maybe I went in expecting a softer version of Arthur

I think I expected the possessive-president trope to soften a bit once you get past the first exchange, the way it usually does, but with Arthur it mostly stays exactly as intense as the opening promises, grabbing your ankle mid-escape and calling you troublemaker isn't really an outlier moment, it's more the baseline. Maybe that's the point of the character and I just wasn't braced for it. It's well written for what it's going for, I just think I'd have appreciated a note about how uncompromising the tone stays before jumping in.