The story of S2 tries to recreate some of the "minor thing becomes big and sprawling" magic, and I don't think it succeeds particularly well. The last episode is just bonkers, and it doesn't adequately tie up loose ends for me. The obvious thing would have been for Chairwoman Park to kill all of them, as she surely did with Eunice, and cover it up. So it's not about the plot or the resolution, per se.
I enjoyed the treatment of relationships under capitalism. The two main couples are an obvious foil for each other; both are on the outskirts of a wealthy ecosystem that engages them but clearly doesn't see or respect them.
Money/power - or the lack of it - creates pressure in these relationships. They operate transactionally (Ashley and Woosh demanding a promotion, Austin coaxing affection out of Eunice).
The relationships also reverse. At the beginning, you think Austin and Ashley are about true love, and Josh/Lindsay are clearly the deteriorating ones. And that's true, for a bit. Ashley gets increasingly unhinged, Austin drifts away. Neither of them know anything about anything, much less who they are, so Austin thinks he's found love in Eunice and knowledge in ChatGPT, and Ashley thinks she's found stability in a new job, new clothes, and pregnancy. At the end, they betray Eunice for money.
Meanwhile, Josh and Lindsay, already a toxic relationship at the start, show some elements of connection and concern for the other person, even through their divorce. They know (more) who they are and how they want to be as people. Josh's sacrifice at the end is the closest thing to selflessness in the season, because he's not thinking about money anymore. In prison, he seems lighter and freer. He has let Lindsay go so she can find happiness.
Having too little money makes people behave badly. And lest you think that having enough money makes you more likely to behave as a genuine person, you get a clear counterexample from Chairwoman Park and all of the club members.
It struck me as a reminder that you need to know who you are as a person, to have your moral core defined, so you know what to do when shit goes down. If you wing it, you just become a hollow money-maximizing automaton.
