Elementary: Breathe (6x13)

Sherlock Holmes you utter sweetheart.

Cons:

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, I found the subplot to be super compelling, while the main story didn't grab my attention as much. More than just not grabbing my attention, I felt like the case this week was a little too... odd. The victim, it turns out, is a super successful hit man who has murdered tons of people over the years. But then it turns out that the victim actually killed himself and framed someone else in a ploy to help his illegitimate child get cheaper access to life-saving medication. This is just a little too bizarre for me. The setup was really intriguing, and then I feel like it went off the rails just an itty bit.

Pros:

The one thing I did like about the case was how it took shots at the pharmaceutical industry. Elementary is often surprisingly political for a show on CBS, and it often takes successful shots at Capitalist America, all through the lens of Sherlock Holmes, aloof British dude above it all. Maybe all of these "woke" political opinions are just lip-service, but they are kind of fun to hear all the same.

Suits: Pecking Order (8x02)

Okay, I enjoyed this perfectly fine. Still missing Mike, but what else is new?

Cons:

I'm... not sure what to make of parts of Louis' story this week. I didn't mind the stuff with Sheila, but then there's the ending, when Louis barges in, yells at Harvey and Robert, and gets an engraved clock as an apology/olive branch. Sometimes with Louis I can never tell what he'll think of things. Is this enough to appease him, or is this whole thing about being a third wheel going to be a continuing theme throughout the season? If the latter, I'm not sure how to feel about that. The fact is, Louis is the third wheel. The show has positioned itself that way. So every time Louis demands a seat at the table, he comes across as some idiot full of impotent rage. Not sure how to rectify this, or if it's even possible to fix at this point.

Pros:

Sheila and Louis are a lot of fun, though. They're just weird enough to make you slightly uncomfortable, but it never goes too far. I also like the fact that Louis is genuinely okay with not being managing partner, but he wants the respect of being treated like an equal. This makes sense to me. Harvey respects Robert and is totally comfortable with his decision, but Louis is right - Harvey and Robert didn't really think of Louis as a possibility, and that's not right. He certainly made his point with the screaming at the end!

Elementary: Meet Your Maker (6x12)

Oooh Marcus Bell subplot! Yay!

Cons:

The case this week had a few too many strange twists and turns. First it was about an online friendship, then about a "financial dominatrix," then about weird convention circuits, then about illegal gun manufacture. In some ways it was fun to have no idea where any of this was going, but in other ways it was strange how many leaps we had to take to get to the end. It wasn't bad or anything, just maybe a few too many strange paths to go down.

Pros:

I do like that this case was one that started as a private client for Joan. I feel like we're actually getting more consistent examples of her work and how she does on her own, which I greatly appreciate. Her sister actually referred this guy to Joan, and only after Joan realizes it's a kidnapping does she call in the NYPD. From there, Sherlock does lend his assistance, but it remains Joan's gig most of the way through, which I thought was a lot of fun.

Suits: Right-Hand Man (8x01)

I miss Mike so much. This is gonna be rough, guys. I'm going to be honest, here - Mike and Harvey's relationship was about 90% of why I watched this show. And if I'm being even more honest, Gina Torres was most of the other 10%. Now that I've lost that, I'm not sure what's left. But I'm not a quitter - I'll commit myself to Season Eight of Suits, at the very least. If this show gets renewed again, I might be hanging up my hat at the end of Season Eight. But my heart is open to the possibilities. Let's talk about this.

Cons:

Katherine Heigl. It's a little hard for me to evaluate her without taking into account everything I know about her as a person. The rumors are rampant - she's a diva. And this character? Well, thus far Samantha Wheeler seems... fine? Kind of generic? She's a bad-ass woman that doesn't take shit from anyone and is loyal to Robert Zane. I think about the other women in this show, though, and I just don't know what she adds. We had Rachel, who was this kind, gentle, compassionate person who didn't fall in to the cliches of the "professional" woman who has to be cold to get to the top. You have Katrina, who wants to be that cold professional woman, but has a problem with her confidence. You have Donna, the sassy assistant-turned-COO character. What is Samantha going to be? I'm not saying I dislike her, but I certainly wasn't grabbed by her in week one. She seemed pretty unoriginal to me.

I know this show is ridiculously unrealistic all of the time when it comes to how a law firm would actually operate, and usually I'd be fine with that. But it's driving me crazy that everyone is throwing around the promise of name partner as an incentive. There's no way this firm survives so many name changes in the past few years. Let things settle down with Zane Specter Litt for like a SECOND before you start talking about Alex and Samantha getting tossed up on the wall. It's just silly, and it feels like an increasingly contrived way to get the drama going.

Elementary: You've Come a Long Way, Baby (6x11)

I want Natalie Dormer!!

Cons:

Usually the cases in Elementary contain a degree of subtlety that I really admire. It's not that they're unsolvable and too clever, but they're logical and the way in which the case is solved makes good sense. This case wasn't bad, but the clue that led to the reveal of the murderer was the exact OPPOSITE of subtle. Joan takes the time to point out a secretary's screensaver on her computer, containing pictures of her bulldogs, then later finds out there's a secret contact helping with the smuggling called "the Bulldog." Wow. That was incredibly stupid.

The subplot this week actually disappointed me, despite the focus on Moriarty. See, Morland wants Sherlock to help him kill Moriarty. Sherlock manages to get in touch with Jamie, through an intermediary, and they arrange a ceasefire which will last until Morland dies of old age. This feels like yet another way for this show to push back a meaningful confrontation with the most exciting villain in all of Holmes canon. Of course, we've still got Michael the serial killer floating around out there, so I guess this season will still have a climax... maybe we're saving the dreaded Moriarty for next season? But in that case, why get my hopes up?

The Handmaid's Tale: The Word (2x13)

Well... shit.

Cons:

I've been discussing this over the last few weeks, and unfortunately this finale did not necessarily fix the problem: June is stuck, and it's getting frustrating. I mean, I get it. She has an opportunity to escape but she doesn't, because of Hannah. I get that, but we've been in a rut all season with June being unable to escape, and while I'm happy that the baby and Emily got out, it's still frustrating that we're going in to a third season with our protagonist still repeating the same patterns.

I really wanted June to tell Emily that the baby's name was "Holly Nichole," giving respect to Serena with a middle name, but it really rubbed me the wrong way that she tells Emily to call the baby "Nichole." That's going a bit far. I know Serena did the right thing in this episode, and I know she's a victim in all of this too, but she's also a pretty terrible person, complicit in the mass rape and subjugation of her gender. I didn't want June to be so hasty in forgiving her for that.

Pros:

Let's start with Emily. There are some things here that I almost wanted to put into the "cons" section, because I do feel like Emily's story was a bit disjointed this season. As much as I complain about June's story running in circles, whenever we switch to another character, the cohesion is hard to achieve. We didn't check in with Moira and Luke in this finale, and Emily's story still feels like this weird little cul-de-sac, disconnected from June's story in such a way that when the two stories converge at the end, it's startling, and not necessarily all in a good way. But all that being said, Emily's story as a self-contained piece of this finale was really good.

The Handmaid's Tale: Postpartum (2x12)

So I do have some concerns about some things, but over-all this was yet another brilliant installment.

Cons:

My concerns all center around a worry that things are going to get a little repetitive, if they haven't already. The pattern is this: June is stuck with the Waterfords. Something crazy happens, she has a chance to escape, but she ultimately returns back to the Waterfords. Serena hates June and wants her gone, but then something happens to grant them some tentative peace. Around and around we go. I'm not bored of this cycle necessarily - it's well-acted, and the characters are interesting enough to sustain the story. But June doesn't have a lot of agency in her own path. That's intentional to a degree, but it runs the risk of getting stale at some point. I have my eyes open.

Emily was in this episode, being introduced to a new Commander and his wife. It's not that I hated the scenes, but they did feel a little out of place, like they were really only there as setup for something coming next week. The new Commander is cold and erratic, the wife is deranged and desperate, and Emily is trapped in yet another bad situation. I guess I'll wait and see where this is going.

Elementary: The Adventure of the Ersatz Sobekneferu (6x10)

It's nice to see John Noble return to the small screen as Morland Holmes this week! And also that ending makes me SO PUMPED.

Cons:

I rather liked the case of the week, even if it got a little absurd. Usually this show is good at being clear, but not too obvious, about what's going on. I noticed a weird moment towards the start of this particular episode though - Bell and Sherlock are both examining the body, and Sherlock notes that there are various instruments and honey laid out around, and that the fleeing man seen by the witnesses was performing some sort of ceremony. At this point, I think anybody older than, say, ten years old, would immediately be able to guess that the victim was being mummified, and yet Bell doesn't pick up on this detail, and Sherlock has to spell it out for him. It was an odd moment of clunky exposition in a show that usually doesn't fall into this particular pitfall.

Often when watching Elementary, I am so much more fascinated by the subplot than I am by the main story that I almost resent the time we're spending on solving a random murder when we could have been focusing on other things. That's not quite the case here - I liked this murder mystery. However, I did find myself frustrated by what we didn't see. Sherlock undertakes a mission of his own to find a man who he believes has been stalking his father. We don't see any of the steps he takes to search this man out, although we do see the final confrontation between the two men. I found myself wondering what Sherlock had done to find this guy. He calls in MI-6 for help, we know that much, but what else? A whole episode could have been taken up with following the twists and turns of this case, and instead it was a footnote.