DCAS pre-merge is honestly overrated I’m ngl

It’s definitely the better half of the season for sure, but the bar is in hell lol.

Upon rewatching the season back in January, I didn’t enjoy most of the plot lines outright, and the few that I didn’t dislike were not handled nearly as well as they could’ve. There were no twists except for the Joint Elimination Trial in EP9, not even an idol or swap, which made much of my viewing experience painfully boring. I also noticed a lot of the same writing flaws in the earlier episodes that are present in the later episodes.

I see pre-merge AS get lumped in with the other “great pre-merges” but honestly, even DC4 from the F7 onwards is better I’m ngl. The DC4 endgame at least gave us real banger twists and solid episodes in EP22, 23, and 25 (EP25 being one of my all time faves tbh)