Just watched the first 3 seasons

I binge watched it, so I kind of saw a pattern developing.

Why did this fun, quirky story about a lovable eccentric young man spiral into a dark, dreary drama about mental illness, wrecked families, suicide, disfunctional relationships?

I know, I know, "It's all a part of life". But I feel a bit cheated, because that wasn't the general idea.

All the characters got much darker.

Josh started out very... immature and uncaring for others, and in season 1 I asked myself if he actually has Schizoid Personality Disorder. I'm still not sure he has emotions in the classical sense of the word. He just looks very... rigid, but he's always making jokes and smiling as stereotypical behavior so you don't notice it.

The Dad started out as a lovable buffoon who left his family in a douche move, but turned into this broken, defeated, almost senile old man.

The Mom went from "depressed after being dumped" to full blown very strongly ill Bipolar patient. Although the actress did an amazing job at portraying both depressed and manic, and the writing is spot on. It's amazing how her face is blank and pale when she's doing very badly, and how they subtly show her developing the cognitive deficits all mentally ill people deal with. Still, is this the route we wanted for her?

Tom is just a slob. He's blank. The only time he showed any human emotions was when the Rabbit Girl slapped and belittled him. Other than that he's just... gotten stiffer and blanker since season 1.

And as much as I liked Claire in the beginning, I think she is terribly selfish and actually evil. She treats Tom and Josh as disposable nobodies and uses them to recover emotionally after going through hell in Germany, then just dumps them without saying goodbye. Also, she is very unfair to Tom, enjoying to wreck all of his relationships every time she arrives.

I love all of them. They're cute and the writing is smart and I feel very drawn into their world. But I also have this prevalent feeling that something is moving in a very bad direction and they've actually started making me feel depressed.