Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: I Have a Date Tonight (4x16)

Weird Al! White Josh! Dr. Akopian! I had so much fun with this episode and also I'm so nervous about next week and I don't know what to think!

Cons:

Okay, obviously, obviously, the narrative is promoting Greg over the other two. For my money, Josh was never in the running in a serious way, although I appreciate the connection that he and Rebecca have. I have some problems with the idea of Greg and Rebecca ending up together, even though I really do like them and think they're sweet. It's kind of difficult to be articulate about it, though. First is the undeniable fact that Skylar Astin is doing a great job, but he doesn't seem like Greg to me. The dynamic that him and Rebecca have now is perfectly sweet, but it does not in any way feel like a continuation of the same character and the same relationship that we saw before. I know that in some ways this is intentional, but in other ways it's kind of weak because we didn't get to see this new thing develop for long enough for me to want it as end-game? If that makes sense?

I also think this story does a bit of a disservice to all three of Rebecca's suitors. With Nathaniel, we have seen how far he's come, but I feel like at some point the show decided that we'd had enough development with him, so now his only personality trait is that he loves Rebecca. Same with Josh - we know he's been going to therapy and working on himself, which is great, but here at the end it's like all of his character focus is about Rebecca, instead of about being a fully realized character in his own right. That's kind of disappointing, and I don't know if the finale could possibly be good enough on its own to assuage some of my unfulfilled feelings.

Grey's Anatomy: Silent All These Years (15x19)

Well, that was intense.

Cons:

I want to start by saying that it's a little bit weird to talk about an episode like this as just a simple episode of TV, because any critique I have of it will inevitably come across as insensitive, and that's the last thing I want to do. But I am going to discuss some stuff that was maybe less-than-perfect about this episode, and I hope anyone reading this understands that I'm just trying to look at the episode as a story told on TV, and hope that's enough.

Arrow: Inheritance (7x17)

Okay! Let's just dive in. Poor Oliver.

Cons:

I actually liked this episode quite a bit, but I want to be honest about how contrived some of this is becoming. A lot of people have to act a little bit like idiots in order for this to work. Specifically - I know that Oliver wants to trust Emiko, and I can sympathize with him having a blind spot. That's fine. I can even understand why the others would want to help her out, too. But to leave her unattended in the bunker, to take absolutely no precautions... that's just dumb.

Dante continues to be a nothing villain. Super bland, uninspiring to the max. We get this hint that Emiko is actually the one in charge of this branch of the Ninth Circle, which could be interesting, except it's kind of confusing as to why she would be, if Dante was her teacher and mentor.

As much as I'm liking the development of Archer, and Felicity being unknowingly complicit in her own future ruin, I have to point out that so much of what's happening in the present timeline seems to have no connection to the flash-forwards. Does the Ninth Circle play a role twenty years from now? We are really staring down the barrel at the end of this season, and I'm feeling really dissatisfied with the lack of solid information.

The Walking Dead: The Calm Before (9x15)

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Cons:

I'm going to start with some personal context here: when I watched this episode, my DVR recording for some reason cut it off early, at the cliffhanger moment when Alpha sits next to Lydia in the movie theatre. I wasn't paying much attention to how long the episode had been, so I thought that was the final moment of the episode. I was all geared up to write a quite favorable review - lots of tense moments, good character buildup, etc. etc. But then I realized there was still fifteen minutes to go, and now I have to deal with this bullshit.

The problem with The Walking Dead is they have this huge over-bloated cast of people, most of whom we don't really care about, and then periodically in order to make us understand how evil a villain is, some of these characters will get killed off. But there's always some problem with the way they pull off the deaths: either they are way too built up and foreshadowed, and every ounce of drama is wrung out of the moment (Glenn, Carl), or else it's a character we kind of care about, and they're given a bunch of attention and more character development suddenly, and it becomes obvious they're about to die (Jesus), or they're someone I barely know at all and I'm not sure why I'm supposed to be so devastated about it (several of the deaths in this episode).

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: I Need to Find My Frenemy (4x15)

What even is this show. It's so unbelievably brilliant.

Cons:

I thought the Rap Battle reprise was a little underwhelming, when compared to the brilliant original. It wasn't bad enough to be like a real problem or anything, it just wasn't a new favorite either. Just thought I'd mention that.

Also, and this isn't a real complaint, but... I miss White Josh. It sucks that he hasn't been around more this season. It was so fun to see him here and I wish we could have so much more.

Pros:

I want to start with the comedy corner and just mention a few of my favorite jokes: Heather makes fun of the CW's "Dare to Defy" slogan, and it gives me life. I liked Darryl and White Josh being delighted in all the drama with the three guys. Every time Josh said "stand down," I cackled. Paula's references to a not-so-secret past gambling addiction, all of the call-backs to previous seasons (the butter, the reprises, the lyrics), it was all comedy gold. Specifically talking about the slow-motion song for a second: I honestly thought that gimmick was going to get old or stupid very quickly, but it didn't. Every time they went back to the slow-motion, there was a new element involved to make it even funnier.

Grey's Anatomy: Add It Up (15x18)

Koracick is right, Owen. Back the hell off.

Cons:

It's a bit hard to pin down this particular complaint, but I will say that this episode felt very disjointed. There were plenty of individual pieces that I enjoyed, but the whole was less than the sum of its parts.

One of those parts that irritated me to the point of no return was Owen and Teddy. I am 100% on Tom's side, here! I'm not sure if I'm supposed to think Tom is a jerk for the way he talked to Owen, but I simply don't. I want Owen to understand that he's played with Teddy's feelings for far too long. If he were to be with her, he would inevitably change his mind again and we'd have to get back on this never-ending merry-go-round. It's frustrating in the extreme.

Also, I don't care about Link and Amelia. I'm not at all interested. The end.

Finally, I appreciated what they were trying to do with the gender-queer patient, and Richard having a hard time using their pronouns. I think that's a good story to tell. It just felt a touch too "after school special" for me, and didn't really resolve particularly well? Richard said he understood the issue completely, and was just having a hard time catching up with the changing times. Fair enough, but that sentiment doesn't square with his annoyance earlier in the episode. I don't know... I'm probably being a little too harsh; it wasn't a bad plot thread, just maybe not as good as it could have been.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Therapist (6x11)

I found the main plot thread this week to be pretty uninspired in some ways, but there was still a lot of good material in this episode, and in that main story, to discuss.

Cons:

I enjoyed the idea of Jake coming face to face with his trauma and learning that therapy could be a helpful tool. But it seems like the framework surrounding this story was a little overplayed. Jake's suspicion of therapists is meant to be funny and absurd, but then he ends up being right about the therapist being the murderer. It comes across like Charles isn't good at his job, and that Jake is justified in indulging his paranoia. That was an odd choice for the episode. Wouldn't it have been stronger if Jake had been wrong altogether?

Similarly, the scene where he's pretending to be a patient with multiple personality disorder just didn't quite hit the mark for me. There were a couple of somewhat funny jokes, but mostly it just made this therapist seem like an idiot for not picking up on the fact that Jake was lying about stuff. Could Jake not have just told the woman what was really going on? Showed her his badge and asked for her cooperation? The whole setup for the joke seemed forced.

There's an odd little subplot where Amy discovers that Terry ordered a book about how to please his wife in bed, and Terry is embarrassed so he denies it. I kept waiting for this plot thread to either a) get funny, or b) become meaningful. Amy's right that it's not shameful to want to improve and keep your wife happy. So if she's not amused by it, why does she keep pushing him to admit the book belongs to him? That felt oddly insensitive of her. And the resolution is that Amy ends up believing Terry that the book didn't belong to him, so it kind of ended up going nowhere.

Supernatural: Don't Go in the Woods (14x16)

The monster-of-the-week plot in this episode felt more like filler than most, but the subplot had a lot of really important stuff going on. Let's take a look.

Cons:

I had no problem with the concept of the case of the week, with Sam and Dean hunting a Cajunta. But it felt like the story was padded a lot, and had even less of a connection to the main story than usual. The half-hearted attempts to connect it to bigger story points felt pretty insufficient. Sam and Dean ostensibly learn a lesson about being honest with Jack, but I feel like that's something they could have worked out with just a conversation, instead of having an example of it play out during the case. Sam is still struggling because of the deaths of the hunters, but that doesn't seem to have lingering effects here.

Pros:

For what we got with the case though, I'll admit there's something comforting, in a strange way, about a simple case - Sam and Dean on the road, hunting monsters. It's always fun when they reveal the truth about monsters to people, because we get to see the myriad reactions that this reveal inspires. I also thought the specific details of the case were intriguing, and the story between the sheriff and his son was well developed even though it didn't get a ton of screen-time. I can't speak to the origins of Cajunta in legend, but I felt like the episode did a good job of tying in the history of white invasion and was respectful of the legend.

Modern Family: Stand By Your Man (10x18)

I found many parts of this episode to be delightful and charming, and a few to be... duds.

Cons:

Mitchell and Cam's plot thread is one of those that I wanted to enjoy more, but it never really clicked together for me. The idea that Cam wouldn't be more upset about Mitchell forgetting their anniversary doesn't really track with the character as I understand him. I suppose I should give props for this story being unpredictable when it comes to the opening scenario, but I couldn't help but think it would be more fun to see Cam planning some elaborate anniversary thing, and Mitchell forgetting, and all of the shenanigans that would come out of that. Instead, the forgotten anniversary is almost entirely unnecessary to the plot. Why can't Mitchell just show up for line dancing because he wants to surprise Cam, instead of it being because he feels guilty?

When we get to the actual line dancing thing, every joke is very predictable. Mitchell shows up, but he's embarrassing - his clothes are wrong, he doesn't know the dances, he can't chug beer... we get it. I wanted something a bit more original.

There were aspects of Jay's story that I actually didn't mind this week, but I didn't much enjoy the beginning parts, where Gloria and Manny are trying to help him practice for being on TV. It felt forced, like those scenes were just in there to pad out the time, and ultimately I would have liked more time with Jay actually on the show, instead of the lead-up to it.

Arrow: Star City 2040 (7x16)

This episode is going to be hard to give a number at the end, because I think it had tons of problems, but it also contained so many things I've been waiting for, and really escalated the story.

Cons:

I remember when William first found Roy on the island, I was so, so excited to see him. He's been one of my favorite characters from day one. And I still love Roy, but he's ridiculously underutilized in this story. He's just kinda... there. Nobody's talking about Thea, which is weird, and also he doesn't seem to add any additional skills or insight that wasn't already being provided by Dinah or any of the other characters. I'm so happy to see him, I just wish he had more to do!

Did I miss something about Connor that I'm supposed to know? He's John and Lyla's son, right? Why does he keep talking about being "adopted" by his parents? This isn't really a complaint, I suppose... maybe someone can fill in the missing gaps for me.

I don't want to be overly critical of the visual effects on this show, because... well, come on. But I do have to mention that the "twenty years later" thing is kind of hilarious, when you've got Dinah, Rene, and Roy looking significantly older, and then Felicity has a haircut and very slight crow's feet that you can only see on close-up shots. And William should be in his mid-thirties, but he's playing the character like he's in his twenties, and doesn't seem all that older than Mia. I'm just saying, they could have worked a little harder to be consistent about these things.

The Walking Dead: Scars (9x14)

This was one of the best episodes of The Walking Dead in years.

Cons:

Honestly, my biggest complaint here is that I could have used more. Everything worked really well, but could have been even cooler if this had been broken into two episodes. That's shocking to me, because usually the pacing of this show feels very bloated and I wish the episodes or the seasons were a little shorter. One of the somewhat weak aspects of this episode is that we didn't get quite enough time to understand the bond between Michonne and Jocelyn. It was told to us instead of shown to us, and a few more scenes of Jocelyn and the kids safe and happy in Alexandria might have been warranted. Along a similar vein, seeing Daryl and Michonne out by the river looking for Rick was just heart-wrenching, and I wanted even more of their bond over Rick's loss.

The amazing acting of this episode was enough to mostly cover up for the occasionally clunky dialogue, but even this great episode can't escape from the overly speech-ifying effect of The Walking Dead. I think for me the moment that went just a touch further than was warranted was when Judith and Michonne are standing at Carl's grave. They had just had this amazing conversation, and then the scene with Carl's grave felt like it was tacked on, and it drew out the moment a little too much. It would have been more powerful if we'd simply seen Michonne and Judith stop by to pay their respects in silence, or with just a word or two, instead of having another dialogue-heavy moment right after the one they'd already had. But that's probably a bit of a nitpick.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: I'm Finding My Bliss (4x14)

Yep, another good episode. Who's surprised?

Cons:

This isn't actually a problem with the episode, but maybe a function of me not being able to get my head out of my ass, but I'm still finding it hard to wholeheartedly support the idea of Rebecca and Greg. Skylar Astin is doing a fantastic job, and whenever he's sharing scenes with other characters, I'm totally sold on this being Greg. But when he's with Rebecca, the energy and chemistry that they bring to the relationship just does not feel like a continuation of what they built back in Seasons One and Two. It's compelling in its own, way, but it feels like a separate thing.

I wish Valencia hadn't given Beth an ultimatum like that, but I suppose we'll wait and see what the fallout is in the next few episodes. I really should reserved judgment, and I thought Valencia had a fascinating journey in this episode, but I'm a little bit frustrated at the idea of Valencia and Beth's relationship ending in these last few episodes. We'll have to see what happens.

Grey's Anatomy: And Dream of Sheep (15x17)

Can we not with the whole Owen and Teddy thing? Please? I'm so annoyed.

Cons:

I'm cool with Owen and Teddy being close, and Owen comforting Teddy after a heartbreaking loss. The only thing about their entire plot thread that I don't like is the dumb thing at the end where Koracick walks in and sees Owen comforting Teddy, and walks away. Can we just stop? The promo for next week shows Koracick talking to Owen about it, warning him to back off. This is dumb. I think Tom and Teddy actually make a very cute couple, and Owen is just constantly getting in the way of everyone's happiness, and I need it to stop.

I think the Amelia/Link thing is stupid and it probably won't go much of anywhere that I enjoy. I think I'm going to have to face the facts that I just... don't really like Amelia all that much? Sure, she has her moments, but I find myself perpetually annoyed by pretty much every story-line she's in.

Finally, a small complaint: this show is supposed to take place in Seattle, and they never bother to do even the smallest amount of research when it comes to Seattle-specific stuff. One of the interns says "Pike Street Market." Nobody calls it that. It's always "Pike Place Market," or just "Pike Place," and every time this show gets it wrong, I cringe. Come on! It's a small detail, but it totally takes me out of the moment.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Gintars (6x10)

I liked this episode for what it was, certainly, but I also want to talk a bit about what it's not.

Cons:

What this episode is not, is a real examination of Charles' relationship with his son, or Nikolaj's relationship to his biological father. The fact that Boyle has a family is something I oddly forget about a lot when watching this show. It's fine that his family isn't the focus, but sometimes it comes across a bit odd and insincere when there's suddenly a focus on his family life. This episode could have been a chance to develop some of Charles' life outside of work, but instead the focus remained mostly on Jake and Charles' friendship. I have no problem at all with an episode about these two "best buds", but in some ways it feels like a missed opportunity.

In the subplot, there's this building joke about Terry's face - he shaves off his eyebrows and bleaches his goatee because he's afraid of bugs getting into them. It wasn't bad, but it was just a little over the top for my taste.

Supernatural: Peace of Mind (14x15)

This episode was pretty great!

Cons:

The emotional underpinning of Sam's character this week is that he's grieving for the dead hunters. I loved everything about Sam in this episode. I love how he's dealing with his grief and how he's acting out and processing things. But that doesn't change the fact that the hunters were way underutilized this season, and killing them off was pretty stupid, given how easy it would have been to keep them around. They weren't important enough for their deaths to have real emotional impact - not even Maggie, really, although of course it's extra annoying that yet another woman gets the ax on this male-dominated show.

Pros:

But setting aside the fact that Sam's reason for angst is kind of weak, I thought everything about this episode was really amazing. First of all, let's talk about the comedy for a minute. It's hard to pick my favorite moments, but Cas honestly stole the show this week in a big way. I loved his exchange with Dean, where he struggles to remember the saying "til the cows come home." His indignant declaration that "God has a beard!" and his description of Sam as having "beautiful hair" were also both hilarious.

Modern Family: The Wild (10x17)

Yeah, so... I wanted to like this episode. I was close to liking this episode. But it just didn't come together for me quite as much as one would hope.

Cons:

There were jokes in this episode that were just so painfully predictable that I kept waiting for a twist that never came. A group of people fail to build a crib properly, because the directions are challenging? You don't say! Gloria laments that she's turning in to a "white woman" and we get a bunch of cliche, predictable jokes about going to spin class, kale restaurants, and more. A group of men go out into the woods together and they end up talking about their feelings, because that's what happens on TV shows. It's not that there was nothing to enjoy in any of this, but for the most part it was pretty uninspired.

I want to drill down specifically on Gloria's little plot thread. The resolution involves her taking a paintball gun and shooting bicyclists, which makes for a fun image, but a really troubling statement about her Columbian identity. She's a "white girl" for most of the episode, and the thing that gets her back in touch with her Latin roots is... gun violence? Not cool. I also hated it when Claire announced that her insecurity had been solved, and Gloria remarked upon it in this kind of meta way, like she was acknowledging that in this plot thread, they each had a key insecurity that they needed to overcome. It was annoying.

Arrow: Training Day (7x15)

I am of course delighted by Oliver and Felicity being all cute and excited about their baby. In fact, there were tons of things about this episode that I really adored, but when you look at it as a whole, there are some problems to discuss.

Cons:

First off, we learn in this episode that it was likely Emiko Queen who killed Diaz in his cell. Laurel is on the hunt and threatens to tell Oliver and crew about Emiko. I just... don't care that much about this. This plot thread honestly reveals one of the more fundamental problems with this season. Diaz was supposed to be this horrible threat, and then this season he's just been kind of... around, for no good reason. Last week, his death was practically an afterthought, and the fact that Emiko killed him doesn't really intrigue me all that much. I think part of the problem is that Emiko has felt so disconnected from the main story of the season. Her existence feels like an afterthought. Oliver spends this episode talking about protecting his family with Felicity, seemingly completely forgetting that he has this new sister that he's supposed to be cultivating a relationship with.

The main tension of this episode is SCPD vs. Vigilantes. Rene, Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle are all put through training to be official SCPD deputies, but wouldn't you know it, their styles clash and things go poorly out on the field. I really wanted to enjoy a story exploring the tensions and complicated situation going on here. Instead, I feel like both sides came across really stupid in this instance. If the SCPD is going to make Team Arrow wear police uniforms, use standard-issue equipment, and take all orders from the cops, then... what's the point of having them at all? They made absolutely no concession to the special circumstances that got them in this position in the first place. But on the flip side of that, Oliver and Felicity going after Midas on their own was idiotic. Yeah, they got results, but since Oliver is working under the auspices of the law, supposedly, an admission of guilt under threat of torture isn't exactly likely to hold up. Obviously. Instead of this conflict feeling like two interesting sides of a complicated debate, it felt instead like two groups of childish idiots unwilling to budge an inch. Frustrating.

The Walking Dead: Chokepoint (9x13)

Haha Carol. I love you.

Cons:

This was an incredibly solid episode, surprisingly. The one thing that didn't really fit in for me was the Hilltop group making their way to the Kingdom. Tammy and Earl are bonding with the baby that Connie saved from the Whisperers, and then there's a random Walker attack, and other than the brief tie-in with the Kingdom plot thread, the whole thing felt like a way to pad out the episode. It didn't take up too much of the run-time, but I wish those minutes could have been spent on more time with Daryl, Connie, Henry, and Lydia.

Pros:

I was pretty startled at how much I liked the main plot thread this week. Basically, the whole thing is just Daryl and crew trying to run from the Whisperers. They decide to create a chokepoint so that the Whisperers won't have the protection of a full hoard, and they manage to kill their pursuers and keep running. There are just so many questions and possibilities branching off from this plot thread. I had such a good time with it.

First of all, I didn't find Henry and Lydia's little romance to be annoying! Sure, I'm not 100% compelled by it, but it does make sense, and I really feel for both of them. Henry saying that he'll run off with Lydia to protect her is... well, it's crazy, and Lydia knows that, but she's undeniably touched by it. Henry really cares for her, and is willing to go to great lengths to protect her. But I also get the sense that this kid still doesn't fully comprehend the reality of what he's offering to do. He's young, he's experiencing love for the first time, and he's an idealistic kid. I know the Whisperer plot thread is something that Carl went through in the comics, but I'm finding Henry to be an adequate substitute, to my surprise.

Grey's Anatomy: Blood and Water (15x16)

I like it when Grey's Anatomy manages to pull off an episode surrounding a specific theme, and this one did so incredibly well.

Cons:

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, I'm going to complain about Amelia and Owen real quick. This episode sees them formalizing the adoption of Leo, but things are complicated because Amelia and Owen are broken up. They argue around and around about logistics, they fight about their breakup, but then in the end Amelia backs off and lets Owen have full custody. Amelia says that breaking up with Owen was a "moment of clarity" for her. Like... okay. Sure. She has these moments of clarity all the time, where she makes a big speech and totally changes the course of her life. She had one breaking up with Owen, and then she makes a split second decision to run scared away from being Leo's mom. It's typical Amelia behavior, and it honestly doesn't endear me to her character at all. She needs to get a grip.

The theme of this episode is about family - biological, and otherwise. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, and all that. Like I said, I enjoy how the theme permeated every story, including Amelia and Owen's, as they contemplate adoption. There's a perfectly lovely story about a gay couple and their kid, and the two dads don't know which one is biologically the father of their daughter. However, due to a medical condition, the daughter has some tests run and finds out which dad is hers by blood. I thought this plot thread was fine, but in terms of the theme, it felt really on the nose. I don't know that we needed this example in order to nail in the thesis of the episode. It felt like overkill, and also a weird catalyst for Levi's confession, which I'll talk about in a moment.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Golden Child (6x09)

Ahhhh Lin-Manuel Miranda!

Cons:

This was a really amazing episode, so I'm not really sure what to put in the "cons" section... maybe just a desire for a little more? The subplot with Charles was funny, but could have been even more outrageous. Lin-Manuel got lots of great comedy, but could have had even more. Mrs. Santiago was underutilized too... I didn't get much of a sense of character out of her, other than just the obvious preferential treatment she showed for David. None of this is really a complaint about the quality of what we did get, though.

Pros:

Starting with the subplot - it's the return of Straight Captain Holt. This bit will never get old. I love it. Holt's personality is so dead-pan all of the time, so when he's acting as another character, and he's just stating blatant lies out loud to build a character, it's hilarious, and so, so, bad. This is the kind of thing that Holt would be realistically bad at, and not realize it. I also like that Terry isn't a great performer either. He might have pulled something off that was halfway decent, but Boyle wanted the best actor possible, which is where Rosa comes in. It's hilarious to me that Rosa is barely in the episode, but she swoops in with a great punchline right there at the end.

The Big Bang Theory: The Conference Valuation (12x17)

I'm just bored.

Cons:

Episodes like this really emphasize how much this show doubles down on gender roles. Of course Howard calls taking care of his own kids "babysitting." Of course Amy would need to trick Sheldon into being interested in kids. It's all just so... predictable.

Also, if you're going to do a story where there's experimentation on kids, why not get more creative and funny? I'm a broken record, but this show never does enough with its concepts. The same goes for the conference with Penny and Bernadette. There was plenty that was theoretically interesting, but it didn't go quite far enough.

Pros:

When I saw Sheldon's book about experimenting, at first I thought that Bernadette was going to find out and get all pissed off, and that was going to be the big joke. I'm glad they didn't go that route, and instead we see Sheldon actually having fun with kids, even if he has to contextualize it in a different way.

Supernatural: Ouroboros (14x14)

Well, that was just great!

Cons:

This is an odd thing to comment on, but sometimes I feel like the acting in the pain reactions is sort of... off. Like there's this big moment towards the end of the episode where Jack is doing his cool power surge thing on Michael, and Sam, Dean, and Cas all cringe because of a high ringing noise. Their reactions were not simultaneous - Dean did his a beat after Sam and Cas, and I feel like I could almost hear someone off-camera cuing them when to react to the sound that was added in post. It's actually not the first time I've noticed something like that in Supernatural. Just thought I'd mention it here.

If that's the end of Michael, then I've got to say... he was not nearly as cool of a villain as I was hoping for. The final showdown being between Jack and Michael didn't feel earned, since Dean is the one who has been struggling with him all this time. On a similar note, why did all of the hunters have to die? We didn't spend enough time developing them to make their deaths have impact. I feel like some very, very, slight scriptural changes could have been made to justify keeping this larger ensemble in the wings... we almost had the perfect system! Just a throw-away line about Sam calling in to check on various hunts, or someone mentioning that a few of the hunters have moved to different cities to set up their own headquarters... that's all I would have needed. Why undo the idea of Sam as the new Bobby, running a network of hunters? That was a great concept that was thrown away because the extra people were somewhat inconvenient to explain away.

Arrow: Brothers & Sisters (7x14)

This was okay. I have the same complaints about this episode that I've had generally about this season, but there was also some great stuff in here.

Cons:

I know I'm a broken record, but the plot is still moving in such a sluggish way! We're getting in to the home stretch here, and I'm still completely in the dark about so much. I get that this is intentional, but it's also... annoying. We still don't know where Felicity is in the future. It's strongly implied that Oliver and John are both dead, but when did that happen? What's the big thing that went down and caused this terrible rift between our core group of friends? We're not getting enough information in the future, and we're not doing enough setup in the past.

We finally see Dante, who has been set up as this big bad, but... he's kind of just... a master criminal? There's no personal stakes to any of this. All season we've been hearing how ARGUS needs to catch this guy because he's the worst - worse than Diaz. But is he? Sure, we have this plot twist at the end where Dante has a connection with Emiko. But even that doesn't really justify John and Lyla willing to reopen the Suicide Squad. The Emiko story still has promise, but even this week we didn't get to see much of why she's been included in this story.

The Walking Dead: Guardians (9x12)

This episode was mostly just boring, with a few startling moments tossed in to keep me somewhat on my toes.

Cons:

Let's just start with something that I can say is unambiguously annoying: Rosita and her three love interests. Well, actually, no... Eugene is in love with her but she definitely doesn't reciprocate. So that makes two love interests - Siddiq, the father of her unborn child... and Gabriel, who Rosita seems to actually want to be with for some reason. I'm not trying to be rude here, but Gabriel is boring as sin and I don't get why we're spending all this time focusing on a romance between him and Rosita. It came out of nowhere, is based on nothing, and they have no chemistry to speak of. In the very brief moments that we've seen Rosita and Siddiq interact, they seemed to have much more natural chemistry going on.

A more general problem is just the sluggish pacing over all. We still don't know what's up with the scars on Michonne and Daryl's backs. We still haven't reached the darn fair that the Kingdom is so invested in. We're still just crawling along through the story, instead of getting to the good stuff. This happens every season of this show. I wish they could tighten up the pacing somehow. A good example of bad pacing but good writing comes in the depiction of the Whisperers. I liked a lot of the stuff with Alpha and Beta and Lydia, and I'll discuss that in a moment. But did we learn anything new about this enemy? I guess now we know that there are way more of them than we previously thought. But other than that, this story just reinforced things we already knew. They're ruthless, and Alpha is a terrible abusive mom. We already covered that!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: He Said, She Said (6x08)

Episodes like this will be overly scrutinized because they seem to be making a statement. People will wonder if it's too "after school special," or they will try to point to any possible missteps that Brooklyn Nine-Nine has made in the past, in order to say that this show doesn't have the right to talk about this subject. People will nitpick, and some might be genuinely upset... but personally? I think this episode stands on its own merits, and I think it was pretty great.

Cons:

The subplot was really funny, and focused on the Disco Strangler. I don't have any problems with it in particular, but I thought Terry and Charles were kind of underutilized. Holt was hilarious, but the other two were just kind of there to react to his silliness. I'm not sure what I would have preferred, but I think there might have been more potential here than we got to see.

Pros:

Keeping to the subplot for now, I've got to admit that it's fun for Holt to be the punchline of the joke every once in a while. His determination to catch the Disco Strangler, and his belief in his nemesis' escape was really funny, especially the recurring bit where he'd start part of the story only to find out that he'd already told it to everyone several times. The comedy here was also underpinned by Holt's insecurities. The Disco Strangler was the case that defined his success as a detective. If his nemesis really is dead, or at least so old that he can't be a threat anymore, that means that Holt is also past his prime and out of touch. The comedy here worked mostly because of the performances. I don't think a less talented actor could have pulled off some of the material that Holt was working with.

Grey's Anatomy: We Didn't Start the Fire (15x15)

I really liked almost everything about this episode!

Cons:

Owen came across as a total dick. I mean, I think he was supposed to, to some extent, but it was way worse than I think it was supposed to be. Also, even though Owen was being awful, I was still feeling annoyed with Amelia. Each time she makes a speech and decides to walk away, it seems to make sense in the specific situation. Owen is being horrible, he hasn't been checking in on Amelia's feelings, he's been insensitive about drug addiction, he's clearly jealous about Teddy and Koracick... yeah. Amelia should totally get out of that situation. Except that this isn't the first, second, or even third time that Amelia has made some grand decision to stay away from Owen, and when you look at it all in aggregate, it becomes clear that her words are pretty meaningless. She won't actually stay away from him permanently, so we as the audience are going to have to suffer through the same repetitive nonsense again. It's getting beyond annoying.

Also, Meredith and Andrew accidentally starting a fire in Jackson's apartment was played pretty much entirely for laughs, which I thought was odd and a bit insensitive... could they not have treated that potentially life-ending disaster with a bit more gravitas? I'm glad that this didn't turn in to a total mess with lots of injuries and death, but maybe the characters could have been more sensitive to the possibility of such catastrophe happening?

Maggie's plot thread wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it did make me feel very annoyed. She's upset because the woman she hated from med school wrote an article about how she had to advocate for herself to save her life. Maggie sees the article and feels slighted, so she decides, with prompting from Richard, to write her own version of the story that celebrates her surgical achievement. I get what they were going for here, and I agree that this woman is a piece of work. But honestly? It's not Maggie's story. She's not the one who was sick and almost died. It felt really awkward to have her be so up in arms about this situation. It just further highlighted the fact that Maggie is really selfish.