The Handmaid's Tale: Execution (6x09)

Well, I was right. I wish I hadn't been right, but I was right. Honestly, it was even worse than I'd expected, somehow. Jesus Christ. Let's dive right the fuck in, shall we?

Cons:

Like. I don't actually have the energy to do a big long rant about Nick but I'm sure that I'll end up doing a big long rant about Nick anyway. If this is the story you wanted to tell about this guy, then you needed to explain to me WHY he's actually bad, why he's actually corrupt, at what point he actually stopped being an undercover resistance fighter... like, it's so unmotivated and stupid! Right there at the end, he says to Lawrence that "she tried to tell me to give it all up" and I was like... and why didn't you, Nick? What were your reasons for not running off and leaving Gilead? Is it just that you're a coward? Is it just that you secretly covet the power? Both potential stories that could have been told with this character, but they never were told with this character. Up until this last season it's been pretty clear that he hates Gilead and loves June. My prediction was that Nick would die by the end of the season, but I thought he'd get the big hero's death that Lawrence is getting, I thought his death would be a redemptive moment for him.

Bob's Burgers: Mr. Fischoeder's Opus (15x11)

Eyyy we're back!

Cons: 

I sort of wish the part of the episode actually at the symphony had been longer? Like, why not have the party be a reception directly before the orchestra is going to play, they've rehearsed it the "slow" way and Fischoeder is going to surprise them during the performance with the faster conducting, but then shenanigans occur... it just felt sort of weird pacing-wise to have the big scene be at the Fischoeder residence, and then cut to a different setting for the payoff of those plot points.

Doctor Who: The Interstellar Song Contest (15x06)

This episode kind of felt like it had too many moving parts, but overall I liked a lot of it!

Cons:

The big letdown for me is that like... I don't know who "the Rani" is. This is my own fault, I suppose. I could get into Classic Who so these multi-decade-spanning surprise returns actually impact me, but... I think a lot of the audience probably doesn't know who this character is. And the Mrs. Flood twist has been built up for so long, that getting an answer that means absolutely nothing to me did hit as a real letdown. I also thought having her bi-generate was a little odd, what's the narrative function of it not just continuing to be the same person playing the role for the rest of the season? Maybe I'll eat my words after seeing next week, but that just feels a little unmotivated at this point.

While overall I like the idea of the Doctor being triggered by the loss of Gallifrey into acting uncharacteristically, I do kind of wish that it hadn't felt so abrupt. It was a little too perfectly convenient, Belinda tuning in just in time to see him threatening Kid and then being like "that's not him." Maybe the Doctor tries at first to find compassion and understanding but just can't manage it, or maybe he comes out of the trance of that violence a little less easily when Belinda returns... something needed to be slightly finessed here, the pacing or arc of it just felt off to me in a way I can't quite define.

Grey's Anatomy: How Do I Live (21x18)

So, I don't watch 911 or Doctor Odyssey but I do like to check up on the tags, and from what I gather we were three for three on pretty disappointing season finales for these Thursday night ABC dramas! Yeesh.

Cons:

I'm literally having trouble deciding what to complain about first. Let's start with Richard. Why are you being such a dick to Meredith? Like, what a whiny, petulant little baby you've been all season, my dude. What gives? This episode has him throwing a fit that Meredith wants to sell her shares of the hospital to help with funding, and Richard acts like if she does that, suddenly she'll vanish and turn her back on everything she knows, never mind the fact that she still has family (Amelia!) in Seattle. And then he kind of apologizes in that half-assed way where what he's really doing is telling her he's not mad anymore and she has his permission to make her own choices. I don't get how Meredith is being so magnanimous about his behavior. He's been this way with her all season and it's so stupid! I also thought the stakes were poorly defined, like, it's not like the shares of the hospital are a frequent plot point that has a lot of emotional weight to it these days. I can't even remember who owns how much, doesn't Alex have shares? And Callie and Arizona? Why do we care so much anyway?

The Handmaid's Tale: Exodus (6x08)

Not going to lie, I'm pretty massively underwhelmed by this one.

Cons: 

I just... for one thing, I thought the wedding was going to be where Shit Went Down, and instead it was where People Handed Each Other Weapons and Then Went Home. Just kind of a momentum killer, to be honest. Drugging the wedding cake is certainly audacious, but it's also silly. And I kept thinking that if going to the wedding was just about distributing stuff, why on earth did June and Moira even risk going? Everyone else is supposed to be there. No risk of Serena or Nick or anybody else recognizing them. It felt silly that they'd be there at all.

Serena has this big moment where she learns that her new husband is "just like all the others" and is not a good man, since he brings a Handmaid into their home together. Honestly, the idea that Serena would be surprised by this, that she would have bought into her own delusions enough to believe that this would be a different kind of marriage, didn't really bother me. But the way she reacted? Like, Serena, are you stupid? Just play dumb, lay low, get Noah out of there safely! Now you're on the run with no supplies and no recourse. I just wish she'd played it more clever. Like, nodded and smiled and asked that for their wedding night, it just be the two of them... then in the light of day find a way to get Noah away and figure out a plan. It just seemed silly for her to freak out and burn that bridge with no thought to strategy at all.

Doctor Who: The Story & the Engine (15x05)

I really, really liked a lot about this one!

Cons:

My one bigger structural complaint is just that I feel like they went too complicated when they could have stripped it down simpler, because the stakes and the concept behind the "bad guy" and the conflict were kind of muddy for me? Why have it be this thing where there's the barber who writes down the story for all these story-telling-slash-trickster gods, and then also Anansi's daughter is there, and they're sort of working together but really both of them need to be saved? Why not just have it be Anansi's daughter working alone, or why not have it just be Anansi, changed and warped somehow and in need of a perspective shift? You've got the stories feeding the battery and then the big spider mech in space and the hurt feelings and the goal of erasing the gods... it just felt like a lot of murkiness on the way through to the ending. I liked the Doctor and Belinda both helping to encourage these two wrong-doers to live for a better future and let go of bitterness, but it felt like the setup to get there could have been cleaner.

 Less convoluted setup might also have given us more time with the side characters, all the trapped people in the barber shop. I would have loved to have more energy of just them and their playing off of each other and the Doctor. There's a scene where the Doctor is furious at the barber for betraying him, basically, getting him to come here to rescue them all, but I think that scene would have worked better if there had been a bit more focus on the friendship and connection between the men before that moment of realization. Plus, I was a little unclear as to the reason for the Doctor's level of vitriol - his friend was in mortal danger and then Doctor showed up, and then he's pissed at being dragged into danger himself? I wish there had been something more concrete where we knew the Doctor had been lied to directly and deceived into showing up, but the writing didn't make that super clear to me.

Grey's Anatomy: Love You Like a Love Song (21x17)

Wowwww I'm so annoyed at Lucas!

Cons:

The thing is, sometimes Lucas is just kinda boring and vaguely whiny and I think to myself "my dislike for this character is probably too extreme. I should get over that." But this whole story-line with Simone has been like... wow, my dude, where is this vitriol coming from? Straight up, Simone expressed in a fairly mature and straightforward way that she wanted to be a little more cautious and move slower with their relationship, and Lucas has been nothing but terrible to her about it. He's getting all pissed off at her for the extremely reasonable things she's saying about a patient? And just being huffy and avoidant and cold when she tries to have conversations with him? The fact that he could have the audacity to break up with her, and over what? For what reason? I really think I might hate this guy. I'm glad they've broken up, but we all know that's not going to last and I'm already annoyed.

Also, Jesus Christ, Owen, get your SHIT together my dude. What a dark and ugly episode for Owen Hunt. I understand that what's-her-face (Nora) is dying, but the dishonesty to Teddy, missing the wedding of his friends, cuddling with her in the hospital where anybody could see... what a massive dickhead. I'm sorry, but even if you're trying to do a kindness to someone who is vulnerable and scared, you don't just disregard the way it's going to make your wife feel. I'm on record wishing this whole open marriage story had gone in a really different direction. I wish they could have actually tried it and liked it. Then maybe it's this interesting thing where Teddy is still weirded out that her patient is sleeping with her husband, but it's all above board and she's adjusting to the strangeness of it. That still provides this really angsty and interesting scenario, where, how do you comfort your husband who is sad that his new... girlfriend? Casual sex partner? is dying and you couldn't do anything to save her on the table? I just hate how shitty Owen is, I hate how annoying everyone is behaving.

The Handmaid's Tale: Shattered (6x07)

This was... a singularly frustrating experience, I'm not going to lie. I didn't hate everything indiscriminately, but I was having such a hard time with a lot of what happened here. I'm going to try and untangle some of that.

Cons:

So, the Nick thing. The Nick thing. Ahem. Last week I worried that we were going to be asked by the show's framing itself to be anti-Nick after this, and what we got was such a weird version of that playing out. Here's the thing: Nick doing what he did, it had really bad consequences, and it would totally track for June to be mad at him for it, maybe even think that she hated him. But rationally, Nick is right that this isn't some sort of singular breaking point that's worse than all the other shit the two of them have pulled over the years. And I think the show wants me to believe that Nick is Bad Now because of this, and I just... I don't? I kept thinking about all the ways I could have bought into this more. One avenue would be to do an actual corruption arc for Nick, gradually over time. Show him actually liking the perks of being a Commander, show him enjoying having power, even if he doesn't agree with everything. But we never saw that. He's always been uncomfortable and terrified in Gilead. Another option, have his father-in-law have more explicit proof about the death of those two guards, that could point a finger at Nick, and have Nick explain to June that if he hadn't given up the plan, once the bombs went off Nick would be put on the wall for it if there were any survivors at all.

Doctor Who: Lucky Day (15x04)

Hmm. I was honestly less of a fan of this episode than I was hoping I would be. There were a few elements of it that just really bothered me.

Cons:

The big one is... Kate? Like? Girl, what the fuck? I'm really okay with U.N.I.T. being controversial and with Kate making bad choices, that's totally valid and interesting. But her letting the Shreek out to attack Conrad was so wildly out of line that I was waiting for it then to be a much bigger than it was. This should have been a thing where people were horrified and demanding she step down, right? And instead she and Ruby have a sweet little moment and share a hug and there's a quip about Ruby "collecting mothers" and I was just staring at the screen like... what now? What? She just did something absolutely insanely awful, siccing that monster on a human being. I know he's a shitty human being, but still. What kind of responsible leader of a para-military monster-hunting organization would do that?

I also didn't really like the scene with Conrad and the Doctor. That little speech about how the Doctor is fighting a constant battle to protect people who just want to be safe... I don't know. It felt very Moffat-era Who to me, in the sense that in those seasons the Doctor was very much cast as a brave soldier hero type, which is... not who this character is. The Doctor protecting people when he encounters people who need protecting is of course part of who he is, but I don't know how I feel about the characterization that he's fighting a constant battle. Feels strange to me.

Grey's Anatomy: Papa Was a Rollin' Stone (21x16)

Oh my god, that nine-year-old girl... this was a sad one.

Cons:

Once again I must complain about literally all the romances in the show. At least Teddy and Owen weren't around this week. I'll be fast, because I don't actually like spending this much time complaining!

Jo and Link - I'm just bored of them and I don't really believe in them as friends or as a couple. The bit where Jo said she thought the NICU couple were like them, I was just like... I mean, I guess you guys have known each other for a long time, but that's about the only similarity? I'm just not picking up what they're putting down. And now I have to go to their wedding next week. Ugh.

The Handmaid's Tale: Surprise (6x06)

Oh noooooo.

Cons:

Okay... I'm... trying to reserve judgment here. What I'm worried about is that June will never forgive Nick and Nick will redeem himself for this betrayal someway with his life, and that Nick will be dead before the season is over in order to ensure June and Holly etc. are free. That's my fear. That, to me, is a more boring version of this story than I want them to tell. I want June to understand that her cavalier insistence that Nick can take care of her problems led him into a corner where his very life was at risk. He kept her safe, while betraying Mayday's plan to blow up a bunch of Commanders. Sure, we wish Nick could have been braver and stronger or more clever in some way. But this isn't a straightforward situation and I hope that the show will acknowledge that in a more direct way.

Does it seem like June was actually entertaining Nick's offer there at the end, too? Because that's bananas. Even if June would maybe dip out on Luke for Nick's sake, she wouldn't dip out on Hannah, or the other Handmaids. I don't like the suggestion that she was actually being swayed, honestly.

Doctor Who: The Well (15x03)

A pretty good horror episode of Doctor Who!

Cons:

Okay, to be honest I think I was slightly more distracted by the connection to "Midnight" than I was compelled by it. The moment of reveal was a literal goosebumps moment, so fucking good, but then after that I was busy thinking... but wait, why is this same cosmic entity doing a different gimmick this time, what is the connection, does it matter to the entity that the Doctor has been here before... it just wasn't adding up to me as a continuation of a story, and felt like it could easily have been its own thing.

It also bothered me slightly that nobody figured out that Aliss might have a different relationship to the monster of the week because she's Deaf... like, for one thing, it might have been explained a bit that not all Deaf people are entirely without any hearing, and might have some slight ability to hear, but Aliss could have explained that she has no hearing whatsoever, and that probably should have clued somebody into the fact that hearing something is probably what triggered the "mad" behavior of all the other people on the crew. It was a little silly that this didn't occur to anybody until towards the end of the episode.

The Handmaid's Tale: Janine (6x05)

Omg June, get your shit together!

Cons:

Here's something that's true of this episode but also just true of the whole show: these characters have to be simultaneously stupid enough to let themselves get into serious trouble, and then also lucky and/or clever enough to beat the odds every time. June's protagonist plot armor is the strongest I've ever seen, honestly. June offering to take Janine out of there, and then June and Moira having their fight still inside Jezebel's, without having even hidden the written material, was infuriating! So sloppy, so preventable. Just get out and get in the van and get out of there before you start fighting about how the two of you are processing your trauma. That conversation was so important for them to be having, but I was distracted screaming at them to get the hell out of the lion's den before they started talking about it all!

Doctor Who: Lux (15x02)

I liked this one, though I had a couple of pacing objections?

Cons:

The scene where Doctor Who is a TV show and the fans are meeting the Doctor and Belinda in their living room was cute, but it felt very strange from a pacing perspective. There's really just the one scene, and they talk to them for a bit, and then there's this whole big sad goodbye where they don't really exist and will cease to be once the Doctor and Belinda leave. I really wanted to feel impacted by that scene, but instead it felt a little unearned because it was happening all within five minutes of meeting these characters. I wish there had been a way to introduce them a bit earlier in the episode, have them materially assist in the mission, with Belinda believing they're coming along to help, but then the moment of realization that they can't. Just an extra scene with these characters before their sad goodbye could have done a lot. Also, whenever creators do a meta thing about the fans of their own property, do they have to throw in a couple comments about how annoying they find their fans? This one was like "we love our fans so much, despite how annoying you are" and it's like... gee, thanks Russell. I feel so seen.

Grey's Anatomy: Bust Your Windows (21x15)

Winston... Jules... stay the fuck away from each other please and thank you.

Cons:

Not a romance I feel like I can root for. Feels random, feels unmotivated, feels kinda gross. I'm still on the Jules/Mika grieving train and then if I can't have that, Jules/Blue is sitting right there. Why Winston? Yeesh. No thank you. Why is it this show simply cannot serve me compelling romance arcs anymore? At least there was no Jo/Link or Teddy/Owen this week, so I wasn't forced to put up with any of their nonsense.

On the one hand, I'm relieved that Lucas is going to get to stay with the rest of his intern class, but on the other, that felt like much ado about nothing! The lesson that Catherine needed to see him learn, of being able to put a patient first, was kind of simplistic and predictable, was it not? And then right when we've gotten through that dumb drama, we pivot immediately into Simone having angst or doubt about their future, as she clams up when Lucas starts excitedly talking about where they'll go after residency. This romance is boring to me, so I want it to either, a) stay drama-free so it doesn't take up too much of my time, or b) end swiftly. I'm thinking we're not going to get either of those things. Sigh.

The Handmaid's Tale: Promotion (6x04)

This episode felt like a bit of a transition, not as much to dig our teeth into.

Cons:

A lot of things that were already established were sort of... re-established here, without a ton of forward movement? We already knew Janine was at Jezebel's, and we saw her there. We already understand Lawrence's weird warped conflicted feelings about his situation, we already know Nick's father-in-law is hitting on Serena, we already know Nick is playing the middle... we already know Mayday is planning something big, and this episode is more of the planning. We see Aunt Lydia come to talk to Serena, but we don't actually see that conversation take place. Nothing wrong with a lot of this material, it just felt like a lot of setting up pieces on the chess board without making a definitive move.

Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution (15x01)

We're back! And we've met Belinda!

Cons:

I kind of wish there had been a tiny bit more space in the episode before Belinda decided to turn herself over to the robots. She has this moment where she's like, "my name is Belinda Chandra, and it's time I owned it" where she's like... nobly giving herself over to save the world, and it felt like it didn't have enough time to breathe as a moment because they'd literally just gotten to a place of relative safety. Like, take two minutes to show some time passing, maybe, Belinda learning a bit more about these people, so her sacrifice feels more earned? It was a small pacing issue for me.

I also felt like, culturally, we didn't get to learn much about what this planet was like before the timey-wimey stuff happened to it and rewrote the history of this world. This show can have a real gift of creating an atmosphere and world that feels real and deep and lived in very quickly, whereas in this episode it felt pretty shallow and surface-level. 

Grey's Anatomy: Love in the Ice Age (21x14)

Guess who's being annoying?

Cons:

You know what sucks, is that I've been forced into a position to be on Owen's side here? I might have been okay with this story-line a little bit more if Teddy had been upset but had known she was being unfair, but instead she was straight-up treating Owen like a villain for doing the same thing she did! Like, sorry, but she was making out with someone, horizontal on a bed, and just because clothes never came off that means that Owen is the bad guy here because his extramarital thing went further than hers? The issue with this whole story is that Teddy has cheated on Owen before, there was a whole story about it. Owen had to find out about it due to a butt dial. The ghost of that story was haunting this episode and it's weird that it's not being brought up! God, this would be so much more interesting if even though they were both weirded out about it, they ended up feeling positive about the experience. More angst for these two is about the least interesting possible outcome.

I liked the main story this week with Bailey and Simone and the racist visiting doctor, but I could have used just maybe one more additional button on things... it feels like Simone should have shared her experience in more detail after everything that went down.

The Handmaid's Tale: Devotion (6x03)

Okay... okay... Nick...

Cons:

I'm still feeling a bit of trepidation about Serena and the journey she's going on as a character here. It feels a little too much like going in circles, and I'm curious to see if her stated contrition for her part in the horrors of Gilead is real, and if she's ever going to grasp that the ideological beliefs she still holds are the underpinnings of that violence and abuse. Like, she can say "oh, Gilead went too far" but at the same time she still holds the oppressive values that founded it. So. I think the show is aware of this and exploring it, but I'm wary of how they're going to pull it off in the end. What kind of fate do you give a character like Serena?

This show has a strange consistency problem with like... the "good" that Gilead has done. Whenever we have representatives from foreign governments come, it's always this thing where they're astonished by the birth rate and so overjoyed to see young healthy children.  Because Gilead cleaned up the water, so women are getting pregnant and birth defects are less common. So... okay. Forcing all women capable of carrying pregnancies to ritually undergo rape to become pregnant is obviously the way Gilead has chosen to produce more kids. Got it. But what does that have to do with cleaning up the water? The medical/physical reasons behind the low birth rate have got to be relevant here, right? Surely there are other countries who are looking into ways to buckle down on environmental laws and cure the ills of the earth causing the problem, right? So I'm always curious about how bad it really is elsewhere, and what the actual solution could be that's not... you know... ritualized evangelical rape cults. We spend a lot of time in Canada and it seems pretty normal there, smog isn't choking the earth or whatever. So what gives? I just feel like the world-building here could be a bit more considered and explained.

The Handmaid's Tale: Exile (6x02)

Hmm, after a strong opening, I'm feeling some trepidation with this one.

Cons:

We've already seen June go back to Gilead to be a liberator, and we've already seen Serena "get out" only to get pulled back in and continue being a pillar of oppression. I guess my concern is that this last season will be a retread, only this time they'll be able to definitively change the status quo only for the show to end right as the big blow-up occurs. I guess that's somewhat inevitable with a show like this, but it's a little discouraging, in a way.

In general, though, this episode felt like treading water and getting pieces into position, and while I'd be fine with that, it's irritating that the positioning is not something radically new, but rather more of the same, if that makes sense. So that big dramatic section at the end with Serena and June in parallel scenes, each getting ready to address a crowd, just felt a little same-y to other moments we've seen throughout the show, you know?