The Good Place: The Answer (4x09)

Holy mother of God. I am - emotional.

Cons:

Literally the only thing I can think to complain about is that this episode went by too quickly. Because it was so good. I feel like I blinked at it was over. Just... wow.

Pros:

This incredible half hour of television takes place in the snap of a finger. Michael wakes Chidi up, and as he does so, we get a glimpse of Chidi's life, of the moments that shaped him, as he searches for "the answer" over the many long and confusing years of his life(s) and afterlife(s). We are brilliantly shown key conversations with people that helped him to understand that there is no answer, even as he fights against this truth.

From Jason, he learns that sometimes you just need to act, that weighing all of your options isn't always going to work.

From Tahani he learns that it's okay to make mistakes, that you'll learn from them.

Supernatural: Golden Time (15x06)

This episode has made my soul ascend to heaven!

Cons:

Could have used more sign language. This is totally a nitpick, totally a personal preference thing. I love ASL and I love the idea of Sam learning it for Eileen, and I wanted more, more, more. Also a personal preference thing, but I totally wanted them to kiss? Can Eileen just like... be in the rest of the show and go on hunts with the Winchesters and start dating Sam and... yeah. More Eileen please and thank you.

Pros:

See, I couldn't even properly complain about anything before jumping straight in to the Eileen of it all. We all know Supernatural has a crappy track record with its female characters. So many of them have been fridged, or even at best killed off in a less fridge-y way, but the end result is that there is a dearth of ladies in the Supernatural universe. Eileen was a particularly difficult and senseless death, as there was no reason why she had to die to prove the point that things were getting rough. And then here we have a mission - find a way to help Eileen, who is a ghost that doesn't want to go back to Hell. Sam finds a compromise solution, but it's not ideal, and then he discovers that Rowena was working on a way to make a spirit corporeal. They can bring Eileen back! Cue some witches who come in as obstacles, some reminiscing about Rowena, and then bam! Sam gets a win. Eileen is alive once again.

Modern Family: The Last Thanksgiving (11x07)

This was pretty fun. If Modern Family wants me to feel feelings, it needs to lean heavy on nostalgia. Holiday episodes are a good way of doing that!

Cons:

Manny is insufferable. I know that's supposed to be the joke, that he's annoying everyone by talking about a girl that is giving him trouble. But just because he's supposed to be irritating doesn't stop him from being really freakin' irritating. Also, the jokes about his super tall and strong basketball girlfriend felt vaguely sexist, like the joke is that she's so desperate for a boyfriend that she won't let Manny leave. Yeesh.

At the beginning, there was the setup of Haley, Luke, and Alex making Thanksgiving dinner for everyone. Haley talks about how she wants to do something nice because of everything Claire has done for her with Dylan and the babies. But then this part of the episode ended up being about Alex's weird chef boyfriend. This stuff wasn't strictly bad, but I was expecting something else and wanted Haley to have more to do here.

Also... where was Lily?!

Arrow: Prochnost (8x05)

If there is one character on this show that I love as much as Tommy Merlyn, it's Roy Harper. Looks like the boy is back!

Cons:

We've only got five episodes left of this show. And one of them is a backdoor pilot, and one of them is the gigantic crossover event that I really don't care about... and all I keep thinking is that there's not time to wrap everything up in a way that's going to feel satisfying to me. It also still doesn't make any sense that Oliver doesn't go and see Felicity. There is actually not a good reason for staying away at this point.

There was one moment when Mia and Oliver got captured, and someone said Oliver's name, and Mia said "how do they know who you are?" and it was such a stupid thing to do that I kept waiting for a reveal where this was all part of some bigger plan. But no, apparently Mia just didn't realize it was a bad idea to confirm her father's identity when he was keeping his mouth shut. Maybe this is a nitpick, but it really bothered me.

Diggle and Roy have a subplot that was honestly pretty boring. A standard mission where they're looking for some plutonium, and Roy has to learn to not give in to his blood lust. I loved seeing Roy, but the actual mission was very blah.

His Dark Materials: The Spies (1x03)

This was a great episode, and gave me high hopes for where the rest of this season is going to go.

Cons:

I think this might be a legacy problem from the book, although it's been so long since I read it that I'm not sure. But isn't it a little odd to set Lyra up as an orphan in the first episode, and by episode three she already knows that her parents are both alive, and she knows who they are? I feel like she didn't discover the full truth until later in the narrative, in the books. Maybe I'm wrong.

The stuff with Boreal in our world is just not as exciting or atmospheric or cool as the stuff with Lyra in her world. It doesn't help that he made no real progress on his goals. He's still looking for Grumann, we don't have any new answers, and very little new information. Maybe knowing that this stuff is added and isn't in the books is making me judge it more harshly, but thus far I'm just not gripped.

Pros:

The thing that made me happiest about this episode is that it slowed down. There were multiple scenes contemplating the nature of daemons. We saw Lyra start to work out how to use the alethiometer. She learned more about her past, about the rules of the world. We got to spend time getting to know the psychology of certain characters. When you've got a show like this one, where there are so few episodes to get through the plot, there's always a tension between getting to all the important details, and letting stuff sink in and linger for a while. This was a lingering episode, and I think it came at the perfect time.

The Walking Dead: Open Your Eyes (10x07)

So obviously a really shocking thing happened in this episode, and I wanted to be totally impressed and on board and all that, but I have some problems.

Cons:

Siddiq was actually a super interesting character and I really wanted to explore his PTSD and get in to his role in the community. So, predictably, he now must die. I'm going to praise some aspects of his death in the "Pros" section, but for the most part it just doesn't track for me. There are so few genuinely interesting characters left on this show, why kill this one?

Also, Dante being a secret Whisperer doesn't make any sense at all. I wanted to be pleased with the twist, because it was certainly unexpected and that can be refreshing, but here's the problem: I thought one of the big tensions going on here is that Alpha's cult of personality would be ruined if anyone knew that Lydia was still alive. Dante knows, and is still loyal to the Whisperers. Who is this guy? We have no investment in him as one of Alpha's loyal followers. I liked Dante and found him interesting on his own merits, but now I'm having to deal with the fact that he was just there to be a setup for a twist!

Grey's Anatomy: My Shot (16x08)

Oh, Grey's Anatomy. You wouldn't be you if you didn't have manufactured coincidences popping up around every corner. I loved this episode, for the most part! Let's take a look.

Cons:

So, the thing about doing a medical drama/soap opera is that a lot of really unrealistic stuff has to happen in order to keep the drama quotient up. The characters in this show have been through more trauma than is remotely realistic for any group of people, and over the sixteen seasons of this show, every single character has done stuff that's super illegal and messed up and bad. When you have an episode like this, where Meredith's past gets dredged up, you're forced to realize how completely improbable it is that Meredith would still be allowed to practice medicine in the first place. Or frankly, how Richard and Alex would be allowed to continue, what with committing assault, breaking the law, the list goes on. And that's fine, it doesn't matter most of the time on this show. But when a spotlight is shone on all of the things that have happened over the years, it starts to feel a bit more shark-jumpy than I'm comfortable with.

Also, I can take some cheesiness, but all the patients rushing in to testify for Meredith, and the letter from Cristina, and letters from Addison, Callie, Arizona, April... come on. That's a little much, don't you think? I wanted this to be more grounded in reality. Meredith probably should be taken to task for a lot of what she's done. There could have been a better balance there, with some of her bad behavior actually being condemned. I think they tried to do that with Bailey, but for me it didn't quite stick the landing.

The Good Place: The Funeral to End All Funerals (4x08)

I am having EMOTIONS. This was my favorite episode of the season so far.

Cons:

I suppose it was a bit short? I mean, does that count as a complaint? I loved seeing our core group of characters spend time with each other, but I'll admit it threw into stark relief how much I've missed that dynamic. We didn't get to see Simone or John or Brent, and Chidi was unconscious the whole time. But even without Chidi, this episode had the energy of the Soul Squad in full force, and it's putting into perspective how much I'd been missing it all season. I guess the good things about this episode made me retroactively less pleased with some of the earlier episodes?

Pros:

The funerals were adorable and sweet and exactly the kind of life-affirming thing I needed here, as we shift to yet another big change for the show. The experiment is over, and whatever is coming next is sure to be just as wacky... so of course we should spend the first part of this episode celebrating the friendships, the growth, the real kindnesses done by the Soul Squad over the years. It was so sweet to hear Tahani, Eleanor, and Jason share their feelings about one another, and about Chidi. Even Janet got to speak up about how she felt about Jason, and about how her friends had helped her to grow as well.

Supernatural: Proverbs 17:3 (15x05)

Ooh the parallels! The meta! The heavy-handed foreshadowing, and then the acknowledgment of said heavy-handed foreshadowing. And Lilith! Let's dive in.

Cons:

I've talked about this before, and I think it's pretty standard criticism of Supernatural, but it's still kind of funny to me when Sam and Dean get flung around the room and knocked unconscious all the time. There's no way Sam doesn't have concussion syndrome at this point. To not only get hit on the head, but to be knocked out because of it for several minutes? That's a serious, serious injury. It's always so funny to me when the boys get knocked about so easily in every episode, because it seems like dumb luck that they're still alive.

The episode was only slightly past the thirty minute mark when the werewolves were dead, so it was so obviously telegraphed that there was more to the story. I would have wanted just one more twist thrown in for good measure, to try and trick audiences into maybe falling for the C-plot setup just a bit more. As it was, everything was so standard, so predictable, that I was primed for a big twist from the start.

Pros:

But honestly? This episode kicked ass, and it furthered the main plot, and if the worst thing I can say about it is that maybe it was slightly too predictable, I think we've got a winner on our hands.

His Dark Materials: The Idea of North (1x02)

Okay, we're really getting into some stuff!

Cons:

I feel much less intrigued by the Lord Boreal plot thread. I mean, this is the one thing they're doing differently from the books, thus far. They've introduced the idea of parallel worlds so early. In the novel, that reveal is teased out so gradually and doesn't really come to a head until the second book. I'm ready to have my mind changed, but so far seeing Lord Boreal in our world with all of our modern technologies, sitting there having coffee with someone, isn't actually all that interesting to me.

There was a lot going on in this episode, and along with Boreal's detour, we also got a brief glimpse of the Gyptians on their continued quest to find Billy and the other missing children. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the brief scenes we got, but I think the episode might have been better if it had had a tighter focus, maybe just following Lyra and Roger, without the distractions of these other little hints.

His Dark Materials: Lyra's Jordan (1x01)

Oh boy! It's been a while since I've started reviewing a brand new show. I think Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is one of the finest examples of young adult fiction that has ever been written. So when I heard there was going to be an adaptation of it, I was nervous. But I also knew there was no way it could be worse than the horrific movie, so... what are my first impressions?

Cons:

The young lady who is playing Lyra is doing a pretty darn good job, but there are spots here in this first episode where her performance feels a bit uneven. Most notably in her first scene with Asriel. I felt like she was reciting lines instead of reacting genuinely. This was the only scene where I had that problem, though, and I think overall we've got a strong leading lady on our hands.

So, the Gyptians are clearly analogues for Romani in the real world, and there's absolutely no getting around that association, no matter what we do. On the one hand, I appreciate that this world is a lot more racially diverse, that we've got black men in positions of power, that the Gyptians are not uniformly brown. But there are implications here. It reminds me of The Handmaid's Tale in some ways. They made a decision to strip away the significance of race in the story, but they can't actually fully erase it. It's early days, so maybe we'll get more of this touched on later.

The Walking Dead: Bonds (10x06)

Things are happening, but they're happening slowly. That might as well be the slogan of The Walking Dead, if we're being honest about it!

Cons:

The thing about Carol behaving in a concerning manner is that it makes everyone else look like idiots. I could buy in to Daryl being fooled by her whole "recon" mission, if this were the first time Carol had acted a little unwisely. But she tried to shoot Alpha in the face, and she's been hallucinating. So the fact that Daryl is indulging her in such a dangerous activity is actually really annoying and makes him seem like a moron.

The creeping threat of an illness sweeping through Alexandria is a good one, but I thought Siddiq and Dante's little argument was pretty pointless. I wanted more from this, or I wanted it cut completely. Let's focus our Siddiq time on exploring his PTSD. We got some of that too, and it looks like we'll be getting more, but the spat with Dante felt like padding.

Grey's Anatomy: Papa Don't Preach (16x07)

Big yikes... poor Maggie.

Cons:

I think all of the love triangle stuff going on right now is pretty dumb. So we have some really serious drama going on with Richard and Maggie's family, but we also have to deal with Maggie still complaining about Jackson, and then Richard's weird situation with his wife and his friend who kissed him. I think the intent was supposed to be that the tragedy overshadows all the petty stuff, but instead I felt like other things just got in the way.

The stuff with Richard's niece was straight up tragic, of course, but I think it would have worked better if this was a character who had been around at least somewhat. I didn't even realize Richard had a brother. It's totally possible that he's been mentioned in passing before, but the fact that Richard has this whole branch of his family that he's practically estranged from, is really brand new information. Imagine how much more tragic this death would have been if this young woman had been a recurring character, at least in a smattering of episodes before her death?

The Good Place: Help Is Other People (4x07)

I have some concerns, actually.

Cons:

So, I have always admired this show's ability to mix things up, change the game, constantly adapt. But the thing is... these first seven episodes were supposed to be about an experiment with the humans. Apparently now the experiment is over, and I did not get to feel any of that progress or really sink in to what it all meant. John was a nothing character. And Brent? Maybe he was about to have a breakthrough, but I need to see more of that. I need to explore the implications of what he's finally realizing. Even Simone became pretty one-note, driven only by her desire to find out the truth, and nothing more. I'm disappointed in how little time we got to spend with these characters. I wanted to explore their relationship dynamics further. I wanted to turn them from caricatures into fully realized human beings, like what happened with Tahani, Jason, Chidi, and Eleanor. But Brent and John still feel extremely one-note to me. That's disappointing.

I suppose I should lodge my continued complaint that Tahani and Jason haven't had that much to do all season. There have been sparks here or there, and last week's episode was a good one for both of them in some ways. But I still feel like the show is struggling with ideas for what to do with these two characters.

Supernatural: Atomic Monsters (15x04)

I love it when Supernatural goes meta. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen a show do it better. It's goofy and yet still thematically appropriate. And it's respectful of the once-in-a-lifetime fandom experience of being a person who watches Supernatural. Who grows up watching it. Let's talk about it.

Cons:

There is one thing that this show can't make its mind up about, and it's when it's cool to murder people. Like, yeah, the kid in this story was a vampire who had killed a young woman and was worried about losing control and killing again. But this episode also featured a (kind of) return of Benny, reminding us that vampires can be allies and friends, too. We've done this so many times over the years - Sam and Dean have had many debates about whether well-meaning monsters can control themselves enough to be left alive. And they've allied with people who under normal circumstances they might have just killed. Rowena. Crowley. Benny. Even Cas, if you want to get technical about it. It was painted as extremely tragic that the young man in this episode had to die. But I wanted there to be at least a conversation about it beforehand, where Sam and Dean said that yes, a normal life probably wasn't possible... but death wasn't the only option. If we can't live in the middle-ground, where exactly are we going with all of this?

I'm not surprised that Dean and Sam didn't talk about Cas in this episode. It makes sense because Misha can't be in the whole season, and Destiel just broke up in episode three. They're going to draw this sucker out just a little bit. But yeah, on a selfish note, I admit I was hoping for at least a mention. Maybe Sam could remark that Dean's good mood seems like a front, given how upset he's been about Cas. Oh well. I'm choosing to remain optimistic.

Modern Family: A Game of Chicken (11x06)

Hey, they gave Luke something kind of new and potentially interesting to do! Who would have guessed!

Cons:

Gloria trying to secretly baptize the twins was... really crossing a line, and also didn't really add anything. Gloria's characterization is all over the place. I did like one part of this plot thread, which I'll discuss in a moment, but overall I wasn't a fan. The super old priest didn't add any real comedy, although I guess it was nice to have a scene in Spanish for once.

Similarly, there was a moment or two that I enjoyed in Cam and Mitchell's plot thread, but the over all story was pretty shrug-worthy. Mitchell attacking a teenager in a dolphin costume, while wearing a chicken costume, should have been really funny. Instead it was kind of rote - there was nothing unexpected about what was happening here. Just a manufactured situation designed to look absurd. Cam having his feelings hurt by the school mascot isn't really related to the bigger question of whether Cam and Mitchell are going to move away for a new work opportunity for Cam. That's a more interesting story, and one I wish we could spend some time exploring.

Arrow: Present Tense (8x04)

I felt more emotion from William, Mia, and Connor in this episode's opening scene, than I ever have from any of them in the past. Let's dive in.

Cons:

Timeline stuff is always going to make things confusing and weird, but it gets even worse when you add in the logistics of stuff outside of the show's control. Because of the actress's decision to depart, Felicity can't be in this episode. But the longer that Oliver spends on his own earth in his own time, the weirder and stupider it becomes that he wouldn't be able to check in with Felicity and baby Mia. Last season we had this whole story where Felicity raised Mia in isolation, separated from Oliver because Oliver was already dead, or at least so inaccessible that it came to the same thing. Then, here, we see Oliver about to call Felicity on the phone, and he only decides not to because William says that time travel is confusing and they shouldn't bring her into it until they know more. That... is stupid. That is a lame excuse.

Also, Curtis coming back is always a treat, but he felt pretty useless here given that William can be a stand-in for any and all computer wizardry that might be required. I like that these two gay men get to be bad-asses and spend some on-screen time with each other, but I'm a little annoyed that William's sexual orientation gets trotted out occasionally but that we never really see him with a romance arc. Give this guy a boyfriend, stat!

The Walking Dead: What It Always Is (10x05)

Well... okie dokie, then. Negan has become suddenly relevant.

Cons:

There's some logistical weirdness with Kelly going out alone to hunt - isn't that incredibly stupid? And then we don't really see how she manages to survive. And the cache of food stored away is a really, really big betrayal. I'm hoping we get more out of that than just Daryl lying to cover it up because Connie asked him to. That's fine or whatever, but this is a huge deal and it needs to be talked about more.

Magna and Yumiko are characters that I want to like, and I think maybe I do like them, but it's just annoying how little time we've spent getting to know them. Here we have a scene where there's a rift that's grown up between them, and we've got bits of backstory and lots of other juicy details... and it's all underpinned by a relationship that hasn't had time to breathe or develop.

Aaron offering something to a Whisperer was weird... and now it looks like maybe Gamma is going to be a mole and help gather information? I don't know. I'm still interested in the Whisperers in theory, but as always the glacial pace of this show isn't doing any favors to the current plot elements at play.

Grey's Anatomy: Whistlin' Past the Graveyard (16x06)

As always, there is a lot to cover.

Cons:

I continue to be annoyed by everyone hating on Koracick, although there were things I liked about him this week and I'll get to that in a moment. Owen and Teddy still bore me. I like the idea of Teddy carving an identity for herself as a surgeon who isn't going to be sewing costumes for her kids, but Owen and Teddy's relationship just seems really unstable and uninteresting.

Jo's fake-out about being pregnant was uncomfortable. It felt like a meta joke, because Amelia and Bailey are both pregnant and people have been worried about more pregnancy story-lines. But that feels like the kind of weird joke that could backfire. Does Alex not want kids? Does Jo not want them? Have they discussed this? I don't know. That moment just felt very strange, and totally took me out of the cuteness of their Halloween marriage ceremony.

Pros:

I liked all of the Halloween-themed chaos at Alex and Richard's hospital, with Jo wandering around as a zombie bride, an old burial ground being uncovered, patients in danger for no apparent reason. Alex manages to hold on through the chaos, and impresses the board members with his management skills. He gets the funding he was looking for, and then goes off to marry his wife, for the second time! Very sweet, very triumphant. And Jo looked great in her costume.

The Good Place: A Chip Driver Mystery (4x06)

This episode had some structural issues, and there was one thing about it that actually kind of broke the magic of the show for me, at least in a small, temporary way.

Cons:

Another review pointed this out, and I kind of can't get it out of my head now. The reason that Eleanor believed she was in the Good Place in Season One is that Tahani and Chidi were believably people who might end up in heaven, at least superficially. It therefore made sense that Eleanor and Jason would believe there had been some kind of a mistake. So why do Simone, Chidi, and John not realize that Brent couldn't possibly be in the Good Place? Why don't they challenge this at all? It's going to keep bugging me until they address it.

On a more thematic note, I really liked Simone's question to Eleanor about why she and Tahani should have to be accommodating and kind to someone like Brent. Why should they take on that emotional labor? It's a big and important question, one relevant to real life. And the episode didn't really bother to explore it in any way. Eleanor thinks about it, comes back, and suggests they try to be more constructive when criticizing Brent's book. So she basically just says they need to tiptoe around this racist, sexist white man's feelings. And things predictably blow up, and we don't really get back to the very legitimate question at hand.