His Dark Materials: The Botanic Garden (3x08)

Woof! Okay. Let's talk about it.

Cons:

The thing is, yeah, this episode has the problem it was always going to have, in that it feels disconnected from the rest of the story in a lot of big, obvious ways. We went through so much with Asriel and Coulter, and they barely get mentioned here. Characters like Iorek get barely a sendoff. The aftermath of Asriel's war isn't fully addressed; obviously it's implied that the Magisterium is going to go home with its tale between its legs and none of the angels on Metatron's side are going to bother anyone anymore, but we don't really see much of any of it. The Gallivespians, the other witches besides Serafina, they don't get their due here. This is how the book ends, too, I'm not saying they had a lot of choice in it, but I think the structural problems that have plagued this season are apparent when you have a finale that is kind of doing its own thing, almost entirely cut off from the plotty buildup leading to it.

Father Gomez coming to do his murdering, and Balthamos showing up to thwart him is also something from the books, but again it felt shoe-horned in. I get that I'm kind of contradicting myself, as this is an element that does tie back to earlier in the season, but it feels so disjointed, like, God is literally actually Dead, dude. Move the hell on.

His Dark Materials: The Clouded Mountain (3x07)

Dayummmm I'm gonna cry so much when I watch the last episode, it's not even funny...

Cons:

The thing is, this show never should have tried to pull off an action movie. The special effects don't pass muster, they're forced to rely on shortcuts that just aren't all that visually interesting... angels and witches are having an epic battle but we can't really see it, human troops are valiantly dying for the cause but it's in dark snippets we can barely focus on. The Gallivespians continue to have not enough to do. It's not a matter of what's on the screen being bad, so much as it is a matter of them not being able to put stuff on the screen that should be there, if they really want it to.

Underpinning this problem with effects is a bigger one of Asriel's motivations. This whole time, his vendetta against God himself has been sort of a weak point. In the books, Asriel is more of a distant figure. By giving him so much screen-time in this final season, we sort of shine a spotlight on the fact that his whole war is a little silly and kind of useless. In the end, it's all about Lyra and the prophecy. So why is Asriel bothering with all of this? Is it just a distraction, a la the battle at the black gates in The Lord of the Rings, so Frodo can destroy the ring, or in this case, so Eve has the chance to "fall" the way she's destined to do? I don't know. When you really look at it, kinda weaksauce.

His Dark Materials: The Abyss (3x06)

Man, I got super weepy with this one.

Cons:

I felt like of all the emotional gut-punches in this episode, the one that wasn't as effective for me was Will and his dad. I think this goes back to an error in judgment from the second season. See, in the books, Will and Jopari never get to have a conversation as father and son while they're both alive. This is the first time, in the land of the dead, that they're getting to talk. But here in the show, they got to have a big chat and a slow death scene at the end of season two, so this additional scene just didn't really add all that much? I mean, don't get me wrong, always glad to see Andrew Scott, but other than his hint about how Will belongs in his own world, and instructions on finding his daemon, it felt devoid of the emotion I was wanting to feel.

I should say an overall weak point of the season has been the Gallivespians. I think they might be kind of weak points in the books too, but I remember feeling a deeper sense of connection to them such that when there were moments of tension and action, or even tragedy, it mattered to me. In the show, if you replaced all the Gallivespian characters with literal drone cameras that flitted around after the human characters, I'm not sure it would make any real difference.

His Dark Materials: No Way Out (3x05)

This was an excellent episode!

Cons:

The stuff with Mary Malone continues to be a weak point, and honestly I think that's the consequence of trying to adapt this story in the first place. Atal and the others of her kind are interesting in theory, but they feel so random, so disconnected from the rest of the journey. And they're not quite as weird and alien as I always thought of them from the books, so I think in the back of my head I was really looking forward to the Mulefa and then I saw them and it was sort of a letdown. What Mary learns here about Dust and how it's dying is really important, but with so little time spent setting this up, it feels like it could have been learned elsewhere and without Mary even existing as a character.

I kind of missed checking in with Asriel this week; his plot is "keeps getting ready to do war in the background", which, fine, but I think more of an impending sense of his presence would be helpful.

And my eternal complaint that the daemons should be more integrated into the story. We see how much Lyra is suffering without Pan, we see Mrs. Coulter about to be separated from her own daemon... I think what would be helpful is if we saw the other daemons with the Magisterium characters a bit more. Heard them talk, watched them interact with their environment and bring key insights into certain moments, instead of just feeling like an afterthought.

His Dark Materials: Lyra and Her Death (3x04)

There's a weakness in this episode that I think carries over from the book too, maybe, but I think the problem is exacerbated here... let's discuss.

Cons:

I know how this story ends, so I get why Lyra is headed for the land of the dead. I know how it all connects. But the story we've been told thus far... Lyra going after Roger when the cost is so extreme, just doesn't quite fit. The heart-rending scene with Pan where she's leaving him behind would work a lot better if a) the audience understood why Lyra going to Roger was more important than staying connected to her very soul, and b) if the daemons were better represented throughout the show. As it was, the performance from Dafne Keen was phenomenal, but the buildup did not lead to this moment having the impact you would want it to, because in the back of your head you're just going... Lyra, don't leave him, then... I'm sorry, it's sad that Roger died, but you can't actually help him now, so why are you doing this?

His Dark Materials: The Intention Craft (3x03)

Oh boy, I can't wait for episode four, I have a feeling it's going to make me a little weepy. But let's talk about this one first!

Cons:

The effect on the Gallivespians is... weird. They've got the scaling situation going, but it doesn't ever really feel like they're in the same place? Like when Lady Salmakia is talking to Lyra and Will, it doesn't feel like they're actually physically near each other. And the scene where she attacks them, angry about the knife being broken, it really did feel like the kids were flinching away on cues from someone off-camera, not to an actual living person existing in their environment.

Mary Malone... it's strange that we're not making progress quicker with her. She's on her journey, and I know where it's going, but there are five episodes left the show, and we're just now getting to the point that I think of as the beginning of her story? So I don't know, that's a little odd, pacing-wise.

Also odd for pacing was to have Balthamos come back for like two seconds just to say "oh, you're going to the land of the dead. Okay, bye, then." I guess I'm glad to see him, but not really sure what the point was there.

His Dark Materials: The Break (3x02)

Oh boy oh boy!! It's so fun to be someone who knows roughly what's coming, because shit is already getting wild.

Cons:

So I'm going to have a lot of praise for Ruth Wilson, who plays Mrs. Coulter, in a second, but there was one part in the script that I wasn't as wild about. The moment when Will has Lyra and is about to use the knife to run away and leave Marisa behind... see, this is such a pivotal moment, such a key lynchpin of the story, and I wanted Coulter's behavior to be a little more, what's the word, deranged? Unsettled? As it was, it felt like she was still in almost entirely manipulation mode, playing off of Will's feelings about his own mother to get what she wants. And that's such a key part of Marisa's character, her skilled manipulation, I get that... I just wanted this moment to be used to show the ways in which she's unraveling a bit more. A subtle thing, that I'm having a bit of a hard time articulating, but there it is.

I really like Balthamos in this adaptation but I wish there had been a bit more time with him as he's processing his grief and his purpose in life now that Baruch is gone (RIP, buddy, we hardly knew ye). I recall in the books really getting to watch this angel go through, like, a crisis of faith? It was strange and lovely and painful, and I feel like we didn't get enough time with it here. Maybe as the season goes on we'll fold that concept in better, who knows.

His Dark Material: The Enchanted Sleeper (3x01)

We're back, and it's the final season! This episode picked up right where we left off, without missing a beat. My thoughts and feelings are remarkably similar to how I think I was feeling a couple years ago when season two was on the air. Let's dive in.

Cons:

The church stuff is such an important piece of the puzzle especially here in the third season/book, but I still find myself the most bored whenever we flip back to dealing with Fra Pavel, and that whole world. It's not that it's bad, necessarily, it's just sort of... dour, and slow, in a way that I don't feel gripped by.

I also thought Will and Iorek's interaction was a bit oddly paced? I get that there's a lot of book to get through very quickly and we only have eight episodes to do it, but Will finds Iorek, immediately challenges him to a duel and then uses the knife to cut through a bit of his armor, showing that he has a weapon too powerful to beat. This is straight from the book, and yet it felt very contrived and way too easy that Will would think of this idea right away and it would work so neatly. Maybe a small thing, but just thought I'd point it out.

An eternal complaint I have about this show is that the daemons are not front-and-center enough on the screen, which makes it easy to forget about them sometimes. Which is a problem, when so many key story elements are contingent on whether or not a person has a daemon with them or not. More visible daemons, please!

The Walking Dead: Rest in Peace (11x24)

So... this finale suffered majorly for one big reason: the spinoffs next year. Let's just dive right in, shall we?

Cons:

Think about it. If this had been a true finale, if this had been the end of the universe of this TV show, we would have gotten so much content that the fans have been waiting to see. Instead, it's all teased out for us, trying to force us to tune in next year to see more Negan and Maggie, Rick and Michonne, Daryl... it's too damn much, y'all. I won't list all the missed moments, but if these spin-offs didn't exist, we definitely would have gotten Rick and Michonne reuniting with their daughter and son, right? A thing I think we've all damn well earned seeing? And if Daryl wasn't going off on his own without Carol, maybe they could have resolved that relationship in a way that would have made the fans happy to see. This is a finale. I want to feel big emotions, I want full cheesiness turned all the way up to eleven. I cannot believe that they had Rick and Michonne show up at the end in the form of letter writing, still not reunited, and we got no catharsis on any possible Rick reunion. With Michonne, with Judith, with Daryl? That man lived in the woods for half a decade being sad about Rick's death. I wanted to see them reunite, for fuck's sake.

But even setting aside the things I really wish we could have seen that just weren't there, there were moments that should have packed a much bigger punch, but were instead glossed over. The biggest one? Judith, in a moment of delirium when she believes she might die, tells Daryl that Michonne left to go find Rick, who they believe to be alive. I had sort of forgotten that Daryl didn't know this information, but it makes sense: Judith says she never told Daryl because she didn't want him to leave too. This should have been a huge moment. Daryl's love for Rick and his family is a cornerstone of his character; the revelation that Rick is still alive should have been earth-shattering for him. And, honestly, if they're going with all these spin-offs anyway, that should have been the impetus for Daryl to leave, not some vague idea Maggie has about wanting to find out what's out there.

The Walking Dead: Family (11x23)

Yeah, so here we are! Just one more episode left to wrap everything up. Let's talk about The Walking Dead's penultimate outing!

Cons:

There's still a bit of treading water, which is frustrating to see so late in the game. The main question I have for after this show ends is, what will the state of the world be in the aftermath of the finale? Where will our characters be living, how will they be building a future for themselves? And I don't think this show is going to give me that in the end. I think there are too many spinoffs in the works, I think there's too much that's going to be left hanging.

Like all the stuff happening in the Commonwealth, trying to get Eugene out of there, it all feels real pointless when you put it up against the Commonwealth's inevitable demise at the end of the episode. In the later seasons of this show, so many of the big status-quo changing moments are frustrating because they seem to make so much of the buildup pointless in retrospect. Why have we spent so long on the Commonwealth if it wasn't bridging us to something bigger? What, in the end, makes Pamela and all her cohorts any different than any of the other mini-bosses we've had over the years? Ah, well.

Grey's Anatomy: Thunderstruck (19x06)

I'm sorry, but I'm pretty underwhelmed and exhausted all at the same time. I'm going to have to search hard to find anything nice to say about the vast, vast bulk of this episode.

Cons:

So like. Meredith is leaving the show, and this is how they want to send her off? What the hell? Everything about Meredith's departure has been treated so bizarrely and like they can't make up their mind what note they're trying to go out on. She's moving because of Zola, fine. But now her house has burned down? Why? What's the point of kicking her one more time with yet one more terrible tragedy, on her way out the door? The Grey house is an iconic setting for this show, so I suppose they wanted to mix things up and do something dramatic here, but it honestly feels so shoehorned in and unnecessary. We're also having to deal with Nick and Meredith drama, because Nick doesn't know whether to follow her to Boston, or else stay put in Seattle to take care of the students he's just starting to train. I obviously do not care about Nick at all, he's boring as sin, so the idea that we might have Nick still on the show when Meredith is gone is truly the worst of both worlds to me. Yeesh.

The author story with Tessa, a fictional Seattle children's author, was way too over the top. She's full of wisdom and knows she might die, but wants to live because she still has more stories to tell in her soul or whatever... give me a break. They were leaning so heavily on how tragic it would be for her to die, that I was pretty sure she'd be safe, and indeed she was. I didn't hate the idea of this character conceptually, I just think someone needed to turn the dial down on the "inspirational older lady" setting. I also found Lucas to be particularly frustrating this week. He chokes during a surgery and is asked to step aside so Simone can take over, and then in the aftermath of the totally successful surgery, all he can do is mope about how he failed and how he's not living up to his family legacy. The truth now being out about Amelia being his aunt, we're having to see this character do yet more angsting about legacy and living up to the family name. Yawn. Also, the Lucas/Simone kiss kind of came out of nowhere. Maybe I won't hate it someday, but for now I'm just kind of uninterested in that angle.

The Handmaid's Tale: Safe (5x10)

This season happened so fast!

Cons:

I'm a little confused about Nick and Tuello. Basically, Nick agrees to turn spy for the Americans, because he knows that Gilead is trying to punish/kill June? But basically he connects with Tuello in exchange for a promise that Tuello will do everything he can to keep June safe... but like... wasn't that already a guaranteed outcome from the Americans? They weren't about to let Gilead kill June if they could help it, so what is Nick actually getting out of this? Is he planning on eventually getting the hell out of there, and joining June? I get it, that learning that June is in danger would frighten him, but it seems he's changing his mind and doing this crazy risky thing, all for a very nebulous return.

I was a little annoyed with Luke and June and Nichole fleeing and Moira not coming with them. We have so little insight into what Moira's life is these days, other than as a co-parent to Nichole, a real part of their nuclear family. So, especially since Luke was planning on turning himself in so his family could get away... why not send Moira along too? What is the point of her staying there in Canada, when she too is an American refugee that the Canadian people don't want anymore? And then there's just the unnecessary trickery and drama of Luke not communicating with his wife about staying behind. That kind of sucked.

The Walking Dead: Faith (11x22)

Y'all, we are so close to this show being over. The end is in sight. I can hardly believe it.

Cons:

I knew we were in trouble when I saw how Negan-heavy this episode was. I just don't feel invested in him and his new wife and the baby on the way. I keep saying it over and over, this is never going to be super compelling to me, unfortunately. There are little sparks of interest with Ezekiel, which surprised me, but ultimately no. This whole plot thread with the work crew standing up to some random evil minion of the Commonwealth whose name I don't even know, just feels like time wasted. There were so many turns here where at first we're supposed to think Negan is going to betray Ezekiel to save his own skin, but of course he doesn't. Then we're supposed to think Negan is going to be killed by firing squad, but of course he isn't. Our other heroes show up just in time to save the day, and I found myself yawning. Shouldn't there be more tension here?

Meanwhile in Alexandria, Maggie is reunited with Hershel but all the other children are still missing so we have to drag out this rescue operation for next week. Again, I'm sorry, I know I sound awful but - I don't care about Hershel and Maggie that much. Maggie has been gone from the show for so long, and honestly it doesn't feel like she ever quite came back, does it? I don't know her anymore. I don't feel connected to her and her emotional journey. I want Judith back, honestly.

Grey's Anatomy: When I Get to the Border (19x05)

Well then, I guess we know why Meredith won't be around much for the rest of the season!

Cons:

This episode was odd, it felt like an outlier that arrested the progress of certain key arcs. This was the first episode all season where I felt kind of "meh" about the new interns, and that's because we spent all our time focusing on Lucas Adams, and how his co-workers think he and Amelia are sleeping together. I thought that a was funny and potentially dramatic little wrench to put into the works when it first happened, the classic lie that grows out of control. But now we've got this whole thing where it's tied up in Lucas being a disappointment to his family and trying to stake out his own identity... and I'm just kind of bored with it all. What's going to happen when the others learn that he's Amelia's nephew? Well, nothing much, probably. They'll all judge and/or shun him for being a legacy kid, instead of for sleeping with an attending. Who cares.

Catherine Fox has never been a favorite of mine. When I saw that Jackson and Tom Koracick (my beloved fave) were going to be in this episode, I got really excited. But Tom's entire purpose was to talk to Catherine about her cancer, which has come back and is probably going to kill her this time around. I don't dislike Catherine to the point of wishing for her death, but god am I sick of the back and forth on this. She's had cancer for years now, we're constantly waiting to see if this is when she'll finally succumb to it. Can we not give Richard a break? He's lost every woman he's ever loved to sickness. I'm getting tired of this.

The Handmaid's Tale: Allegiance (5x09)

Oh goodness. I can't believe there's just one more episode of this season. Lots to discuss.

Cons:

I could have predicted that something was going to go wrong with the planned Hannah rescue, but I have to admit I'm a little disappointed in this less than creative outcome. Is Hannah's rescue going to be the last thing that happens in this show? Are we not going to actually see the aftermath of that, or are we going to drag out this family separation for all of season six as well? I guess I'm just getting a little frustrated. I would have at least liked something a bit more thrilling than all the Americans getting shot down and killed, essentially offscreen, while June and Luke just worry and wait.

So, the thing is, seeing June and Nick interact is just... it immediately sucks all the air out of the room. They have such good good chemistry that you just root for them to start smooching at every second. This is good, for the most part, but there are two problems. One, it just re-emphasizes how underwhelming Luke and June's connection is, by contrast. And for two... we've seen similar scenes for June and Nick so many times. So many fraught goodbyes, so many situations in which there's an unavoidable reason why they just can't be together. Every time, I don't know if I'm meant to believe a door is firmly closed, or if it's still cracked open in some way. So I'm left more flummoxed than I am moved. Nick's excuse for not being able to come to Canada feels a bit weak. Yes, Rose is pregnant, and yes, "Gilead is Rose's home", but come on, Nick. Obviously you have far more power to change your life circumstances than June does.

The Walking Dead: Outpost 22 (11x21)

We are so close to the end! This was a pretty good outing.

Cons:

It's difficult for me to feel invested in Negan, even now. He's separated from his pregnant wife, and I think I'm meant to care and be concerned, but she's such a non-character, we've had no time to get to know her, and I can't bring myself to care just on Negan's behalf, you know?

The twist about Outpost 22 being... Alexandria?? Really confused and annoyed me. It emphasized the extent to which this show has lost all control of its timeline and geographical awareness. I knew that Alexandria had been taken over by the Commonwealth, but that was through Hornsby, who was on Pamela's bad side, to say the least, and is now dead... so who is running the former Alexandria (and Hilltop? Question mark? Now?) How long has it been? I thought there were still some of our heroes/good guys in those old communities, or did they really clear them entirely out? Man, I don't know, and I don't really care.

It just feels like another retread, instead of a propulsion into something new, the way I was hoping for. I wanted the Outpost or the work camps or whatever, to be giving us new insights into the larger world. I thought we'd be connecting the Commonwealth to how other parts of the world have been surviving. I thought this would be more of a direct line back to Rick, is what I'm saying. There's so little time left!

Grey's Anatomy: Haunted (19x04)

Happy Halloween!

Cons:

I actually wish they'd done more with the spooky holiday vibes. It was cute to see Bailey in a costume or whatever, but they could have had slightly more fun with the whole concept. What about Meredith's younger two children, did they get to have a fun night trick-or-treating? What about Teddy and Owen's kids? Felt like this episode could have had more checking in with the various families.

Say it with me: Nick is boring. This week he was nothing more than a boring sounding board for Meredith to bounce off of. I miss when she dated interesting and dynamic men with personalities. Sigh.

I thought that Jules's little rant about the cadavers being disrespected was a bit odd. Surely in med school she had to dissect a cadaver? She must know that donating bodies to science includes medical training purposes? I just thought it was odd to make her a mouthpiece for this. Almost like it was just there so that Owen could reassure us, the audience, that stabbing a dead guy's body and pretending there was still a way to save him wasn't actually as ghoulish as it seemed. To be clear, it is kind of ghoulish. But it's also an opportunity to learn, and that felt like an obvious truth that a resident would already know.

The Handmaid's Tale: Motherland (5x08)

Man, this is a good episode. This is a good show.

Cons:

The only thing I can think of as a con for this episode is the things it didn't include. Moira hasn't had a lot of connection to this season's main plot, and I've been missing her perspective on things. She and Luke and June are all co-parenting Nichole together, and she has been pushed to the side of things for a while now.

Pros:

June's plot in this episode centers around the big question of whether or not she should go back to Gilead for Hannah. On the one side, there's Lawrence, setting up this New Bethlehem project that will hypothetically begin to mend some of the human rights violations of Gilead. He wants June to come there, to be able to live with Luke and Nichole, to be near to Hannah when she becomes the head of her own household. And then on the other hand, Tuello is telling her to please, please not go back, that she is symbolic of American resistance to Gilead, and her giving in will be a huge blow. He promises to work as hard as he can to get Hannah out, as long as June will stay put in Canada.

I love this dichotomy. It's such a culmination of June's struggles over the entire history of the show. All she's wanted to do is save Hannah, she has felt like such a failure leaving Gilead without her. And yet this is a real issue, a choice that has huge ramifications. Rita says she'd do anything if her son was still alive and she could be with him. But Luke points out that Gilead cannot be trusted. The chance to be closer to Hannah likely isn't worth the risk of putting themselves, and Nichole, under Gilead's control once again.

Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor (2022 Halloween Special)

Well, that's the end of the Thirteenth Doctor. Does anyone else feel like she still never quite hit her stride?

Cons:

Dan ended up being one of the most useless companions in Doctor Who history! I found him so charming and interesting to start, he had so much potential, but pretty much all his adventuring with the Doctor happened offscreen. We never got to establish a relationship between him and the Doctor properly.

And that's just generally true of so much of this Doctor's run. I loved the stuff with her and Yaz. There was a brief spark of something great with the Fam, there for a while. It sure was great to see Graham. But in terms of who this Doctor is, and what her specific vibe is, I don't think I ever really clicked in with it. It's not the acting, I think that was pretty damn solid across the board. It just felt like someone was holding these seasons back from reaching their full potential.

The Walking Dead: What's Been Lost (11x20)

I've been missing Carol since we came back from hiatus! She's the best.

Cons:

I was celebrating after the last couple episodes that it seemed the Commonwealth stuff was done with, and we could move on to endgame stuff, but instead it's all dragging on a bit much. Clearly now we know that the Commonwealth is going to connect us to some bigger story of surviving human communities. It might even be our bridge back to the long-missing Rick Grimes. But at the same time, I'm thinking about Hilltop and Alexandria and Oceanside and all the other shit we want to be wrapping up in the last four episodes of the show, and thus having Pamela to deal with as a villain, and Hornsby still in the picture, starts to feel a little frustrating. I definitely thought Zombie Sebastian killed Hornsby last week, but I guess Pamela wanted to torment him a bit first. When will villains ever learn?

Yumiko's journey this episode was good in some ways, but it just feels like we never spent enough time on her and her brother, on showing how she's been doing in the Commonwealth during all this time. Now we're going to have some Commonwealth courtroom drama, it looks like? I'm not necessarily that mad about it, I just feel like it's odd in terms of its placement in the season as a whole.

Grey's Anatomy: Let's Talk About Sex (19x03)

Grey's likes doing its special episodes, and honestly even when they're heavy-handed I still think they're kind of interesting and often quite effective. Let's dive in!

Cons:

I am... extremely torn about Zola being super gifted. It feels like the more interesting conflict for Meredith's personal life would be if Zola was struggling with a learning disability, falling behind in school, and Meredith could have the chance to be the kind of mother she never had, and encourage and nourish her daughter even if she's not going to be "extraordinary" by normal societal definitions. I'm willing to see where this goes, but it feels a little silly to me. Especially as a convenient follow-up to Zola having panic attacks. Turns out they're happening because Zola is a super genius. Okay then. (Also, this plot thread includes Nick, the most Boring Character Ever to Live, so I'm automatically a little biased against it.)

I'm going to have a lot of nice things to say about the main plot with the sex education thing, but I do want to note a few elements I didn't 100% love... for one, the dancing video at the end, and the cheesy thing where Bailey talks about needing to speak the kids' language... I can see how that seemed like a good idea in the writing of the script, and I liked the goofy energy of the dancing, but I wish we had had a moment of self-awareness that trying to plan something to go viral isn't actually how any of this works. Maybe something about Bailey's idea will charm the youths and a TikTok trend will pop off. Or maybe it will be mocked mercilessly. Or maybe it'll fizzle and die entirely. I don't think you can actually predict these things.

The Handmaid's Tale: No Man’s Land (5x07)

Okay, let's not waste any time, and dive right in!

Cons:

I detected this odd whiff of... conservativism to today's episode? I don't entirely know where I'm going with this so hold on while I think it through... but basically June's speech to Serena about how her baby belongs with her was all very... biological determinism-y. Serena is the only face and smell and person that Noah knows. He came from her. They belong together. I don't know, it just suddenly struck me how sinister this show is about having the villainous bad crowd specifically be people who are adopting-by-force, while the good, right, moral thing is always for a baby to stay with its birthmother. Obviously within the context of the show, Gilead's actions are monstrous, and no child should be ripped away from its family in that manner. But adoption writ large isn't a moral evil, and this episode made me kind of feel like they were implying that? Am I being too sensitive to this? I don't know...

I'm about to pay a lot of compliments to the characterization and performance of our two leading ladies, but I do want to reiterate a point I've made before and I'm sure I'll make again, which is that both of these women have been historically protected by their whiteness, and they continue to be so. Serena is a rapist and slavery apologist among other vile crimes. June is able to get away with her (completely justified) defiance in part because she is a white, straight woman. It's a refrain I want to keep saying because this show is so focused on its political message, it so clearly wants to be read as commentary on our current moment, and yet it often misses some of the biggest, most obvious areas of intersectionality in its storytelling.

The Walking Dead: Variant (11x19)

Okay, so... new zombie varieties, then? With just a few episodes left of this show?

Cons:

I suppose I should be grateful they're mixing things up, but as someone who 100% refuses to be drawn into anything of the extended universe after this show, it's a little strange to have this development coming in at the eleventh hour. Some of the most interesting stuff on offer in the earlier days of this show was the speculative world-building. How did the zombies work? Was there a cure? Is there any part of the world not affected, or affected to a far lesser extent? What is happening, physiologically, to these reanimated corpses? It's frustrating that the show has treaded water and repeated plot points so many different times, without really delving deeper into any of these questions. So while I'm happy we now have walkers that can climb walls and open gates, I'm feeling like it might be too little too late.

One thing I wish this show would grapple with is the degree to which our "heroes" are a destructive force. Here we have various characters deciding whether to leave or stay in the Commonwealth, with Eugene determined to stay for Max, Ezekiel determined to stay to build something new, while Daryl, Carol, the kids, Rosita, etc. are all aiming to get out. And I'm just thinking to myself: you motherfuckers rolled up to this place when it was fully functioning (albeit evil to its core), and now you're leaving it burning in your wake! How many times are you going to do that, and not have the show comment on how fucked up it is?

Grey's Anatomy: Wasn't Expecting That (19x02)

Nick is the most boring character Grey's Anatomy has ever written! Sorry!

Cons:

Like, seriously. Meredith's whole speech about how she went numb when she lost him... please. I think my problem with him is that it's hard to think of him being anything more than a blip on Meredith's radar. Her life has been filled with vibrant and interesting characters, and Nick is not vibrant or interesting.

You know I have to complain about this... Owen and Teddy. I will say that the somewhat comedic marital woes are a step above the angsty, overwrought drama we usually get with these two, but it's still not exactly pleasant to watch all the same! I was complaining last week that Owen's whole plot thread last season led to absolutely nothing in the way of real consequences. Well, apparently the consequences are going to be marital problems between Owen and Teddy. Yippee. Can't wait to see that. Ugh.

The Handmaid's Tale: Together (5x06)

Well damn! I wasn't expecting that!

Cons:

I don't know how to speak about this eloquently, it's definitely not a subject where I'm the expert, but I'm just not sure how I feel about seeing Luke beaten and nearly strangled to death. It's... well, this show has a problem with the way it depicts race. I'm not crying foul that they dared to depict something so gruesome, it just... it kind of feels like an infamous death on Orange is the New Black where the show is using a specific real death as the inspiration for a trauma inflicted on a character, and I'm not sure how to feel about that. This show just has such an erratic track record with actually dealing with structural racism, which is a big, big problem I've talked about before. You can't have a show about the struggles of women in a patriarchal totalitarian system without considering race as a very serious factor. And the fact that we saw Luke struggling for breath while he was being suffocated... I don't know. That was viscerally upsetting to me on a level beyond a lot of what this show does to me. And it didn't seem to specifically propel the story forward in any way, either.

I continue to be a little frustrated by the repetitive journey of Aunt Lydia. She feels all guilty about the abuses these young girls have suffered with her full knowledge and permission? I mean, I guess I'm glad she's trying to stand up for them now, but that doesn't make her any less complicit in the rest of it. It's all rape, Lydia. All of the Handmaid stuff is rape, and she knows that. I hope the show actually grapples with that, and we don't just have a retread of the same thing again and again.

The Walking Dead: A New Deal (11x18)

Okay, honestly, this episode woke me up a little bit. It wasn't necessarily "good" by most metrics, but it avoided the cardinal sin of being entirely boring. Let's discuss!

Cons:

In a strange way, the fact that the Commonwealth is going up in flames and Sebastian is dead and all is chaos, kind of pisses me off. Not because I wanted to spend more time on this whole mess. No, quite the opposite: I've been ready to close the door on this for quite some time, and now that it seems I'm finally getting my wish, I am paradoxically even more annoyed about the time wasted on it. I'm glad Sebastian's dead, and I'm glad we got an over the top chaotic death for him, because that was fun to see. But I'm also just... annoyed at how long this story took to get to its resolution, if indeed we've even reached it.

Some of the quieter character moments of this episode really worked for me, and I'll talk about those in a second, but a lot of them really didn't register. Ezekiel talking about staying behind to take care of a new kingdom felt like a really lackluster way to sunset his character. Again, if that's what's even happening. We've got Negan at the bedside of his pregnant wife, contemplating fatherhood. Yawn. We've got Lydia apparently with a new boyfriend, telling Carol that she'll never forget Henry. So much of these last few episodes of The Walking Dead are now slated to feel like setup for the bajillion spinoffs happening next year, and I for one am already sick of it. I can tell you that I will not be tuning in!

Grey's Anatomy: Everything Has Changed (19x01)

And we're back!

Cons:

Nick is so boring! I still don't care, I wish they'd phased him out between seasons, it would have been so easy to do. You know how Meredith is gonna be less of a prominent focus this season, what with all these new interns? Apparently she's only going to appear in about a third of the season's episodes. If that's the new normal, or if she's leaving for good after this season and the show continues on, they should have just given her a new off-screen boyfriend who we never got to meet, or something. I miss Andrew DeLuca. Heavy heavy sigh. The point being, this episode shows Meredith and Nick rehashing the drama from the season finale months ago, where Nick walked away and went back to Minnesota, and Meredith stayed in Seattle. The degree to which I do not care about this cannot be overstated. I hope we don't spend too much time with Nick.

Teddy and Owen are back and already bickering with each other, so that's... fun, apparently. Turns out Owen conveniently got all criminal charges dropped and he's back, he just has to be supervised for six months? Look, you know I'm not a fan of Owen, and I'd just as soon brush past all his drama and bullshit, but that's so much buildup for so little payoff! Is that really the end of the whole saga of Owen performing unauthorized death with dignity on people? Yeesh, what a waste of time.

The Handmaid's Tale: Fairytale (5x05)

Okay, things are getting pretty intense up in here...

Cons:

I really feel like this season is supposed to sell me on Luke and June as an endgame romantic couple, and I remain a bit unconvinced. There are things about this episode that in a vacuum, sure, they're cute. Luke serenading June, the two of them dancing together, having this moment of peace... then just the simple fact that they're willing to go do this dangerous thing together for the chance to get information on Hannah... all very much Couples Goals and all that. It's just that the show as a whole hasn't done enough to convince me that they truly understand each other on a deeper level. Probably my least favorite moment of the episode was when Moira remarked on how they never stop fighting for each other. Because that was a moment that tells me what the show is wanting me to think. And what the show is wanting me to think is that Luke and June can beat the odds, that they're united in some fundamental way that can transcend their separation and their wildly divergent life experiences. And nothing that the show has done thus far has convinced me that that's the case.

While I'm happy we're making some progress in upping the stakes for June and Luke, as it appears they've been captured by Gilead and separated at the end of the episode, a part of me was a little murky on the logistical details in a way that irritated me. Crossing over into Gilead is a huge risk, and June and Luke going together means they're risking orphaning Nichole. And the reason they're doing this isn't because it's necessarily going to get them any closer to recovering Hannah, but simply as a bid for information. They're worried and scared about Hannah in the Wife School, and that's very understandable, but all they get out of this little field trip is confirmation of what they already could have guessed. Young girls on the cusp of puberty are put through training to run a household, then married off at a disgustingly young age. They already knew that Hannah was in danger in this specific way. Why risk so much for no concrete progress at all?

The Walking Dead: Lockdown (11x17)

I gotta say, this episode really didn't pack the punch that you'd want for a first outing after a long hiatus. It kind of felt like more of the same, making me wonder why they chose to break the season up the way they did.

Cons:

I've said this before, but watching The Walking Dead tends to cause me to just... zone out majorly. Important plot details will just slip right off my brain without making any sort of impact. There are too many characters and their motivations are too murky, too unnecessarily convoluted. You've got Hornsby doing his takeover of the other communities, and our good guy heroes trying to stop him. But then you've also got the Milton family inside the Commonwealth, and all the trouble being stirred up there. It's like a slice of a different TV show, watching the political protests and scandals happening inside this world. And earlier in the season I was praising the Commonwealth stuff for just that, for standing out and being somewhat different. But now it just feels super unmotivated, and I'm not sure what characters I'm supposed to be connecting with at any given moment.

Like, we've got Connie, stirring up a mob. Yumiko, trying to play nice. I simply don't know what anybody's endgame is here. Is this community going to get ripped apart and spat back out into the lawless wasteland of the zombie apocalypse? And is that what we want to happen, because there are evil fascists in charge?

The Handmaid's Tale: Dear Offred (5x04)

I found some of the character beats in this episode really really interesting, and then other moments felt like a retread of what we've already seen several times. Let's talk about it!

Cons:

I really liked Janine in this episode, but I'm not sure what to make of Aunt Lydia at this point. It feels like so many of her moments this season have been reiterating a dynamic we've already seen play out again and again. Where is her character going to go from here?

I still wish we had a little more understanding of what other outsiders to Gilead were really thinking, in supporting the country. I think maybe the missing piece is how the falling birth rates are affecting society writ large. That's the big motivator here, that people are willing to accept Gilead's horrific model of family life because they're so desperate about having babies. There are those in Canada who are openly accepting and admiring of Serena, and then there are also other governments from around the world that are willing to consider accepting Gilead as a legitimate nation. I want to understand this more, I think it would strengthen Serena's legitimate claim to power in this situation.

The Handmaid's Tale: Border (5x03)

Oh man... Serena Joy, what the hell are you going to do now...

Cons:

I've always praised the depiction of Aunt Lydia, a somewhat grotesque depiction of the matronly older lady who claims to protect and love the young women in her charge, but also does irreparable harm to them. This episode, this whole plot beat about Esther's attempted suicide and murder of Janine, kind of confuses me, though. I didn't think Janine was actually going to die, but the anticlimax of both Janine and Esther making it through apparently just fine from that ordeal was a little odd under the circumstances. I'm just not sure that Lydia weeping over Janine's bedside taught us anything new about her. We've seen her grapple with her temper before, we've seen her humbled by her choices, and we see her twisted love for "her girls" all the time. I'm just not sure what to take away from this.

This isn't so much a complaint as it is a question, a hope for the future of the season... we've checked in a couple times now with the Canadian people who are pro-Gilead, there to encourage Serena, seeing her as a symbol. I'd love to get a little more in these people's heads. Is it just... Evangelical Christianity? Is there anything more going on there? Do these people uniformly believe that they would be among the Wives and Commanders of Gilead, and thus don't appreciate the true horror of what's happening along class and subjective morality lines? I just wish we knew a little more about why we've got folks on Serena's side, here. 

The Handmaid's Tale: Ballet (5x02)

Okie dokie, let's dive right in!

Cons:

I'd never accuse this show of being subtle with its imagery, but every once in a while they go a step beyond bold and into downright trite/insulting. Most of the parallels with June and Serena avoided this fate, but the part where June dressed all in white, and Serena all in black, as they each got ready in mirrors... that was a little much, I gotta say.

And another moment I was taken out of it a little, what exactly was the resonance of intercutting Serena at Fred's big funeral, with June watching someone dance at the ballet? Who is the metaphorical ballerina here? Why are we cutting between these two things? It just felt too heavy-handed and also muddled to me.

Pros:

We see that Aunt Lydia is getting a group of Handmaids ready for selection, including Esther, the former Wife. Janine gets to go along to her former Commander's house in order to show Esther off, and thus gets to see her daughter. But Esther has bigger plans for the rebellion; she steals some chocolates from the Commanders' house, and somehow poisons them... the episode ends with her and Janine both collapsing and coughing up blood. Gasp!

The Handmaid's Tale: Morning (5x01)

And we're back!

Cons:

My mom once pointed out to me that a good amount of the run time of any given episode of The Handmaid's Tale includes us just staring at June making super intense, angry faces directly into the camera. And while I think generally speaking Elisabeth Moss has the chops to pull it off, sometimes I feel like overabundance of close-ups and long silent emotional beats can get a little repetitive and exhausting.

I felt like there was a strange turn in the script which was June going home to Luke and Moira, then turning around and meeting her fellow co-conspirators at the diner. I wish she'd gone straight to the diner? It just felt awkward to me. And then all the other women seemed to think June was going to lead them on a killing spree. Was this something that June had promised them before, or were they deluded to think it was ever coming? Just felt like I was missing one beat to explain these women's motivations. I get why they want to go kill their abusers, but I didn't quite understand their anger with June.

What We Do in the Shadows: Sunrise, Sunset (4x10)

The finale already. This season zipped right by!

Cons:

I honestly felt pretty underwhelmed by this finale, I think because it was focused on the Colin plot, which was ultimately not super successful in my opinion. I get it, he's an angsty teenager now... and then he becomes a full adult and resumes being Colin Robinson, seemingly with no memory of his year being raised by Lazlo. I guess if I describe this scenario, it's kind of funny, but seeing it play out just didn't really make me smile all that much. I am happy to have adult Energy Vampire Colin Robinson back in our lives, though, he really is such a funny part of the show and I'm thinking I might enjoy him again in season five now that we're through the gauntlet.

The night club has officially failed, with Nadja's last terrible idea being to burn it to the ground to get the insurance money, only to discover she doesn't have insurance, and only her office, the room with her secret stash of embezzled money, has burned, the rest of the club untouched because of the blood sprinklers. There were some funny moments here that I'll get to, but again I felt a little underwhelmed.

Roswell, New Mexico: How's It Going to Be (4x13)

I can't believe it's over!! I'm so emotional, y'all.

Cons:

So like... here's the thing. I don't think this finale was "good", in a lot of ways. It's just that by and large, the ways in which it wasn't good were things I don't really care about, so it didn't bother me? The big one of course just being Clyde, the whole A-plot with him trying to get back to his planet. Did anyone else feel like the writing of this season literally wasn't sure what the stakes were supposed to be? Was the Alighting really just... this one evil alien dude going home and trying to be an evil dictator? I mean, sure, that wouldn't be great for Oasis, but it's sort of a paltry threat in the grand scheme of things, no? Were we really meant to think that Clyde was so menacing that his return to Oasis would spell disaster for a planet already apparently on the verge of death? It makes no sense, it was a weak-ass final villain for the show, I felt nothing about him, I'm glad Liz got to kill him I guess but I also just really don't care.

Structurally, this season had a lot of problems, and they definitely came to a head for me here in this finale, particularly in regards to the final plan to defeat Clyde, and how ultimately it was Liz's victory and trickery that lead him to his own doom. That's a cool idea in isolation, but when I think back over this season and what it was trying to set up, you've got Michael yearning for home, those moments when Clyde was showing him Oasis. You've got Bonnie's complicated and abusive relationship with Clyde. You've got Isobel's bond with Tezca, something that was way under-explored and felt pretty unmotivated to me, but still... and then in the end, Liz, who has no real personal thematic connection to Clyde, is the one who takes him out, just because he's the bad guy and she's the protagonist? Look, Jones also left something to be desired as a villain, but at least the final showdown with Liz in season three had emotional resonance to it, because the dude was literally a clone of her true love.

What We Do in the Shadows: Freddie (4x09)

Ohhhh boy. I haven't checked for the reception of this episode yet, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say Tumblr isn't happy.

Cons:

So here's the thing, the biggest "con" I have for this episode is one that's very conditional on whether Marwa ever comes back. Turning your only woman of color into a white British man and then sending her off, after a full season in which this character is stripped of her agency and turned into nothing more than exactly what Nandor desires is... well, it's a choice. And to be clear, I think it's a choice the show made on purpose, I think we're supposed to think Nandor's behavior towards Marwa is ghoulish and disgusting and all the rest, I think we're meant to feel horrified by it. But that doesn't change the fact that I expected the payoff for this story to be Marwa getting to live her best life, and now instead she's... effectively... erased from existence? I don't know. This ending for her character gives me very weird, uncomfortable vibes. I would have played this differently if it really is the end for Marwa, at least resetting her back to her original state before sending her off into the world. If they go back and do more with this character later, I'll be happy. If they don't, I'm side-eyeing the way this was developed pretty hard.

Roswell, New Mexico: Two Sparrows in a Hurricane (4x12)

The blue filter is defeated! Huzzah! This was a really good episode.

Cons:

I feel like I have a decent list of little nitpicks, things I didn't love, but the overall pacing of the episode worked so much in its favor that I don't weigh these negatives very heavily against the overall successes... but let's go over them really quickly.

Tezca's death was the biggest negative for me in this episode. It was played up in a super dramatic fashion and I feel really bad but it just did absolutely nothing for me. Isobel and Tezca didn't get the time to really develop much of a relationship; her redemption felt half-baked to me. I think part of what made it less impactful was that she didn't really do anything in the pocket dimension, so what was the point of her sacrifice? In the end, it was Michael creating the fuel, Max able to hold off the storm, and Dallas using his water powers, that got the portal back open when Clyde closed it. So Tezca just came along in time to... die? I also wish, considering that's the last of Tezca, that she could have explained why she shoved Alex in the quicksand to begin with. Was it really just to get him out of the way? Or did she know that Michael would end up following him, and that since he has Jones's DNA, he'd thus destroy the pocket world, and that's what she wanted? I don't know, I'm super unclear on this, and I also don't really care, which isn't the best sign.

Eduardo's daughter appearing again felt like a waste of time, I'm sorry to say. A lot of watching this last season has been seeing things I wish they could have trimmed away to tighten the story, and this character is definitely one of those things.

What We Do in the Shadows: Go Flip Yourself (4x08)

I mean... absolutely hilarious in every way.

Cons:

This episode was relatively light on Guillermo, and I kind of missed having the Guide around, but honestly I don't have much I can really complain about! Oh, I guess even though Young Colin Robinson isn't my favorite part of the show, it was a little odd that he wasn't around for this, considering that it seems like the kind of boring show he'd be into as much as Lazlo. No acknowledgment that he also lives in the house was kind of odd!

Pros:

I just... I don't even really know how to articulate the cleverness of how this episode was framed and scripted and edited. It immediately sent me back in time to being a kid and watching shows on TLC, remember TLC? My favorite was Clean Sweep. Obviously now all this kind of thing is on HGTV which I don't really watch much of, but I still recognize the trappings of the genre. The editing, the logos, the way they'd show a misleading preview clip from the next scene after the commercial break, the intro song with the attempt at being bad-ass, played over clips of comically small renovations and stock footage of demolitions, the style of the interview, the moment of decision where we cut back to earlier moments of the characters considering their changes, the big "reveal" and how obviously disappointed they all were, the post-credits scene they all film for the purpose of getting like $1,200... I could go on and on. It all felt like a spot-on parody of something I wouldn't have even said I knew much about to begin with.

Roswell, New Mexico: Follow You Down (4x11)

Y'all, I'm seeing shrimp colors, I'm experiencing shrimp emotions, I don't know what way is up right now. Holy moly. Let's discuss.

Cons:

Let's start with Clyde. He sucks. He's a boring villain and a waste of time! I'm sorry, but it's true! I kept thinking that all of the core emotional beats between our principal characters could have been accomplished without him even existing. Instead of Liz getting literally kidnapped, continue the narrative of her being stolen away by her addiction to the alien mist. She could be trapped in a prison of her own mind, instead of Clyde causing unnecessary extra obstacles with his fanaticism. It's all just such an anticlimax, to have this follower of Jones be our villain for season four, when we already dealt with the man himself last year!

I'm also underwhelmed by Vanessa's inclusion in this story. I think we're meant to see Liz has having gained a mentor and a mentee this year, Shivani and Vanessa respectively, but they didn't do nearly enough to establish Vanessa as a character before using her here as the means of Liz's capture and control. And I'm not advocating for more Vanessa screen time, quite the opposite! Do this story without her. Have Clyde use Kyle as the bait. It works better in every way: it's someone Liz cares about, that the audience has a vested interest in, and then Rosa gets to use her superpowers to save her brother's life, instead of some random woman she doesn't know.

What We Do in the Shadows: Pine Barrens (4x07)

Amazing, flawless, no notes.

Cons:

No, seriously, no notes.

Pros:

This episode gave me everything I never knew to ask for. Let's take the two main stories in turn.

First, you've got Nandor, Lazlo, Young Colin, and Sean going out to a cabin in the Pine Barrens on a hunting trip. The emotional core of this story is that Nandor is jealous and resentful of Lazlo's friendship with Sean, and just feels in general that they've been spending less guy time together. Lazlo is insulting towards Nandor to start, and both of them fight back and forth, until the presence of the Jersey Devil (a creature they previously stated to be entirely made up), forces them to work together to defeat the evil in their midst.

As always, I'd like to avoid just listing out a million jokes that I thought were funny, but Young Colin playing "New Jersey music" from his phone in order to distract the Jersey Devil was pretty great, as was the gun battle ending in Lazlo accidentally shooting Nandor in the hand. I also just particularly loved Sean in this episode, he's just such a bro, such a guy, you know? His encouragement to Young Colin that he's not boring was really funny, as was his completely measured response to Colin's casual mention of his more violent tendencies. This was the funniest I've found Young Colin Robinson since the first episode of the season, so that's encouraging to see.

Roswell, New Mexico: Down in a Hole (4x10)

Okay, I will say that this episode was quite the mixed bag for me, and while I still came out of it curious and excited for what comes next, I'm also feeling a lot of kind of bad energy about the fact that there are only three episodes left, and all the things they've set up that I can't imagine being satisfactorily paid off. Let's talk about it.

Cons:

There were many scenes/moments/ideas in this episode where I found myself thinking: if there was going to be a season five, or if this was happening in the first third of the season, I would like it just fine. But that ticking clock made it really hard for me to ignore the overall pacing issues of this season. For example, we get time to linger on Bonnie's emotional journey, to work with Tezca on coming to terms with her brainwashed villainy. We have time spent with Shivani and her grief for her daughter, the ways in which she and Liz are diverging on their goals. None of this stuff is bad, and if there were going to be a fifth and final season of this show, I don't think I'd mind as much. But none of this is why I'm here, and it does feel like we're wasting quite a bit of time that could have been spent with our core characters and their relationships.

I think the big one for me in this regard has got to be all the stuff happening with Evil!Liz. Now, as I'll talk about below, I kind of love the idea of Liz going full ruthless, dedicating herself to the science and shutting off her compassion. But there are three episodes of this show left, and Max and Liz are... broken up? Liz and Max have continually made these big unilateral decisions that cause serious problems for their relationship, and again and again it appears that they haven't learned their lesson. Hard to root for a happily ever after for them in just a few short episodes, when I'm sitting here thinking maybe it's for the best that they be apart...

Westworld: Que Será, Será (4x08)

It's already the finale, time flies!

Cons:

In many ways this episode almost functioned more as an epilogue, like, it wrapped up elements of the season, but we didn't really learn anything new except that final decision from Dolores. So there were things as I was watching that felt... redundant? Unneeded?

Like, okay, we have another showdown between Charlotte and William. We saw these two fight last week, and this time it's like "hey, round two, with a new winner this time." So it almost made last week's confrontation seem irrelevant, if they were just going to do a round two here. It also stalls out the impact of Charlotte's "death" last week; it's not that we didn't know it would be temporary, but to see her getting back up and getting a cooler more impenetrable body so quickly made the whole thing feel a little pointless.

What We Do in the Shadows: The Wedding (4x06)

What did I just witness with my own two eyeballs!

Cons:

I... don't really have any? This episode honestly has everything a person could hope for? I feel a little bad, because this was probably my favorite episode of the season thus far, and it's the one that had the least Young Colin Robinson in it, so... there is that.

Pros:

Again I am at risk of this review just being a long list of funny jokes that I enjoyed, but I'll try and give you a sampling of what I liked so much about this episode.

The Baron! Makeovers with the Baron, a shopping montage, the gargoyle, both Nadja and Lazlo sneaking off for some time in the coat closet with him newly restored to his former glory... absolutely hilarious.

The long line of objections at the wedding, including Guillermo managing the line at the mic to ask people to stop checking about validating parking.

Roswell, New Mexico: Wild Wild West (4x09)

Depute Machete! Kyle as a horse! Ha! This episode was a lot of fun.

Cons:

Allie Meyers feels a little wasted to me in this episode. It was super cool to see her, and I thought her chemistry and charisma on screen was top notch. But... she didn't really have a ton to do, but to nudge Liz in the right direction once or twice. This woman was our big season three cliffhanger, and this is how she's finally folded into the story, nine episodes in to season four? I don't know. It was a bit of a letdown, and I hope Allie gets to do something interesting before the end of the show.

Clyde is boring to me. I think this episode, and the last one, both of which I really liked, emphasized to me how much more I like this season when we're not spending time with Clyde, or really with Bonnie and Tezca either. They take up so much room that I'd rather spend with other characters. This episode felt like a really good example of that. Liz's mindscape didn't have to include Clyde. There was enough going on with all her friends, and Allie, and the "evil" version of Liz, to fill up that time and make things interesting. He felt like he was added in there just because he's a villain and they needed to find something for him to do.

Westworld: Metanoia (4x07)

We're back to me struggling a little bit to feel invested, which I think is a function of less focus on the intimate character connections, and more on the somewhat convoluted and yet still not very innovative worldbuilding. Still, this was not a weak installment, even if it wasn't one of my favorites!

Cons:

The moment when Bernard and Stubbs had this goodbye hug kind of made me roll my eyes, because I can't actually muster up any caring about their friendship or whatever. Their time spent together in seasons three and four was probably the part of things that dragged the most for me. Stubbs is still such a non-entity in my mind.

Something about host!William deciding to burn it all down, turn the humans against each other and undo all of Charlotte's hard work... look, I think the truth is, I'm just kind of done with William at this point! I remember what a fascinating villain he once was, as we got a peak into his past and saw him transform into the man in black. But at this point I'm so sick of him! It looks like the human version of William has been killed, so I hope that sticks, and maybe in a potential season five we can step away from relying on William as a plot device?

What We Do in the Shadows: Private School (4x05)

Ha, this was a lot of fun!

Cons:

I think they could have wrung even more out of the concept on this one, I really liked the bits of Nandor/Lazlo, and all the different flashes of the different family configurations, but when it got to the part where they were flashing through the different setups, I was bummed out that we didn't get to see more of some of them, especially Guillermo partnered with each of the three vampires. Guillermo/Nadja? That could have been hilarious, and they didn't really go in for all the potential jokes they could have done there.

That's more a complaint about what we didn't get, as opposed to what was on the screen, though. I overall really liked this episode, but I will admit that young Colin Robinson is starting to wear kind of thin on me. He's not as funny as adult energy vampire Colin Robinson, and I hope that we get him back when this weird creature is fully grown.

Roswell, New Mexico: Missing My Baby (4x08)

I am so predictably easy lol. Literally you give me angsty Michael freaking out about Alex, and I'll forgive you anything.

Cons:

I really enjoyed this episode, but I'll of course try and step back and be objective about it! I think my main overarching complaint is that certain things in this episode would have been fine normally, but I feel a little weird about the pacing. I know that's a common refrain from me, but there are only five episodes left of this whole show, and it's a little concerning how we're still sort of lining up key pieces. Mostly, I'm talking about the Tezca stuff. It feels so late in the game to only now be clarifying the basic motivations and positions of our new characters. Clyde was my least favorite part of this episode, because the sinister reveal that he's the bad guy doesn't really hold weight when we saw him toss Dallas and Bonnie into quicksand last week. And what about the fact that Tezca is the one who quicksanded Alex? I just feel like the season spent quite a long time meandering before leading to this nexus point, and that does make me worried about what we'll be able to fit into the final episodes.

The big character thing that I need to mention this week... it's our girl Liz. I love Liz, I like having a female protagonist who is allowed to be messy and make these big mistakes and all that jazz, but this week she really, really rubbed me the wrong way. She's going around acting like she's the one who has the right to make big decisions on other people's behalves. She's the one who decides to keep Alex's disappearance a secret from Michael, and her reasons of "Michael might react poorly" and "I wanted to spare him from pain" are just... not good enough excuses! She also feels like she has a right to what Max chooses to do with his body and his powers, which is not a good look. And finally, after all the lessons she's supposed to have learned about the ethics of her alien scientific exploration, she goes ahead and takes Shivani to the pods, without running it by Max, Michael, and Isobel, and then Shivani finds out Max is an alien because of it! That's a huge secret to let slip, Liz. This is a big deal and it's super annoying that she's behaving in such an irresponsible and self-righteous way.

Westworld: Fidelity (4x06)

Hell yeah, Caleb's back, Maeve's back, this is a great episode!

Cons:

I don't really have any particular story-line that didn't work for me this week. Maybe just the same general complaint I've been saying all season, where I'm interested in various bits and pieces, but some of the larger thematic build of the season still feels sluggish/unnecessarily complex. The truth of Westworld is that they aren't really treading any new or original ground when it comes to sci-fi, so the uniqueness and spark has to come from the characters and the actual interpretation of these old tropes. Sometimes I'm impressed, and other times I feel like something tired and overused is being dressed up in a new shiny coating and being passed off as something fresh.

Pros:

Aaron Paul is a damn good actor! This whole episode shows Caleb, or rather a host built based off of Caleb, making escape attempts from Charlotte Hale. Charlotte is determined to figure out the secret as to why Caleb was able to resist all those years ago, and why humans continue to "wake up" from the control. She actually arranges to let "Caleb" escape to reach out to his daughter Frankie, but Caleb doesn't give any new information that Charlotte finds useful. All of the imagery, the dead/dying Calebs of the past, the utter torture Caleb goes through just to get an apology out to Frankie, it's really something. And then just the existential dread as you see Charlotte disposing of one Caleb and starting over with a fresh host... it's just so eerie, this sense of inevitability and looping, that whatever sliver of his original consciousness remains, it will never be able to fully escape, not even in death... chilling!

What We Do in the Shadows: The Night Market (4x04)

This wasn't the strongest installment, but it was by no means bad!

Cons:

The Lazlo and Young Colin stuff just didn't grip me the way I wanted it to! Nothing was particularly hilarious here. A few funny jokes, and of course good delivery as always from the actors, but the gimmick of Lazlo raising Colin has already started to wear thin. I wish this wasn't the case, but there you have it! And wasn't it kind of weird that Lazlo was trying to encourage Colin to look at the world as a more boring place? You'd think he'd want to do just the opposite.

Similarly, Nadja's subplot this week didn't really do much for me. She's dealing with labor disputes with the wraiths, which is what sends the whole gang to the eponymous "night market", looking for a way to bribe her wayward employees. I'm just not finding the stuff with the nightclub as fun as I wanted it to be either! There's a spark missing, somehow. I'm sure we'll get it back. Again, in terms of line delivery, everything Nadja says is still wonderful.

Roswell, New Mexico: Dig Me Out (4x07)

Honestly, really liked this episode!

Cons:

In some ways, I liked it so much that it shed a light on some of the pacing issues this season has had thus far. This felt like the point in which several plot threads were finally starting to find their footing, things moved forward in interesting ways, and I think if I were taking a red pen to this season, we'd want to have hit this point in the story maybe just one episode earlier? Cut away some of the sluggishness and extraneous stuff?

I was so happy to see Rosa again! This is maybe a nitpick, but I wish that the scene at the restaurant had gone a little differently. It felt super hasty for Rosa to get up and storm out after Liz and Shivani were talking science for like... forty-five seconds. It undercut Rosa's attitude in the next scene where she's being all mature and telling Liz to be herself. I would have rewritten that slightly so that Rosa stays at the restaurant but looks visibly uncomfortable/annoyed, and then afterwards when they get back to Rosa's place, says something to Liz about her behavior. That would have felt more mature and less awkwardly extreme. How many times have you actually gone out to a restaurant, sat down to eat, been annoyed by a family member for a minute, and actually got up to leave?

Westworld: Zhuangzi (4x05)

No Caleb or Maeve this week, which means my attention was wandering even more than it usually would! Oops!

Cons:

I'd say by and large, this episode didn't really give us new revelations, just showed us the impact of last week's new data. That's... fine, except that in a lot of ways the pacing seemed slow. So for example, Christina spends this episode building up to the huge reveal that she has been writing out the fates of all human beings, instead of just writing stories for video game characters. We see her also start to write the story of Dolores from the Westworld park, as it seems some spark of memory is trying to push its way through. It's with Teddy's help that she has her big "aha" moment. My issue here is one of pacing. We, the audience, had already figured this out a couple weeks ago. So watching Christina, a character who doesn't really have anything interesting about her other than the fact that she's a part of Dolores, come to the conclusion we've already reached just isn't as thrilling as I want it to be.

What We Do in the Shadows: The Grand Opening (4x03)

Sometimes I truly can't believe the shit this show actually puts out into the world. Madness, in the best way.

Cons:

I'm struggling to come up with anything I'd truly call a negative about this one! In terms of the comedy, I suppose I'll say that the scene with Lazlo and young Colin Robinson when they're robbing art from a museum was probably the least funny to me. The stuff with Colin has been surprisingly hilarious so far, but the repetition about the Legos, and Lazlo doing stunts with the lasers, it just felt slightly less inspired than most of the rest of the episode for me. Not bad by any means, though!

Pros:

But Colin's musical theatre references, and his performance at the end, saving Nadja's nightclub, was genuinely so funny. I love how Lazlo and Guillermo are essentially co-parenting this bizarre little nightmare together. Guillermo is offering him encouragement and being such a good dad, and Lazlo is trying to mold him into something he'll never be, until he learns his lesson about accepting his weird son for who he is. It's such a creepy uncanny valley sight, seeing that adult man's face on the body of a child, but it's cracking me up every second.

Roswell, New Mexico: Kiss From a Rose (4x06)

Sick Michael is kind of the most precious thing I've ever seen lol.

Cons:

I don't really know what to make of Bonnie as a character. I'm extremely torn. I was excited to find out that her kiss with Michael had ulterior motives, but now we find out that those motives were her trying to help him, not hurt him. She hits that "born sexy yesterday" trope for me, where she's this wide-eyed innocent excited for someone to teach her about the world, but she's also super dangerous. It's tired, it's lazy, and I don't like how she's just willing to follow whoever happens to be nice to her at any given time. On the other hand, I do like that they're kind of keeping us guessing with her character. So I don't know.

Everything with Eduardo and his daughter felt like a waste of time to me. As we move further and further through this season, I'm realizing how much these side characters and new characters are eating up the screen time I'd rather be spending with our core cast. Anatsa was like that, and the new trio, especially Bonnie, get so much attention, and Eduardo with his family drama, Shivani with her sick daughter and semi-estranged wife... I don't know. I wish they'd known when they were making this season that it would be their last. Maybe they would have tightened the scope and focused on the things we're already invested in.

Westworld: Generation Loss (4x04)

There's so many different timelines... so much is going on... but this was a great episode!

Cons:

I don't like having to work so hard to figure out what's going on. We get that scene at the end with Bernard, and the mystery woman who rescued him and Stubbs. Turns out, that's Frankie, Caleb's daughter all grown up. I don't need to be that confused about timelines! Why is it always Bernard, who's in the middle of all the timeline fuckery? It's kind of exhausting.

I've got to say, visually I didn't really enjoy Caleb's "oh shit" moment when he goes outside and he finds out that Hale's future dystopia has come to pass. It just looks like a generic sci-fi vision, a big creepy panopticon tower or what have you. Visually, despite how impressive a lot of the effects are, this show can have the tendency to get a little same-y.

What We Do in the Shadows: Reunited/The Lamp (4x01/02)

Ahhhh!!! I discovered this show during quarantine and I am so excited to be back with new episodes.

Cons:

Nothing really to report, here! More just a general wish list of things I hope we can explore later. There's this part of me that wishes season four had broken with the formula a bit more, and played around with the diaspora... the fact that we start with Nandor, Nadja, and Guillermo all returning home, and don't really get to see them having their adventures, is maybe a little disappointing? But that's maybe more a pie in the sky wish of what I wanted, as opposed to a judgment on what we actually got.

Pros:

Where to begin? I always find writing about comedies to be particularly challenging, because a lot of what was great about this episode were individual funny lines and moments, and it's not exactly fun for me to just list jokes and say they made me laugh. Suffice it to say, a lot of these jokes made me laugh!

Roswell, New Mexico: You Get What You Give (4x05)

I don't know, y'all. I just don't know, this one was not a super fun watch for me.

Cons:

So I have a bias, I know I do. I watch this show for Michael and Alex, and I won't pretend otherwise. So yes, part of my disenchantment with this episode is no Alex, and no mention of Alex being missing or in trouble. I really wish that by now we had at least Michael or the others starting to realize there might be a reason to be worried about him. I get that actor availability is a big factor here, but I think they could have handled this better. I guess I'm just a little bummed out. This is the last season of this show we'll ever get, and Alex Manes, at this point, is probably going to be gone for more than half of it.

I am really, really, disappointed in Jenna Cameron's story-line this season. I like Jenna. She's never been the world's most interesting or complex character, but she has some good energy, and her relationship with her sister always really warmed my heart and made me feel for her in a big way. But to have what looks like Cam's last episode end like this? To have her come back after a full season away, and to have her still be feeling regret/angst over what could have been with her and Max? God, that's just so... lazy, and lame, and not at all what I wanted to see! Why not give her a more interesting story? She's just there to give Liz and Max relationship advice and be a little moody about her own loneliness and then leave? Jeez.

Westworld: Années Folles (4x03)

Okie dokie, things are getting creepy up in here.

Cons:

We're back with Bernard and Stubbs, and god, I had to go back and remind myself how things left off last season, and even after the reminder I just so super did not care. We're talking about The Sublime, and different timelines and versions of events, and what basically amounts to robot heaven, and we've got the maze, and all this imagery from earlier seasons, and I don't know, y'all, it's just not gripping me. I remember in season two, I found Bernard's stuff wicked confusing and literally couldn't figure out where he fit into the timeline or connected with the rest of the events, and I'm nervous that the same thing will happen here.

Pros:

Thankfully, I really enjoyed the other plot threads that we got to focus on this week. First we've got Caleb's family, his wife and daughter, trying to get to safety. The utter spookiness of people not being who they look like is employed so expertly here. I loved how Frankie started picking up that something was wrong right away, and managed to solve the mystery, while her mother was still none the wiser. But then of course they're able to work together to try and get away. I'm surprising myself with how invested I feel in Caleb and his family.