What We Do in the Shadows: March Madness (6x07)

Let's jump right in!

Cons:

So, if we're doing this Guide/Nandor thing, fine, I guess. It feels pretty unmotivated and lazy to me but okay! But then if we're going to do this, let's do this. The two characters haven't really interacted on screen, and in this episode it's just Nandor being encouraged to be brave and tell her how he feels, and then nothing comes of it? I guess I just think... if you want to use this idea as a vector for comedy, can we at least see some jokes being told about it?

With the knowledge that this show's ending is creeping up on us, I do wish I felt like this episode furthered Guillermo's plot a little more. It seems like it's just another episode reinforcing him as a loyal sycophant. The stuff with Colin was funny, but the episode ends with Guillermo happy and excited to be serving these new masters. I want him to like... foment a revolution, or quit, or something dramatic. Hopefully we'll get to see that soon.

Grey's Anatomy: If You Leave (21x07)

Oh man, this is so sad...

Cons:

I feel like going into this season knowing Yasuda would be leaving at some point, it just really made the stuff with Chloe feel strange and awkwardly placed? You introduce a whole subplot with a sister who has cancer, you make that be the reason why the Yasuda/Jules romance isn't fully lifting off, you set it up as a way for Mika to maybe leave the show to take care of her sister, then you do a big scary car accident but Mika doesn't die... and then Chloe does? I understand drama for drama's sake, that's what this show is built around! But it just felt like a lot of setup for the payoff to be so tragic and then Mika's going to leave anyway? I guess we'll see how it all plays out, but I kind of wish this was setup for a character to deal with their grief, instead of setup for a character to depart.

I guess I'm glad Owen apologized to Teddy for his big overreaction but also, just, ugh - every second spent on their relationship feels like a waste of my time as a viewer. Not to be harsh or anything.

What We Do in the Shadows: Lazlo's Father (6x06)

A pretty good episode, but probably not one of my favorites?

Cons:

The recurring gag of Nandor having a crush on the Guide still just feels really unmotivated for me. I swear this isn't a shipping thing, the whole Nandermo thing is something I enjoy thinking about but I don't have a lot of hope that the show will actually deliver on. But even setting that aside, it just feels out of nowhere and not very funny for Nandor to have this crush on the Guide, a character who hasn't been around most of the season and when she does pop up, has nothing really to do? I don't know.

Pros:

I enjoy the groupings this season, where Nandor, Nadja, and Guillermo are often connected in one of the plots together. It's a fun dynamic. Their subplot, with their misunderstanding about an AirBNB, and then the plot twist that shapeshifters actually are involved, was pretty great. Guillermo as exasperated explainer of basic human things is a joke that never gets old. And I love them accidentally stumbling into preferential treatment, as their neighbor is worried she'll get in trouble for operating an unlicensed AirBNB.

Bob's Burgers: Hope N' Mic Night (15x06)

This was a lovely episode!

Cons:

Honestly, cannot think of anything I would want to change with this one!

Pros:

This episode does what I think Bob's Burgers is best at doing, which is mirroring some really silly ideas with the warmth and comfort of familiarity. We know these people, this community, and seeing them come together to make art for one another was honestly a balm to the soul? Sometimes this show doesn't quite live up to the promises it makes, so I was slightly worried that something would happen to interrupt the open mic night and we wouldn't actually get to see many of the performances, but no - we got a ton of great stuff, and it all felt very warm and cozy and like this is a real place with a real community of people who can come together to do something nice. Just really needed to see that on this day, I think!

Grey's Anatomy: Night Moves (21x06)

Oh boy, this was a REAL roller-coaster of an episode for me, a lot I really loved and a lot that made me roll my eyes. I am obviously having an emotionally challenging week for reasons I don't even really want to write down, in the hopes that some day in the far future I can look back and read this and not know what I was even talking about... but because of that, I was liable to be really emotionally affected by what was happening on my screen. Let's talk about it.

Cons:

Owen and Teddy continue to suck in this really frustrating way where it just seems like they're willfully refusing to understand each other? They don't really come across as people who have been super close for such a long time, they come across completely disconnected and off. Like, Owen's reaction to Teddy's news about being kissed was super annoying, but also Teddy's method of telling him was WAY off. She should have approached it with a bit more seriousness given that she's the one who has a history of cheating within their relationship. She should have been like "hey, I want to tell you about what happened, it wasn't a big deal but I want to be fully honest..." instead, she just shot it off like a joke and it felt tonally very strange. She really couldn't have seen it coming that he'd react badly to that?

What We Do in the Shadows: Nandor's Army (6x05)

I really am loving all the Nandor and Guillermo stuff this season...

Cons:

Honestly, I can't really think of particular cons on this one, other than one punchline didn't quite hit in terms of the dialogue. When Nandor's real army turns up at the end, it was really funny and it totally made me smile! But then there's this immediate reaction shot from Guillermo and he has a line like "What? Nandor's army is real?" and then later an interview cut with Nandor where he says "of course the dummies were just for practice! What, did you think my army was really just a bunch of dummies?" Not exact quotes, but pretty close. And those two lines just felt like... telling instead of showing? Like it was the most uninteresting way to reinforce the obvious joke to the audience, and I found it odd that those lines didn't get a little more juice. Honestly, you didn't need dialogue from Guillermo at all, just an incredulous look. And Nandor's bit would have been funnier if he'd been talking to Lazlo and Nadja, who then would have to react in the moment and insist they hadn't thought he was crazy enough to have an army of mannequins, of course not... This is ultimately a small point, but it felt like the shell of the joke was there and they didn't fill it in well.

Bob's Burgers: Don't Stop Be-cheesin (15x05)

Another fun one!

Cons:

There were SO much shenanigans in the kid's plot that I could have used slightly more shenanigans back at the diner with Linda's training to be a better eavesdropper! It was fun, what we got, but Bob and Teddy teaming up to tell Linda she sucks at something is a fun dynamic that we don't see as much, and I could have used even more of it.

Pros:

The main plot was just full of chaos from start to finish, and I loved it. Tina doesn't want to play this crazy cheese-throwing game, but she gets roped into it when she realizes she's the odd man out and everyone else is in it to win it. At first she's just the weak link on Jimmy Jr.'s team, but when everyone else on the team gets taken out by someone who's apparently some sort of cheese throwing prodigy... she becomes their last best hope! Throughout the episode, Tina makes it surprisingly far not getting knocked out, following advice from Louise about how to be sneaky and covert.

What We Do in the Shadows: The Railroad (6x04)

Sean Rinaldi, how I love you.

Cons:

There's this little moment at the start where it seems like Nandor is crushing on the Guide? Now, I'm always complaining that they don't know what to do with the Guide character, and this episode is no exception... so maybe this could be funny or interesting? Maybe it's just a continuation from the hypnosis. It just seems kind of random and uninspired to me, though. Honestly, that goes for Jerry as well - he's here at the start of the episode to continue the whole "taking over America" plan, but it doesn't really go much of anywhere and this character hasn't really had much to do since his introduction in the first episode of the season. I guess we'll see if it all pays off!

Bob's Burgers: For Whom the Doll Toes (15x04)

This was a fun one!

Cons:

I did like this episode, but I did think it was slightly lacking as a Halloween special - I like seeing the kids in their costumes and all the shenanigans that usually happen on Halloween night!

I also thought the Teddy subplot lacked a bit of pizzazz. I liked the setup for it - Teddy's been working on his grip strength with all these hand and wrist exercises, and when he sees that the restaurant is closed all morning, he decides to while away the time with a lot of his exercises so he can impress Bob. The part that was lacking from my perspective was the part after Teddy's hands cramp up. I feel like there could have been a few more jokes made around Teddy not being able to close his hands, other than just that he struggled to make a phone call.

Grey's Anatomy: You Make My Heart Explode (21x05)

Teddy and Owen are so annoyyyyyingggg...

Cons:

I'm sad for no Yasuda this week because I know we're losing her soon. I wonder if we're just phasing her out right now with not much more content to follow. It's a bummer.

Lucas and Simone have a romantic moment in this episode and while nothing was super annoying about their scene, I do just want to lodge my familiar statement that they bore me. Just so that's on the record.

Owen and Teddy are not fun to watch. In one sense they are realistically like an old married couple, but only in all the worst ways. Owen is such a whiner, and Teddy is so rude to him, and they both rather unprofessionally let it carry over into their working relationship, and then Richard has to do a Wise Old Man routine and talk to Teddy about it, and Owen has to remember how to be romantic and connect with her so they don't have to schedule sex... it's just so tedious. Better, I suppose, than the kind of melodrama that makes me hate the characters with a fiery passion, but worse than if they'd just fade quietly into the background and walk off of the show while nobody's watching. I can't believe these are the characters that are sticking around, and not Schmitt and Yasuda.

The Legend of Vox Machina: Souls in Darkness (3x12)

As a not-so-secret Percy/Vax enjoyer, even though I do ship the canon ships more... this episode made me very happy.

Cons:

Okay, remember when I did the big paragraph in episode nine about Pike's whole deal with the Everlight? In this episode we get this line: "sometimes you should go against the wishes of your deity. After all, the gods didn't create us to blindly obey them, right?" And that sentiment is fine with me, that makes a lot of sense as a conclusion a character could come to on her faith journey. But... why did she literally throw away the Everlight symbol when facing down Thordak? That moment doesn't seem to actually lead to this one! I'm really hoping that season four can give us a bit more clarity on how we're supposed to view Pike's relationship to the Everlight. I'm fine with them making strong choices, but right now it feels kind of directionless and unspecific.

The Legend of Vox Machina: Deadly Echoes (3x11)

Ah, yes, okay. So this is what I was kind of afraid of? Let's talk about it.

Cons:

I mentioned earlier in this season that there are always going to be Those Moments for each viewer that they feel especially attached to, and those ones are going to be harder to handle when they change in the stream. I've been really lucky up until now that most of what I was most excited to see, I did get to see in some form or other! But this episode was a two for one special of moments I loved from the stream not happening in the show. I actually understand both changes and I don't think they're flaws with the show, but they are personal disappointments for me specifically, so I do need to talk about them just a bit.

One is Scanlan's resurrection. They pivoted his death into a coma which I think was smart, but I just... man, I remember the whole gang gathered around doing a ritual to wake him up, and I remember Kaylie being there to help too by playing a song. And I especially remember the aftermath. They have really, really changed Scanlan's arc this season. It felt like they were leading up to a certain incident pretty heavy with the foreshadowing in the last two seasons, and then here the impetus for Bard's Lament exists but its emotional context has been altered significantly. I'm on record being totally fine with big changes, and I'm glad they didn't try and squeeze in Scanlan being angry with the group for getting Kaylie involved, since there's just not much time left in the season to delve into it. But overall, the animated series makes the characters... less messy. I miss seeing a version of this where Scanlan is in a really dark, fucked up place and it's not as simple as Kaylie telling him she wants a relationship with him. In the stream, it was a lot more convoluted than that, and I do miss that.

The Legend of Vox Machina: To the Ends of the World (3x10)

Wow, okay, interesting!

Cons:

Do we think this is the most the show has ever deviated from the stream? I don't mean in the sense of anything particularly major happening that is just straight-up new for the show, but in the sense that this episode isn't... based on a cohesive set of incidents that played out on stream, it's really a lot that's totally new! I am putting this under "Cons" not because I think it's bad in and of itself, but I did want to mention that this season is making me realize, for better or for worse, that a fair percentage of my enjoyment of this show is the adaptation aspect, seeing how they chose to move things around and still hit all the important moments. Up until this season, even with all they did change, I never felt like a core moment I really enjoyed from the stream got dropped entirely, even if it did move around. This episode makes me pretty trepidatious that the Ripley kill is going to the twins alone, and that will mark the first time a major moment I was looking forward to from the stream simply won't be in the show at all. But we shall see!

What We Do in the Shadows: Sleep Hypnosis (6x03)

This was delightfully chaotic!

Cons:

I feel like I said this a lot in last season's reviews, but the Guide feels generally useless as a character. I hadn't even really noticed that she hadn't been around much in these first few episodes. I really wish they could give this character something cooler to do! The actress is so funny!

Pros:

This was my favorite of the three episodes so far. I just really loved the premise. It feels very classically sitcom-ish in that it has one central conceit and it runs wild with it. The subplot and main plot don't really have distinction, it's the whole gang all caught up in the hypnosis situation, but just coming at it from different angles. Colin as the instigator here really made me laugh! His wall where he's got everything all mapped out and shows how he's losing ground in the group dynamic was so silly. I love that he positions himself as the lone man out, because previously there were two united pairs in the house - Lazlo and Nadja, and then Nandor and Guillermo. Pretty insightful of you, Colin Robinson...

What We Do in the Shadows: Headhunting (6x02)

Poor Guillermo, what chaos!

Cons:

I was a little less locked into Lazlo and Colin's plot thread this week, which involves Lazlo rededicating himself to his project of creating life out of the dead. He refuses to acknowledge the Frankenstein comparison, but he is indeed successful in creating his own Cravensworth's monster. The comedy of Colin and Lazlo trying to deal with this situation was perfectly adequate, but nothing super special. I was mostly just wanting to go back to the other plot when we were in this one.

What We Do in the Shadows: The Return of Jerry (6x01)

I'm going to try and move super quickly since we've got three of these to go through!

Cons:

I kind of wish Guillermo wasn't starting off at such a low point, since I think it's sort of funnier if he has his life together and Nandor is just bewildered by his competence... but that may be a personal preference thing.

Colin being over-fed on misery and gaining weight just isn't that funny to me, I'm trying to think if I've ever found putting an actor in a fat suit amusing...

Bob's Burgers: Colon-ly the Dronely (15x03)

A very fun episode!

Cons:

I think the kids' plot thread was my least favorite, though it had some good things too! For me, there's maybe a bit of repetitiveness with Louise's character that has been grating on me in recent seasons. I've seen a lot of stories now where Louise has an idea, she's being selfish about it, and then she decides to concede for the good of the group, because she does actually have a heart after all. It's a cute story, but sometimes I want Louise to lean in and be a lot more chaotic than she ends up being.

Pros:

That said, I did like seeing more of the school gang, and it's cute how the other kids did all follow along with Louise's plan until she finally releases them from the obligation. They still accomplish their stated goal of messing with the drone footage of the school, but they also get to do the silly fun thing they want to do as kids. I loved the Belcher children coming home and immediately showing it to their parents, knowing they won't get in trouble even though they were messing with something they shouldn't have been.

Grey's Anatomy: This One's for the Girls (21x04)

This one's for the girls, is it? Which girls is this one supposed to be for? This girl is not particularly gripped.

Cons:

The amount of I Don't Give A Shit I was feeling when we get to that ending and Jo and Link are having twins? Godddd I don't care! I want to go back in time and make these two never fall in love, because it's putting me to sleep! Same with Teddy and Owen talking about how they need a chance to connect because work is keeping them so busy. It's not the most insufferable angst I've ever experienced from these two, but it's still not all that interesting.

Also... I didn't mind the story about Mika's sister in and of itself, but it's a bit hard to swallow when I know we'll be saying goodbye to this character soon. Is this what sunsets her off the show? She quits her job to take care of her sick sister? I mean... that's fine, I guess, but it's just a bummer to take up screen time with a new character here when we already know we have so little time left with Yasuda.

The Legend of Vox Machina: Thordak's Throne (3x09)

Oh shit, I can't believe they did that. And by that I mean... well, I'll talk about it in a bit.

Cons:

I have one small and one kind of medium-large complaint to lodge here before we go into how much I really did adore this episode.

Okay, obviously Travis broke my heart with his line delivery on "can you fix him? Please, you gotta fix him." But I do kind of miss his original improvised version that had more heat to it. The bellowed "FIX HIM" lives in my head rent free and we didn't get that here. Small nitpick, this version also tore out my heart, but thought I'd mention that. The thing about Grog is that he's our big lovable dummy, but the other thing about Grog is that he can be scary sometimes, even to the people he loves most.

Then there's the bigger thing. Pike's big moment was like... well, I'm not like, super angry, really, it's more of a "let's see where they're going with this thing", I guess. I have thoughts. Honestly, the stuff with Pike and the Everlight in this show has always been kind of muddy to me, and a plot progression where Pike finds strength in herself instead of in her goddess is totally fine with me in theory. But I thought in the past seasons the setup was more like... her faith as an anchor to her own strength. Or believing that she is deserving of the Everlight's favor and that thus the power she wields is her own, but the goddess is her supporter as much as Pike is a follower of her goddess? Like, does that make any sense? Pike having a complicated but ultimately loving relationship with her deity is what I was looking for here. That image of her actually throwing aside the Everlight's symbol was kind of... Not It, for me. I wish it had been more like "It's not just the Everlight's magic, and it's not just the Dawnfather's armor. It's me, who I am, being worthy to wield the powers they offer." That's the nuance I would have wanted here.

The Legend of Vox Machina: Siege and Silence (3x08)

Oh boy oh boy. I'm hyped for episode nine, I must say.

Cons:

A couple of things in this episode made previous episode aspects in this season a little frustrating. The main one is how the Scanlan situation was handled... like, I don't mind him leaving and then coming back, conflicted about where he belongs - that makes sense as an adaptation change from what we saw in the campaign. But the solemnity with which he left, the silent goodbye to Pike, it felt so... charged, and specific, and then it led to nothing in this moment other than him not being around when Percy died. And there's no specific indication that he could have done anything to help in that instance, either. I think if I could go back into episode six and change something, it would be that Scanlan would tell the group straight out - I need to go and find my daughter and have a real talk with her. And then the group could be a little disappointed but tell him to go. And then when he turns up again and everything's gone to shit, it doesn't feel quite so pointless of a detour? Maybe I'm just a little annoyed at Scanlan's emotional arcs being siloed into scenes with just Pike or Kaylie, and none of the rest of Vox Machina getting involved at all.