I was laughing my ass off in almost every episode in season 11 because Dennis seemed to be at his absolute peak antisocial personality. Most of the show was coherent and flowed well. The characters were narcissistic, scratched libs and constantly concern trolling each other. Things were largely grounded in reality.
Then season 12 and up, things just got weird and tiresome to watch. Like things just happen back to back and everything is grandiose. The character development is undeserved because they cram in so much shit in 20 minutes (like the episode of Mac coming out as gay is just Frank yelling the same thing for 20 minutes then Mac dances. Come on. They had a whole season to build up to it and instead they just did this shit). It feels like I’m watching Uncut Gems but instead of being stressed out, I’m just annoyed by the wild stories and annoying characters. Like the one episode of season 16 parodies the anal vibrator chess scandal because the scheme is…?
And now the gang is soft as hell and actually getting offended as opposed to be socially conscious for their own agendas. And honestly, I think they could’ve dulled out the characters if they played it out right, like with how Dennis wanted to be a family man, that’s a valid path to make him less antisocial and misogynistic, and proceed to do this one by one for each character then ending the show.
I felt like the little commentary they had about the post-9/11 zeitgeist in the early seasons was funny and subtle at times. But it seems like the trump era really made everyone fucking annoying. Somehow they managed to fumble the plot line about the gang being responsible for the boater coup at the capitol which should’ve flowed naturally with the show.
