His Dark Materials: Æsahættr (2x07)

A lot of stuff happens in this episode, but in some moments it still feels a bit clunky. Not terrible, but still...

Cons:

To start with a small nitpick, last week I was complimenting the decision to have Mary Malone stay and help the kids, but this week we only get the briefest glimpse of her, as she drops the kids off back with a community of adults, and then continues on, immediately picking up with her book plot and seeking another window. This was fine, but it felt weird to include that detour and then go nowhere with it. It's almost just like the writers felt sorry for the kids and wanted to wrap up their story arc a bit, but honestly? Kids die in this story. Kids are orphaned and hurt and lonely and powerless. It's part of what makes the story so striking and frightening.

A lot of exposition in this one, folks, and some of it was a bit overdone. Like, the performances are strong enough to bypass the worst of it, but when we finally get the "Eve" namedrop it's come after so much obvious buildup, and we still have Mrs. Coulter spelling it out for us: "she's going to doom us all, and we have to stop her from falling this time." Like, yeah, thanks, we got it.

His Dark Materials: Malice (2x06)

This was by no means a bad hour of television, but it felt like a lot of setup, a lot of spinning wheels, and maybe less of an epic feel than the same moments I remember from the book. Let's dive in.

Cons:

There are many ways in which it feels like the scope was shrunk down for the show, from what was portrayed in the books. Since this was filmed before COVID, I don't really understand why some of these limiting choices where made. In the books, when Will and Lyra are attacked by the child citizens of Cittagaze, it's a protracted chase sequence and they end up climbing a tower and the witches swoop in at the last possible second. Here, it's just the two sisters instead of a whole gang, and they scramble up to the roof, then the witches arrive. In the book, there are a dozen or so witches, and here we see three or four. In the book, Boreal's death comes at a campsite where Mrs. Coulter is staying with him in the nicest tent, and they are surrounded by a whole crew coming with them on the hunt for Lyra, thus showing the influence and power that Mrs. Coulter is giving up by abandoning her supposed protectors. Here, it's just the two of them. All of these things combined make the scope feel smaller, the world feel smaller, in a lot of ways.

And then on the flipside, the episode somewhat has the opposite problem as well. Instead of telling a focused, narrow story, we're spread far and wide, checking in with Lee and Jopari, with the witches, with Coulter and Boreal, Will and Lyra, and... the Magisterium. I want the Magisterium scenes to work for me, but they have consistently been the least interesting in the whole show. When they were drawing out the reveal of Lyra as "Eve" I was rolling my eyes, just waiting for them to get through all the slow, sonorous speechifying and back to the action.

Grey's Anatomy: No Time for Despair (17x06)

Do we think there's any universe in which Meredith dies from Covid? I mean, I want to say no, but I didn't think they'd ever kill Derek off either. It is a soap opera, after all.

Cons:

Something about the way doctors talk about the sex trafficker bad guy patient was just so over the top that I was waiting for a twist where it turns out he was innocent. I feel like we've seen the doctors treating despicable people before, and they had to grit their teeth and handle it. That's basically what happened here, but they were all so vociferous about how hard it was to do, and then we have Maggie's outburst where she talks about how black girls are more likely to be victims and less likely to be believed in situations like this. And like - no argument from me, of course, but I just felt like I've seen this show handle similar issues with smoother writing before.

I mean, Teddy still sucks, so what else is new. I don't mind at all that Owen is like "I never knew you" because that's what she deserves. However, one thing is kind of bugging me about their scene, and that's when Teddy says that Allison wasn't just her best friend, but that they were in love. Owen's reaction is to laugh hysterically and say that they named their daughter after a lie. Now... I don't quite remember. Does Owen know the whole story? Does he know that Allison had a girlfriend at the time, and therefore realize that Teddy is a serial cheater? Because to the untrained eye, it could look like Owen's "I don't know you at all" moment is in response to Teddy basically... coming out to him? Like, is Owen pissed that he didn't know Teddy was attracted to women? I don't know. I don't think that was the intent of the scene, but there were a lot of mixed signals and I was a little uncomfortable about the way the end result was presented. I still don't feel any sympathy for Teddy, really, given the situation as a whole.

His Dark Materials: The Scholar (2x05)

OOF. This was a good one. Maybe the best episode of the season thus far, even though my boy Lee was absent.

Cons:

Pacing-wise, there were a couple of wonky things in moments of tension here. I liked that the confrontation over the alethiometer was expanded, but while Lyra and Mrs. Coulter were having their confrontation, Will and Boreal kind of had to be in stasis, and it was a bit awkward.

Same with the moment when Lyra and Will see that Tullio has fallen to the spectres. The threat level there was sort of off, as the two sisters hugged him and cried. I remember from the book that the two younger siblings were pretty much fully feral and it felt like they might really attack and hurt Will and Lyra. And speaking of hurt Will, another thing I'm missing from the books is how badly Will is supposed to be doing, health-wise, because of his hand. In the book, there are constant reminders that he hasn't stopped bleeding, and he is in real pain all the time. That really upped the tension, as while they were working on their other goals, they also had this looming health threat slowing them down and causing added drama along the way. I haven't gotten that same sense from the show.

Grey's Anatomy: Fight the Power (17x05)

Oh, poor Bailey...

Cons:

I want to be very careful and precise on how I talk about this, but I do think that the messaging in this episode was very blunt and somewhat poorly scripted. We had Bailey and Maggie talking about their experiences of being underestimated, of having to work twice as hard and become exceptional just to be considered worthy of notice. And then we had Jackson and Richard, spouting off statistics and talking about systemic racism. Both of these conversations were good, in that I agreed with the message and agree that it's an important one. But I can think of so many times during the course of this show when important messages were delivered through the heart and soul of the characters that we already knew and loved... as compared to this, which felt like our black faves delivering prepared remarks to us in a Very Special Episode. It wasn't godawful. It was just... not as smooth, not as personal, as I wanted it to be.

Fuck Teddy Altman. I feel like I need to say that every week. I'm so happy that Tom seems to be doing better, and that hopefully he's not on the verge of death, but Teddy's speech, talking about repairing their relationship, just made me mad, because what the fuck has she done to earn any measure of forgiveness at all? I want Tom to be okay. And I even want Owen to be okay, despite my general dislike of him. But at this point, I don't know that I'm ever going to be actively rooting for Teddy's happiness again.

His Dark Materials: Tower of the Angels (2x04)

Okay, yeah, things are really a-happening, aren't they??

Cons:

The witches are so far the weakest link for me this season. They're not bad, but just a little bland. They look cool, and I guess they are cool in what they get up to, but whenever the scene switches over to them I find myself underwhelmed. The puzzle pieces are moving towards each other, as the witches are going to go join Asriel, but I don't have a lot more to report than that.

This is the nitpicky-est of nitpicks, but the subtle knife didn't look how I imagined it in my head! I guess I heard 'knife' and thought 'dagger', so I expected the blade to be bigger, maybe? It's fine, it's not ruining the show for me or anything, but I thought I'd point it out.

Grey's Anatomy: You'll Never Walk Alone (17x04)

Awww George! That was the best possible answer as to who was waiting for Meredith in the pseudo-afterlife. It was so amazing seeing him!

Cons:

I thought Maggie's boyfriend's thing with his dad was a little unrealistic in how blunt it was? Like, he saw his dad on a Zoom call and was immediately like "here is the major family drama that we have, let me explain it to the viewer and then sign off the call." It might have just been an issue of clunky writing.

Okay, Jo and Jackson... tread very, very lightly. I don't mind a good old fashioned friends with benefits situation, but that never seems to go the way we want it to, and I'm not about Jo/Jackson as an actual romantic pairing. This show has convinced me of weirder, but at the moment I just don't want them to pair up because they both happen to be single. Also, any storyline that touches on Jo healing from Alex just gives me visceral flashbacks to how stupid Alex's exit from the show truly was. It's hard to see past that.

His Dark Materials: Theft (2x03)

 I love Lee Scoresby, y'all.

Cons:

This one was pretty light on the "cons" column! If I had to say anything, I'd say that having an episode without Magesterium politics made me realize how much those elements were clogging up the pacing.

Also, Lee Scoresby is amazing and I love him, but I thought the daddy issues angle was a little played out. If that's in the book, it must be a passing reference. I think Marisa Coulter and Lee Scoresby have enough going on with regards to caring for Lyra as a daughter despite not having raised her, without introducing the idea that they both had crappy fathers.

Oh, also, this is a minor detail, but in the book Lyra loses the alethiometer because "Latrom" is sitting in the back seat with her (he has a driver) and he picks it out of her bag. I liked that much better than Lyra getting out of the car in a panic and leaving the whole bag behind. That girl carried that thing around with her in the frozen wastelands and was obsessive about keeping it with her at all times. Seems like the kind of mistake Lyra wouldn't make. Trusting a stranger at the wrong moment in desperation? Sure. Leaving her bag in the car? Maybe not.