Biggest Disappointments of 2019

We got pumped; we ramped up; we were ready to go, and… well… then…

Stuff happened. Or did not happen. Or did not happen how we wished them to.

That’s the thing about disappointment — it’s our primary emotional response to expectations unmet — and boy, does it sting. What were we looking forward to that failed to deliver on its promise? There was quite a bit to choose from; 2019 was a busy year, after all, with sequels, returning seasons, new goodies, and the end of many franchises. There were a lot of hopes riding high this year…so what broke our hearts, and left us out in the rain?

Read on to find out, and bear in mind — spoilers ahead!

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Kelly McCarty: Disappointment is not a strong enough word to describe the white-hot hatred I feel for The Pisces by Melissa Broden. I was intrigued by the book’s eye-catching cover — an auburn-haired woman holding the silhouette of a fish. Human/sea creature romance was having a moment with The Shape of Water winning the Oscar for Best Picture in 2018. I thought the book would be a clever satire of modern dating. I expected it to be darkly funny, in a “Tinder is so terrible that we should date mythical creatures instead” way. The gorgeous cover was the last enjoyable thing about this book.

I have never loathed a fictional character as much I despise Lucy, the main character of The Pisces. Darth Vader? Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones? Scar from The Lion King? None of these murderous villains even comes close to how much I hate Lucy. She is a hot mess. Lucy is a grad student who has been working on her thesis for nine years. Her life spirals out of control when her boyfriend breaks up with her — at her suggestion. She punches him in the face and almost overdoses on Ambien.  She winds up living in her older sister Annika’s beachfront mansion.

If this sounds charmingly disastrous in a romantic comedy heroine way, it is not. You could feel sorry for Lucy, except she is the worst person in the world. She’s lazy, jealous, judgmental, and mean. Her sister gives her a chance to start over and all Lucy thinks about is how Annika is overweight. Lucy abandons her suicidal friend because she has a date. The kicker for me, the event that had me wanting to throw the book across the room, occurred over Annika’s dog. Lucy is living rent-free in an awesome mansion and the one thing that she has to do is take care of Annika’s beloved dog. Instead she neglects him to have sex with gross strangers from Tinder. When the dog doesn’t like Theo, the merman, Lucy starts giving him tranquilizers and accidentally kills him. I wanted to feed her to a school of sharks.

However, The Pisces could serve a purpose. If they assigned it in high school English classes, the teen pregnancy rate would plummet. Sex has never been depicted as unappealingly as it is in this book. Lucy and Theo are supposed to be star-crossed lovers but they barely even have a conversation. They do have disgusting sex on her sister’s sofa, because apparently murdering the dog wasn’t bad enough.

I got this book from the library, and I would still like my money back.

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Kristina Elyse Butke: While I was sorely tempted to go off on the finales to Star Wars and Game of Thrones, there’s plenty of internet criticism to whet your whistle on that, so I’m going to complain about Billy Hargrove’s character arc conclusion in season three of Stranger Things.

We first meet Billy in season two as Max’s stepbrother, a nasty bully victimized by his father who in turn victimizes others. I mean, I do get it, largely because I’ve seen this trope so many times: Billy is powerless when it comes to his father, so in order to regain his sense of power, he manipulates and terrorizes others through his violence or sexuality.

But it seems like an important defect in his character got swept under the rug: this dude is racist. He singles out Lucas in season two the most, threatening his sister: “[…] there are a certain type of people in this world that you stay away from, and that kid, Max…that kid is one of them.” It’s never outright stated that Billy hates Black people, but the subtext is there. His hatred of Lucas escalates to violence in season two, and he doesn’t agree to back off until he gets knocked off his feet. ~Finis~

Then in season three, Billy’s suddenly…Jesus? I guess this season was supposed to be his redemption story. But what makes that type of story work for me is an acknowledgement and accountability for the actions before redemption can happen. I didn’t get that with Billy. First it all, it seemed like all the characters in the show forgot what he did in season two. Suddenly Max, Lucas, Mike, and everyone else is pretty okay with him? Yet before Billy was attacked by the Mind Flayer, the writers made sure to show Billy was still a bully and manipulator in his simple, everyday actions, so did everyone else just ignore this? We didn’t see Billy being racist again, but trust me — in the real world, that switch doesn’t just flip. That attitude does not just disappear. So, where did it go? It’s conveniently forgotten in order to move season three’s plot along.

And that’s what pisses me off. I am so, so tired of narratives featuring white people who are not held accountable for their racism. Instead, the focus is on inducing sympathy in the viewer so they don’t blame the racist bully for their behavior, because later the racist bully will be THE HERO!!! And instead of the racist bully bluntly confronting their own behavior, the creators will just throw a bunch of sad flashbacks at the audience so they can see how deep down, it’s not totally the racist bully’s fault that they are terrible…and thus the audience won’t feel guilty for rooting for him.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that twice this season, Billy says the words “I’m sorry.” But in each situation Billy’s under severe duress (tortured from heat in one instance, actually dying in the next) and thus the apology is ambiguous. This doesn’t work for me and I see it as a weak decision on the creators’ part to have Billy do the bare minimum to become a sympathetic figure.

After being annoyed with a true lack of resolution regarding Billy’s season two behavior, by the time we got to Billy’s Jesus moment, I was seeing stars. It definitely wasn’t subtle — Billy’s even posing like Jesus! And yep, he is martyred here, sacrificing himself to save the others. If the showrunners wanted to go full-blown Messiah with Christian imagery, they forgot something key: the confession of sins before getting forgiveness; and asking for forgiveness in order to get it. Billy’s sacrifice rang hollow and despite the occasional bright spots, I left this season feeling thoroughly unsatisfied.

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Lane Robins: Is it fair to call something a disappointment when you didn’t actually watch all of it? Maybe that’s the disappointing part?

I’m talking about Stranger Things season three, which I was pretty excited about. I’d been dubious about the first season because it seemed like nostalgia bait, but it turned out to be enjoyable! So enjoyable that I really looked forward to season two. And although season 2 had things I hated (Billy! You’re terrible! And not in an interesting way!), and things I didn’t like (the way the boys treated Max; the way Eleven’s interesting journey is spurred by jealousy; the way Hopper mostly cages her), overall, I enjoyed it! I might be the only person who really liked El wandering among the wild kids and finding her “sister.”

But, season two also gave me Steve, the reluctant babysitter of awesomeness. And El doing her own investigating of her life. And Bob! Season two had enough high points that I was looking forward to season three, especially since I’d heard that Max and El were going to be friends.

I sat down with great anticipation and what did I get? HORRIBLE HOPPER. Jesus. Controlling, manipulative, and bad-tempered. A guy who can’t cope with a teenaged boy without threatening him. What a hero. Joyce gives him good advice, but he finds it easier to shout and threaten than to talk to kids. Yeah. Oh, and his rampant jealousy over Joyce? Screw you, Hopper. Just… no. I hated every scene I saw him in so much so that now I have bad feelings about the actor himself.

Okay, but what about the rest of the gang?

Oh, yeah, Nancy’s endless frustration and humiliation at her job. That’s watchable. Not. And Jonathan just not understanding her frustration? Pass.

El and Max getting along? Wonderful! Wait, all they’re doing is strategizing about the boys? Okay, I guess, but I wanted something more. At least their interactions were fun.

What I loved? Steve, Robin, and Dustin trying to figure out the message that Dustin picked up on his ham radio. Funny teamwork! That’s what I like!

Ultimately though, I just couldn’t keep watching and that was disappointing. I made it through three episodes, but couldn’t bring myself to start the fourth.

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Nicole Taft:  Can I say myself for failing in my resolution? No? Ok. Then in that case I’ll have to nominate the Hellboy movie that came out in April.

I had…maybe not high hopes for this movie, but I still had some hopes. While I admit that I didn’t hate it, and still don’t, it was overall a bit of a letdown. Here we were, hoping for something fresh and new in the Hellboy world and what viewers got was a lot of the same, along with some strange story strands and things that felt jumbled or incomplete. Originally I was very excited at the idea of David Harbour in the role of Hellboy, and while I still think he nailed it, the script he was forced to work with didn’t do the poor man justice. In fact, I think the true disappointment over all of this is the fact that I don’t think this movie did well enough to merit a second one. Which, again, is a shame because David Harbour makes a great Hellboy and I’d be excited to see him at it again — this time with a better script. But if a movie has to at least make back what it spent in order to get a sequel…well, it’s not looking good.

Shame.

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Shara White: Do I even need to say it? Apparently, I do: the Game of Thrones finale. When season seven was wrapping up, I had a niggling concern that without George R.R. Martin’s source material to go by, the story was starting to turn into something resembling a more traditional fantasy. There’s nothing wrong with that, but Game of Thrones has NEVER been a traditional fantasy, so while I was excited to see how the arc would wrap, I was concerned too. Add to that concern the fact that George R.R. Martin has yet to put out The Winds of Winter (I know, I know, he’s not my bitch or anyone else’s either), and some lingering bitterness regarding Martin’s own commentary on the series finale of LOST (I swear, I’m the only one who still loves that show), and you’ve got a skeptic going into Game of Thrones’s final season.

What’s funny is this: the ending wasn’t good. It actually wasn’t terrible either. It was forgettable, which is somehow worse. At least with a polarizing ending, people would be talking about it for years to come, but in the end, it’s just a shrug of an ending. I was telling a friend of mine about it at lunch a few weeks ago and had to struggle to remember what happened (save for Dany’s arc).

The thing is this: what works so in the books absolutely worked against the show here. In the books, Martin utilizes a close third-person point of view, allowing his readers to REALLY understand what his characters are thinking and doing and why. So Dany’s thread, should it follow the same path, will likely make far more sense in the books. It’ll be earned.

The show, which does not give us her innermost thoughts, did not earn that ending. Not by a long shot.

Add to the utter lack of chemistry between Kit Harrington and Emilia Clarke (who could’ve predicted that?!?!?), some jarring stops to character arcs that made no sense (Arya? Really?) and closure for characters who didn’t deserve it (they could’ve done so much with Cersei’s end, and they picked the most boring option), and frankly… well, is it any wonder I was disappointed? The answer to the question, “Who sits on the Iron Throne?” became moot, and the new King of Westeros was most certainly a left-field choice, one that might make sense in the books, but again, we don’t have them yet, do we?

They also rendered Jon Snow’s parentage pointless (unless the writers used it as shorthand to motivate Dany, but if that’s the case, still boring), and by time the show was over, it was hard to credit the show for all of the amazing things it’d given us before.

Don’t get me wrong, it did give us some amazing things. But the ending weakened the show considerably in my eyes, and I don’t see myself going back to rewatch it for a long time, if ever.

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Now that we’ve opened our hearts to you and shared some of our pain and frustration, why not unburden yourself in the comments and let us know what speculative works dashed your hopes, pissed you off, or made you roll your eyes? This is a pity party that’s actually fun to join, so we hope you’ll join in the conversation below. And may 2020 be a year of little disappointment!