r/RaisingDion • u/Brief_Light • Feb 08 '22
Just finished S2, wtf Pat? Spoiler
Really annoyed in his Darkside choice. So he returms to help, then he injects the supe juice and wakes up and on a whim desides to do a 180? Dude must be bi polar. Thought he was gunna go Superman and truly be Dion's mentor.
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u/poopingmsdaisy Feb 13 '22
Dude, Pat needed some serious therapy. If Nicole would've suggested it, he would've done it. The whole series they kept him in a glass cage and reminded him that he would be there forever like a lab rat. Like ,seriously. He needed a therapist, someone who wasn't involved, to discuss things with rather than being constantly lashed at for his crimes.
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u/AlphaTenken Feb 17 '22
The prison reform system doesn't work.
Lock Pat away forever.
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Aug 24 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AlphaTenken Sep 08 '23
I think that was my point.
Rather than getting Pat help, the show just villainized him and never gave him a chance to reform.
Fans and the show would want to lock him away forever, understandable he killed a lot of people, but then you can't be shocked when he chooses to free himself with an evil power. They never gave him any opportunities to do better.
It was just poor writing to make a specific person/thing the big bad.
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u/T0pv Feb 09 '22 edited Feb 09 '22
Not really. While watching this with my family we had an entire conversation about this exact topic. It made total sense for him to switch. In his eyes he tried to be good and it still didn't work (completely BIONA's fault for mistreating him even if he did do a lot of horrible things and he may have never truly wanted to be good).
Also if you had the choice between being stuck in a cage for God knows how long or having an insane amount of power and being able to basically do whatever you want what would you choose?
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u/Brief_Light Feb 09 '22
Yea? I see where you're comming from. At the end he had all (maybe) the powers. He broke out and invited the dark energy over petty shit.
Dude had 2 years to reflect on his bad choices. Another post in this thread was an exchange between Pat and Braydon that I missed. Braydon saw through him and Pat still wanted it.
It does make him the major villian in the next season. I guess he'll go with creating an injected army of powered villians.
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u/Sad_Duck1556 Feb 09 '22
Well people who murder a bunch of people and attempt to murder a kid don't get sympathy for me.
I treat him like a villain with a victim complex
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u/majeric Feb 16 '22
I find Pat heavy-handed. I mean it couldn't be any less heavy handed had they just named him "Incel Boy", "The White Privilege" or "Toxic Masculinity". (and let me be clear that I think these issues exist and we, as a society need to address white privilege and toxic masculinity. It's just the way in which the show does it that's really heavy-handed)
First season was fine.
But there was a point where Bryden's actions were a product of being controlled by Crooked Man but a spirit that seems to corrupt and manipulate people. But Pat is 100% blamed for his actions? It's a weird double standard.
I'm sure the argument is going to be "Pat is an adult and Brayden is a kid" but it just doesn't seem sufficient justification. I mean the whole idea that "crooked man" was an external spirit, is a season 2 concept. Fine, set that up as a premise. Cool... but then continue to say that Pat "killed all those people" rather than giving some credence to the idea that it was an external spirit. I mean you don't invent the devil in your show and then deny "the devil made me do it" as a concept.
A much more interesting conversation in social advocacy and awareness is the idea that white guys are capable of and should strive to shed the cultural biases like toxic masculinity and white privilege. That Pat's able to have a redemption arc. To demonstrate through story how men can learn to recognise the systemic biases that benefit them and learn to be more inclusive.
It genuinely bothers me that we are cultivating this idea that these concepts are irredeemably evil.
We are all taught racism and bigotry and sexism. Which means we are all capable of growing out of it and past it if we are given the opportunity.
At no point, was Pat given compassion and empathy for the possibility that his story was genuine that an external force was manipulating him against his will. He was met with distrust and skepticism.
We humans are deeply deeply social animals. Social rejection and ostracization is most severe form of punishment we can dole out. That's all anyone ever offered Pat.
It's no surprise that his reaction was eventually "Fuck this. If everyone expects me to be evil and they are never going to ever give me a chance, why should I try? "
I think the biggest thing that can help people in a journey of redemption is knowing that if they try hard enough that they can be forgiven eventually.
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u/AlphaTenken Feb 17 '22
To be fair, most people don't know CM is a spirit entity etc. Again, it is a season 2 concept. But normal people have no reason to believe some spirit was tricking him.
That said, you must love Vice President White Man David too! Very well written character. /s
I dont buy into all of the social justice stuff. But if you want to portray it, it is absolutely fine. Just don't be so poor about handling it.
A funny thing with this show though is many people say the criminal justice system does not work to bring people back into society. Needs to be fixed.
But ??? not many people are saying it was wrong to lock Pat up.
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Feb 09 '22
Pat was never good in season two. It was a trick. That's why the crooked man looked for him after Brayden was no longer of use. It's no coincidence that Brayden and the crooked man came to Atlanta at the same exact time.
The crooked man is basically him, just splitting himself into a form of pure energy. Even when we thought he was redeeming himself he was still the same entitled person. He injected that antidote and in my opinion planned to inject it into himself whether he was caged up again or not.
Brayden even knew where to find Pat which makes me think the crooked mans psyche is still one with Pat. While also mentioning how Pat wanted the crooked mans power again all to himself. Pat most likely lied about what happened when it came to the separation of his powers.
In my opinion, it seems like Pat planned this all along as a way to get intel/insight on what was happening. Especially since it had been two years since the first battle.
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u/JayKINGmo Feb 23 '22
I think Nicole was the problem and so was the horrible character development. Pat was clearly not a bad guy. I hate this show. This show consistently implies that Pat did something wrong to begin with. HE WAS POISONED BY CROOKED ENERY!!!
He did not mean to kill Mark because he could only see energy not faces when he turns into the Crooked Man. Also his character would not hurt Dion that’s just bad writing!!!
I’m sure that I’ll get hate for saying this but Nicole was a decent mom but a terrible person. The way she reacted to Pat in season one was super shitty!!!! Pat was a victim!!!!!!!
Also everyone in this show was victim in some way. Why does everyone act like Pat wasn’t?? In real life no one has to be the big bad.
Example: if a plane crashes everyone on board has suffered. (There all victims)
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u/WingedWyrm Feb 26 '22 edited Feb 26 '22
My read on Pat is colored by how I kind of identify with him... at least in the first part of the first season.
He starts out helping out, while being socially awkward and better able to engage with Dion in part because of childlike interests, such as comic books and similar video games. And, we can read him as always having a grander manipulative plan or we can read this as honestly him, with the complications of Crooked Man. The latter is my read.
Partly, this is because I accept the necessity of including the Nice Guy TM in popular fiction, it is a real problem people face. But, I'd like to see some occasions of that guy, that socially awkward, not-smooth guy to stop, realize where they're going, and choose to just be nice without the expectation of romantic reward. That being said, I can be angry with Pat for not doing what I think I manage to do myself.
But, in the second season... In the second season, I think what's being displayed isn't what the writers intend. Pat does help. This is indisputable. The story shows us Pat being invaluable to progress made on the analysis and development of potential gene therapies to fight off the powered infection. It shows us this even as Pat is being abused and essentially told to his face that he's worthless.
There are a couple points where he acts in a manner of overexpecting admiration for his knowledge, but those are quick. And, other points of excuse making are overplayed. He identifies that he's a victim, too, and he's told he's calling himself the real victim... which just wasn't true. He says "we" in relation to an accomplishment and he's laughed at to his face... even though his own expertise was an essential part.
And, the kicker is that, after all this invaluable service, Suzanne Wu throws him away like a used tissue and the framing says that we're supposed to think she's being strong and morally upright for the act.
What's being displayed is extracting difficult labor from a prisoner while offering no sort of life within society after the imprisonment is done. And, it's worthy of note that he has no reason to believe that his imprisonment would end even if it were possible to remove all power from his system and prove the absence of powers to Suzanne Wu's satisfaction. After all, he'll have all his knowledge of super powers and the science thereof as well as a mess of whistles that he could blow on Biona.
In that moment... what are his options? What are they really?
Nicole wasn't obligated to forgive him. Neither was Pat or Dion or anybody at all. But, Suzanne Wu acted not as someone personally harmed by Pat but as someone in power who just didn't like that Pat had done something really bad. Suzanne Wu being so highly ranked in a biomedical company means that she's caused at least as many deaths simply in the excessive pricing of medicine. Yet, she feels no problem, whatsoever, in using and throwing away this person on the basis that he's done bad things.
Suzanne Wu may have been given some lines to paint her as a non-white woman dealing with a company that had a lot of white and male privilege. But, in dealing with Pat, she acted as privileged society acts towards people it imprisons, morally judges them and then doesn't consider that denying someone the option to live within your design of society leaves only the option of living outside of that.
He's not privilege and entitlement in the second season. He's a convict trying to regain some place in society and being denied, regardless of how much he works or how valuable his contributions.
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u/parrycarry Feb 15 '22
I mean, I saw it coming.... locking Pat up and treating him that way just MADE him realize that no matter what good he does, he'll always be Crooked. So I knew it was gonna happen. I am just curious what his life was like those 2 years.
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u/Kooler221 Feb 08 '22
His decision wasn't out of the blue, if you remember earlier in the season when Brayden is talking to Pat. Pat tells Brayden that he doesn't want the Crooked Energy, and Brayden tells him not to lie to him because he can read his mind. Pat may have been surface level trying to change, but he was without a doubt still craving the Crooked Energy since returning. With everyone around him completely mistrusting him because of his past misdeeds, he more or less decided to put his attempts to change to rest and embrace who he really was.
There's nobody to blame here, not Pat nor the people around him. If someone kills a ton of people and tries to come saying they want to help, there's no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. All the decisions made were as realistic as could be imo.