Triangles with Bella and Jill and also Sage/Jade are very optional if your MC misbehaved. And I think that this shit will start to open up towards the end of Season 3, and maybe in the fourth. Thinking back to Acting Lessons, the DPC will have some insane drama towards the end - and as much as we'd like to, it's going to be a very long wait. Some may not live to see that day.
Episode 9 shows the beginning of a relationship with your LI and the potential problems that may come up. In addition to the problems you mentioned, it's also: Sage's anger issues and her reluctance to talk about early childhood, which gives mysteries, it just does not give me peace of mind why she reacted to the question about her biological mother in such a way.
Hints of problems Trouple, which can go to madness.
A humiliating relationship for a man with Jill (this is my personal point of view) and a bumpy route with Bella. The MC, who chose Others, torments himself with philosophical reflections "did I do the right thing" and is sad alone in his room, although he can get any pussy.
Here we agree on one thing: the MC does not know what he wants on the route of others.
As for Episode 5, don't forget that he presented the biggest challenge for the player for the entire Season 2: DIK's mansion is destroyed and you have to deal with this problem. The start of the new season introduces the "major challenge". From my point of view, such a main challenge that opened Episode 9 for the whole season - Vinny. This is a fucking problem. This thug can bring a lot of trouble to DIK's, MC and those he cares about. He has turned into a dangerous criminal and you can tell from his behavior whether he can use this gun. I think he can. Vinny, according to DIK's, was always fucked in the head and had no brakes.
I understand what you are saying, but I don't see what Chapter 9 would have changed, what stories would have closed
Sage didn't explain to MC who her adoptive parents were when she asked him to accompany her, that she doesn't want to tell him about her real parents doesn't surprise me one bit
that her biological mother also harbors trauma is yet another mystery to deal with, but it doesn't change anything about the dynamics between MC and Sage, the anger issues she had before and still has now, she wanted a threesome with Quinn and now says she wants more
and likewise the other LIs are exactly what they were before with the same difficulties (Bella's past, Jill's family, Maya's loan etc.)
everything (with a few exceptions like M&J) had already happened in the previous chapter.
even for Jill and Bella the ninth chapter rehashes the decision they made, with a situation that we don't know how it might evolve, and for Jill it invents a temptation that really makes no sense (MC too Chick to touch Melanie's butt and Sara instead has the nerve to squeeze that of her girlfriend's best friend for no real reason, just to stir things up)
MC is also exactly the same as in the eighth chapter; in fact, he too has taken a few steps back from being the new Tommy, the unofficial vice president of the DIKs, to being the freshman who obeys Tommy's orders and puts up with his mood swings.
have the premises of the third season been set? may be, but we will only know that in retrospect, Vinnie may well wait until the last season to deflagrate completely.
the disconnect was created by the eighth chapter, the ninth did not invent anything and did not even harmonize anything that had already happened