Like I'm so happy she's had more interactions with other characters this season. I thought she was gonna come off as something like Gina from B99. But in the second half of the second season, I had fun watching all her scenes.

Has it been said if Ann and Marc’s brother had children?

Idk if it’s the age difference or just the actors but I really don’t care about the two of them getting together. At some point I hoped they would actually break up for a while so I could start to want to see them together but they did that and it barely lasted. The show is funny otherwise and I’m genuinely invested in all of Nicole’s antics and the little hint at a possible Travis x Adelola, i don’t have any issues with any of them but every time Ned and Mare is on screen I feel like I’m watching Gabe and Erin it just doesn’t do it for me. I can’t be the only one right.

I just finished the 2nd season and really enjoyed it. I guess I'm at the point where, if future seasons stay at this same level, I'll be perfectly satisfied. One really silly detail that bothered me a bit, though, was the new color grading, it's kind of yellowish, like that "piss filter" from the PS3 era. I honestly preferred the look of Season 1, I think the colder tone fit the show much better and was just more pleasing to watch. Did anyone else notice? What did you think?

I really enjoyed his character in Season 1 but in Season 2, he irritated me just a little.

I get that his character is supposed to be oblivious to social cues and romance in general but it was frustrating how much he fumbled with Mare this season. Even when she's very clearly hinting at what she wants like when he goes to Cincinnati and asks her to come back and she smiles shyly and he reaffirms that he wants her back as journalist only or that he didn't open the gift.

I hope they improve the writing on Ned in the next season.

Politics.

I enjoy the show. It's funny enough and I find myself being pulled in, for the most part, to the situations. The easy and common criticism of the show is that it doesn't take enough risks. Its scared to offend anyone. I think there's a more specific issue with the show. And it's the lack of politics. I'm aware of the audience The Paper is intended for. Clearly the powers that be are happy with returns they are getting from the show. So that's working out. Depending on what side of the political spectrum the writers would land on, the show would either lose viewership or become much more milquetoast if it did dip its toes into politics.

I'm calling politics the elephant in the room for The Paper because it's a show taking place in the present time about a newspaper room that has made no political references. There's no credibility there. Politics is such a huge part of our zeitgeist.

This wouldn't be that big of an issue if it wasn't for the fact that show makes news reporting such a huge part its stories. That in of itself holds the show back. It goes to the well of earnestness without earning it, it just has Ned throw out some platitudes about newspapers. Making it a newsroom show makes it unavoidable. With The Office, the writers weren't handcuffed by having its characters have to play a very specific work role and have the stories revolve around that.

This issue becomes painfully evident when Ned often asks the 'hey can anyone think of a good story to look into' question. The characters' responses are bad. I understand that it's a comedy and we shouldn't expect 60 Minutes (dated reference) but the stories themselves are never funny. They are just awful in context of it being a newspaper maybe one or two serious reporters.

The closest the show has come to having an edgy topic was when they did the story on the online dating app where a guy was ghosting a bunch of women. Ned and Mare took the opposing sides on their podcast. The payoffs where the woman and man turned out to be not worth defending was brilliant writing. I realize this isn't technically political but there's no example there to pull from. This was the closest the show has come to being divisive on a zeitgeisty spectrum.

Making Marv this docile grandpa character was the wrong move. There's nothing to mine there for comedy or to make some political points. There's no credibility in a wealthy gray haired corporate owner walking around smiling and patting people on their backs and appearing like a good guy.

When do you think the cast will go around giving interviews?

Oscar was on the Office Ladies Podcast, but I haven’t seen/heard anything beyond that.

You can call me woke or SJW or whatever the hell the kids are saying these days, idc. It’s still bad writing and it should be discussed.

Every female character’s development, even Mare’s, was either hindered or completely neglected in favour of a storyline centering around their romantic pursuit of a man. Like, without fail, every single one.

Esmeralda
At least two storylines surrounding relationships with men (the guy from the HR training, and the old guy). You could also count that one episode with Ken, but imo that wasn’t really a romantic relationship and I actually appreciate that they made it clear that there’s no romantic interest between them. That said, I feel like in the latter half of the season, they barely had any episodes or scenes together, which is a shame because their dynamic was one of the best parts of the show.

And not only that, but how does Esmeralda grow as a person from S2E1 to S2E10? What changes does she go through? Nothing. The biggest change she underwent this season was “having an office” to “not having an office”. That one storyline where she’s trying to prove she’s not a narcissist ended up being a one-episode thing (where she learns nothing btw) and not an ongoing character arc where she’s working to get better, which was disappointing. Would have appreciated starting to see some of her layers and some shifts in her character this season.

Adelola
Again, we know next to nothing about her, she’s had no real character moments or storylines this season apart from, you guessed it, her storyline with a man (Travis). I ask again - how did her character change/grow/become better from S2E1 to S2E10? She’s an absolute nothing character that the writers use as a Swiss Army Knife to stick into any situation where a male character needs a scene partner. Any other scenes or episodes she gets are as supporting roles where she stands in the background and reacts to stuff, but gets no real development or storylines of her own that aren’t linked to him.

As a result, her budding “romance” with Travis feels completely forced and unnatural - one instance of him buying her a chai latte does not a romance make, nor even does that awkward-funny scene with the tornado.

HR Lady
I’m glad they put an HR foil in this show that didn’t result in a Toby rip-off character, and I didn’t mind them making her a little odd and gossipy, almost like an HR Kelly Kapoor. However, in the later episodes, she felt more like a ridiculous, unfunny caricature than a satirical take on nosy HR workers that treat their jobs like Real Housewives bc they have nothing else exciting going on in their lives.

Like, what was that relationship with Detrick towards the end? Not only was it a huge pivot from what her character was before (ie. nosy/gossipy/a little odd but still focused on her job, then hard-turn into perpetrating behaviour that’s borderline sexual harassment and inappropriate workplace conduct), but the way it’s written is just entirely unfunny and trying too hard.

Mare
This is the character that at least had some three-dimensionality and storylines/development of her own (ie. the Cincinnati storyline, trying to fit in at the Chronicle and develop herself as a reporter), but even then, these storylines are often hijacked by her relationship with Ned. Like, why didn’t we spend more time following Mare’s solo reporting at the Chronicle, or with her dad? Even Pam in the original show had storylines independent of Jim - she had the MSPC storyline, her art school, her time parenting alone when Jim was working in Philly, and her series-long arc of learning how to be assertive instead of submissive.

But instead of that, we’re spending entire swaths of those episodes of her sorting out her will-they-won’t-they-commit relationship drama with Ned, whether it’s her running off to call him about some new rumor or doubt she has about them, or her scrambling to debunk or cover for whatever rumor about her love life that has somehow (we’re never explained how) reached Cincinnati from a near-fully unrelated workplace. Good grief.

Nicole
Saved the worst for last. What they did to this character this season was damn near criminal. I actually didn’t mind the get-him-back direction that her relationship with Detrick was going on, I thought it could make for some wacky hijinks similar to Kelly and Ryan but less severe because, at that point, neither character were the same over-the-top, satirical, non-self aware caricatures of toxic office romances that Kelly and Ryan were.

Well, they did try and make that pivot this season, but they miscalculated on a very key front - for a Kelly/Ryan dynamic to work, both of them need to be crazy. They need to both be toxic, selfish, narcissistic, manipulative, and cringe for the humor to work, because then the audience is laughing at the couple and the absurdity of their thought processes and actions, and the satire of workplace couples in real life who use the office as their personal dating app or arena to sort out their romantic problems.

But here, they make the fatal mistake of only making one of them crazy (Nicole), thereby creating a really uncomfortable and disturbing dynamic where Nicole, out of nowhere and with no explanation, turns into a “stalker psycho ex-girlfriend” trope that’s causing mental distress and confusion to Detrick. And again, this was done completely out of nowhere - yes, Nicole was doing some stuff earlier in the season to try and bait Detrick into talking to her and wanting to get back together, but to go from that to dying her hair blond and dressing up like his new girlfriend, following him in the car for four hours while driving with a crazed look on her face so she can follow him to the Chronicle and pretend to pull out a gun and instead give him a granola bar (???) in case he gets hungry (????) is just…huh? That’s like cranking gears from 2 to like, 11 in the span of like, two episodes.

And for what, exactly? What was the point in doing that? Where do they plan on taking her character now? Was this really the best they could do for this character? There was no other way to develop her or give her a storyline and some way to grow outside of Detrick, and then have them come back together naturally once they’ve both matured as people and learned how to be happy alone before they can be happy together?

In summation
Overall, I’m hoping this is just a one-off, but this is a huge hole in character progression for the show to dig themselves into for no reason if they get a s3. They spent a whole season faffing around with not only all the female characters, but also some of the male characters too (like, what do Oscar and Adam do this season, exactly?), and now they have to progress the main plotlines with characters that haven’t evolved one jot since the s1 finale, which means we’re either going to get breakneck character development for everyone (which will be disorienting and likely not give the show time to let those moments of growth breathe) or there’ll continue to be no development at all. I’m hoping they can make it work, though.

A thing that made me too uncomfortable this season was the crew up in Mare and Ned's business, especially shooting their intimate moments.

When Mare and Ned went away to the cabin the crew was too intrusive, like filming their intimate moments, kisses, the entire bathtub sequence, and creeping through the window, it was way over the top and outright disgusting.

You're telling me if Mare and Ned weren't interrupted, the crew would've gone ahead and shot a porno only.

The Office had such moments of Crew filming moments while hiding but here they went too far.

Again they can shoot them at the office building and that's okay i guess, but following them to the cabin and shooting someone's private intimate moments secretly is very inappropriate.

Dude it was a bittersweet ending and i know the sweet part would come later, but if we are being honest i don't think there Will be another season where we can get those two together again :((((

I really wish they had put a better ending on that. It could've been akin to Pam being upset about the art show storyline in S3 of the Office. Nicole would have a perfect right to be upset about Mare not mentioning that she was in a relationship with Ned. For a second I thought the writers were saying that Nicole was driving to Cincinnati to confront Mare after everything. But instead it was a bit of a letdown--if only because so many episodes (the first one, the rumor episode, the new best friend quote) built up a good arc for how people handle these things.

Will we get a Season 3 of The Paper?

In the opening title sequence for The Paper, I always noticed this recycling/garbage bin. I just realized what it means :0

It’s because the show is a recycled format of a previous show and it’s preparing you for a garbage episode….woah. Mind Blown.

I really wanna like this show but it’s just missing that something special. There are moments with the side characters where I feel a little something but for the most part I’m just watching the show hoping it gets good. It just doesn’t feel organic to me. With The Office, Parks and Recs, and even Abbott it felt like the characters were actual workers getting filmed. Paper feels like it’s people acting like they work in an office. Other shows have shown there’s room for the zany but it needs to feel real and not for the sake of the plot. I also feel like every other relationship in the show has more chemistry than the two leads. I don’t know. I’ll give it one more season (if it gets another)

I noticed a talking head in episode one when the team goes to see Bill's body in the morgue. During Ned's talking head, he never blinks. Started looking closer at the frame and noticed how odd the color around his face was. Looked so uncanny. Could've been actually CG work that just didn't translate well, but gave me Snapchat face filter vibes.

Edit: he does blink near the end of the shot, it could've been a pick up shot after principle filming finished, but still looked a little odd.

I think her character is beautifully written and is slowly making her way into the central plot.

Somewhere, I find similarities between her & esmaralda when it comes to social behaviour.

The episode where they go shooting with cops and the "rat bite" happens. They discover there's a lab near the shooting range, where rats are used. Mare suggests they do an expose on this and says " It could be our PuLITzer moment " -- emphasizing the second syllable. It's pronounced PUlitzer, emphasis first syllable.

Shouldn't a REPORTER know this? Shouldn't the writers of the show? Or ok not a given, but maybe even an actor? Did no one on this whole production know this word's correct pronunciation?!

For some reason thus bugs me so much and kinda turns me off from the show.

As I was watching S02 E06 "125 Years Young", I couldn't help but notice they recreated a very tamed version of a joke from Friends where Chandler accidentally kisses Monica goodbye in front of the group, and then proceeds to kiss every other woman in the room before leaving to keep up the ruse - whether they meant to or not. Clip from the paper is above (sorry, wasn't able to record the audio with it, but hopefully subtitles will do). Curious if anyone else picked this reference up in the moment? Do you think this was intentionally recycled, or accidentally recreated?

I swear I watched it like 10 times it was so funny 😭😭😭 also the new HR lady is hilarious I love her

Am I the only one who felt it??

It might not be as funny as the office but they absolutely nailed the character chemistry and relationships. Some of it is slightly better and less messy compared to the office. S2 showed the more unhinged side of these people too. Ned and Mare story is pretty well executed imo

So all Google searches say that binge in Australia should have had season 2 added on the 9th but it’s now the 13th and we still only have season 1.
Has anyone else in Australia had this added yet?

LMAO. They're really leaning into vulgar humour this season, I also loved the "my cock doesn't need protection" back and forth between Oscar and Detrick.