Skipping filler is normal and those lists are mostly just someone else's taste dressed up as fact. I fell into the same trap with a long running anime where a guy swore the first 40 episodes were a rite of passage. Got to episode 30, bored out of my mind, and quit. Felt weird for like a day and then I moved on. Your buddy Dave asked the right question, because if you can't say why you're watching something, that's your answer right there. Watch order is a suggestion, not a rule, and nobody is grading you on it.

That stale code thing is the worst because the app looks like it's working fine right up until it isn't. I had a similar mess last year where my phone clock drifted a couple minutes and every code was dead on arrival. Digging out a backup key from 2018 is a real mood, glad you actually kept yours.