[Xeiros]

There's an obvious disconnect between the context of the show's universe and reality. The songs you heard in the episode were professionally written and are not in any way indicative of what a bunch of high school girls many of whom have had no vocal, dance, etc training let alone experience would be capable of producing.

Did Aqours song come off as a last place, this is terrible, you're out of your league performance to you? Could you tell they were anything resembling bad and need to improve based solely on that performance alone? Imagine if the actresses had actually sung poorly, messed up the lyrics, and the animation had shown clear mistakes in the execution of their sloppily planned dance choreography. Where you could tell easily and without a doubt that they were the worst group. Not because the group wasn't even fully formed or it was still only the first cour and it wouldn't make any thematic or narrative sense for them to succeed that quickly.

No, we got a not at all high school performance of a song that will be sold in a real life for money and had to just accept that it was subpar. The group had only recently gotten its sixth member. It was too soon.

Though just as with the first season it's doing a poor job of showing the difference between raw beginners with no training and experienced well trained professionals when every insert song in the shows is a professionally written and performed song. When they win love live next cour, compare their winning song with this one. According to this episode it should be worlds better in every respect. It won't be. It'll be the same overproduced professionally written idol music with on real difference in quality within that medium.