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?