Just want to preface this with this is obviously just an opinion and I want to hear other people's thoughts.

I went into this season not paying much attention to the trailers or any of the rumours going around so I didn't really know what to expect. I have plenty of things I like about this season and some other things I don't like but my main issue lies with the character of Hope.

Hope isn't a character, she's a representation of old-fashioned views. I think this is made pretty clear by the fact that she literally holds all of them. Racism? Check. Anti-LGBTQ ? Check. Anti-sex? Check. Anti-self-expression? Check. Anti-drugs? Check. Anti-poo-flinging?...

Her character feeds into a slightly wider issue I have with this season in that the morality messaging is very much in your face in certain places. Don't get me wrong, I think the show is great for it's progressiveness and is one of the reasons why I love it, but in certain scenes it feels clumsy and like the writers are trying to fit in as many social issues as possible. It's obvious that the character of Hope was created for this reason, to make various statements, specifically with regards to sex-positivity and gender.

The main problem with her character is that we have no idea what her motivations are. She's introduced dancing on to stage, which made me originally think we were going to get a headmistress who was whimsical and down to earth, completely different to Headmaster Groff. Instead she imposes authoritarian style rules, is discriminatory towards her students, physically fights her students and publicly humiliates them. And we're meant to believe this is because she can't get pregnant and we're meant to feel sorry for her? Fuck no, I'm glad she can't have kids, imagine the abuse they'd go through!

What's also strange to me is that outside of school, none of the students actually talk about the horrible things she's doing at school until suddenly they're all on the same page and reclaim it (in a great scene, just to insert some positivity). Before this we don't see any parents getting involved, we don't see other teachers standing up to her (even though they clearly don't support her), all prominent characters except Jackson, Viv and Cal just don't seem to care about doing anything.

Her character is only there to represent old-fashioned views, and maybe as a slight distraction from the relationships between other characters. To me she felt unneeded in the story and really didn't add anything.

Interested on hearing your thoughts though, let me know if you liked her & why