The show, especially near the end, does a very good job of guiding the viewer through the struggles and pain of a militia of child soldiers and freedom fights going up against a global power. It stays away from MAGIC GUNDAMMU SOULU and plot armor and most of the nonsense that keeps me from enjoying non-UC Gundam and a lot of anime as a whole. Every small victory, especially from the point that they realize the war is lost and the only chance they have is to run, is ripped from them and it translate pretty well through the show. It does all this very well. I couldn't get into the S2 McGillis "No, seriously guys, I'm sitting in the big chair. This means I'm the boss. Why isn't anyone listening to me????? I'M IN THE BIG CHAIR!" shit, but that's whatever. I actually couldn't get into like 99% of McGillis, he was sorta ugh, and given how central he was to the plot that kinda sucked.
Where I think IBO lost me and left me feeling "eh" was the epilogue. The entire S2, especially the second half, is the global war machine stepping on the necks of the upstart revolutionaries. There are assassinations in the streets, the equivalent of using illegal chemical weapons on their compounds to kill women and kids indiscriminately, and media manipulation to make the freedom fighters look like terrorists who just want to kill people. This is all done very well. Then you get fucking BUT HEY LOOK WE DECIDED THAT EVERYTHING WE JUST KILLED EVERYONE FOR WASNT THAT GREAT ANYMORE LETS HAVE DEMOCRACY AND GIVE UP ALL OUR POWER AND GIVE UP MARS AND PRETEND WE DONT SEE ALL THESE FUCKS THAT TRIED TO LAUNCH A JAVELIN AT MY SHIP BEFORE I NUKED THEIR COMPOUND FROM ORBIT
)))))))))))))))))))))))).
The epilogue left me so ambivalent about everything that happened before. It made zero sense in relation the rest of the show and does nothing to wrap anything up. The only part that has characters being true to themselves (besides Kudelia doing Kudelia things) is Ride shooting that Nobliss on the shitter. As shitty as it is, the show (for me), needed to end with Gjallarhorn waving their big, extra-global-imperialist dick all over the screen. Broadcasting to the world that they saved all the people from certain doom and the terrorists have been killed and we made Earth great again, while Tek members hide out on Earth living their lives as cooks or mechanics or whatever. Like, it would've been perfectly fine to have the survivors living happily on Earth with their families, living small lives, but in fear of being caught as ex-terrorists or whatever. Maybe even plotting an assassination against Rustal or something.
I don't know, this is a big wall of text, but I think how they ended it undid a lot of the good that the show did for me.