Serious drama and silly ultra-violence make a very weird combination

If you like adaptations of absurdly ultra-violent and completely unrealistic graphic novels, this show might have something to offer you. But you're going to have to sit through a whole lot of drama about messed-up kids.

And if you like shows/movies about extremely damaged people who come from very bad backgrounds and lash out at the entire world in irrational ways (generally to their own detriment), this show also might have something to offer you. But you're going to have to sit through a ton of very silly and almost entirely pointless ultra-violence.

The show is a really odd mix of those two things, and while clearly there are some people out there that this formula works for, I have to imagine they're going to be a very small minority.

In terms of the drama, you have two very messed up kids from very messed up backgrounds who are at times extremely sympathetic, even as they go about screwing up everything they encounter. These parts are generally very well written and acted, and if it was just a drama about the messed up kids it really might have been decent, but the whole thing is constantly being derailed by the idiotic and utterly cartoonish ultra-violence.

And there is just a ton of absurd, graphic ultra-violence, the impetus for which is generally as implausible as are the results (short-term banged-up faces that completely heal in hours). Much of what goes on should result in fatal injuries, but apparently never does, because otherwise the protagonist would be long-since incarcerated for multiple murders. But don't worry, all wounds are superficial. No one ever breaks a rib, fractures a skull, or sustains any serious damage that won't be completely forgotten in a couple hours.

And then there are the side-characters. My god, has any show ever had a worse cast of side-characters and side-plots? Every time we transitioned back to their pointless and inane nonsense I wanted to shut the whole thing off.

But I didn't, because the drama was good, it had the occasional poignant moment, was sometimes fun, and the show really gave the impression that it was headed somewhere...

Except it wasn't.

I don't think you can call that a spoiler, more like a warning. The whole thing is a build-up to a terrible anti-climax, then ends abruptly (and stupidly). Clearly they thought they were getting a second season, which looks extremely unlikely at this point, 2 years on and the actors already moving to other jobs. Even if they did, the show got so cartoonishly absurd by the end that there's no remotely plausible way they could continue it without throwing out the last semblances of reality, which means all that would remain is the silly violence.