I thought it moved too fast too. And as for Regatta, well Duncan really set himself up for that fall. Nobody told him to blow up the Playa Des Losers, that was his decision. (Yeah, it's the Playa, and yet none of the characters acknowledged it as such)

I get some of where you're coming from. Stuff we've seen before got repeated but they didn't do anything new with it, or didn't make things better.

Mal vs. Zoey was WAY too slow to develop. Mal isn't as good a villain as I thought he would be. And Zoey took a little too long to recognize that he had taken over.

I was hoping Gwen and Courtney would be redeemed in this, and even Duncan if that could be made to happen. But not much came of him and what they did to Courtney in Moon Madness and Sunday Muddy Sundae was nothing short of inexcusable. Just like Gwen shouldn't have to be the loner goth of the strictest terms all her life, Courtney shouldn't have to be bitter and cold all the time. Especially since none of the others spited her and Gwen made an almost full-blown apology for the Duncan-related tension. They seemed on track with that until Episode 11, and I'm very upset about that. And Gwen was cast in a bad light in that one too.

For me, the only good thing to come out of their story was that Gwuncan ended and therefore their old tension finally ended. But sadly, it's a hollow victory considering what happened in Episode 11.

But these stories could've still been made good if they made any effort to address the problems they created in earlier seasons, stuff fans didn't like. I thought All-Stars was supposed to fix things, not drag things out under the old status quo.

I don't think Gwen was derailed, I just think like others they botched up her redemption arc with inconsistent actions and poor pacing. I do still think she's bouncing back from her TDA/TDWT days, but they still could've done better in making that solid. My problem is the character development was not handled well and a good deal of it was ultimately thrown away. For no good reason at all.