Outlander: Soul of a Rebel (8x01)

We're back for the final season!

Cons:

The "Faith lived" story is one of the stupidest things this show has ever done. Just... profoundly, entirely unnecessary. I cannot imagine why they decided to go this route. And I'm very suspicious of the way Faith "died" by being thrown overboard on a ship... if this woman shows up in this season still alive magically, I'm going to be super annoyed and yet not at all surprised. And too many precious minutes of this episode was taken up with Claire and Jamie with their anguished faces just boohooing about it. I think it's stupid just on a logistical level because like... how, and why, would anybody have just lied to Claire's face about her daughter being stillborn? And how would a tiny infant hearing Claire sing a song to her one (1) time remember the tune and words? That's nonsense.

Grey's Anatomy: Get Lucky (22x12)

Noooooo. No no nooooo.

Cons:

Teddy and Owen whyyyy. I knew it was too good to be true. I kept waiting for the bait and switch. Imagine a world where I liked them as a couple, and was getting more and more discouraged the longer their divorce story-line continued and then they kiss and I get to celebrate. Lol. Instead it's the opposite, I was so freakin' jazzed these two were splitting up and now they're falling back into bed together right after their divorce is final.... HEAVY SIGH. This is either the beginning of their grand reconciliation or it's another bump in the road and they'll both be weird about it and we'll have to deal with their bullshit some more. I want to get off this ride, please.

Grey's Anatomy: (If You Want It) Do It Yourself (22x11)

Did I cry at the Eric Dane tribute at the end? Yes of course I did. Oof.

Cons:

I actually don't have a ton of strong negative feelings about this episode, which is the first time that's happened in a while. I maybe could have done without the Teddy and Winston conflict, as it feels a little rehashed, and I also think this show has done a weirdly large number of plot threads focusing on the humbling of Ben Warren, like, does anybody feel like he's had to learn his lesson about how to be a good doctor one too many times? But these are relatively small complaints, I was actually overall very happy with this episode.

Grey's Anatomy: Strip That Down (22x10)

I liked this episode just fine! Gonna try to keep it short.

Cons:

I think maybe part of the Jo and Link issue for me is just that I find stories about having babies to be kind of dull, so on top of not liking them as a couple, seeing them deal with new parenthood is also just like... not that gripping? Jo has taken on almost a comic relief role here, which I wasn't expecting. She's so frazzled and stressed but it's in a light, funny way, and Link is indulgent... I don't know. It's not like it makes me angry, it just makes me feel.... blah.

Grey's Anatomy: Fortunate Son (22x09)

My hatred is pure, it fuels me, I am invigorated by it in this moment.

Cons:

FUCK Nick Marsh, he SUCKS.

Grey's Anatomy: Heavy On Me (22x08)

I really really don't want them to do this Jules and Winston thing!!

Cons:

She's got little Bambi eyes and I love her and for whatever reason the idea of her and Winston just icks me out. It's not necessarily the age/power dynamic thing, like, I've obviously gotten over that in past relationships on this show, it's not even close to being a deal breaker for me. In fact, exploring romantic relationships along the axis of power differences is really fascinating for me in fiction. I just think their vibe, in specific is kinda weirdly rancid in this unspecified way. I'm bored and grossed out all at the same time. And right now we're in "Jules is jealous/pining" mode and I'm already exhausted by it.

I miss Jo Wilson. By which I mean I miss when I liked her character. She was one of my faves, genuinely! But her and Link always suck all the fun out of any room they're in together. They have like... anti-chemistry. I am so bored and annoyed. A familiar mantra, I think.

Grey's Anatomy: Skyfall (22x07)

I liked some things about this episode, I guess! I'm still tired of the same stuff though.

Cons:

It's not even that Link did anything wrong in this episode it's just that I've been so thoroughly sapped of giving a shit about him and about the Jo/Link romance that I couldn't muster up any emotional response to his distress. Like. The babies in the NICU, Jo on a vent... I'm sitting here yawning because I'm fairly sure Jo is going to wake up and be fine and then they'll give their babies sappy reference names to other characters and that'll be that. I'm also annoyed, in a distant sort of way, about Amelia's absence: giving the actor a sabbatical is great, giving the character a sabbatical is great, but when you see how harried Link is with juggling his wife and two new babies in the hospital, and then he's talking about coordinating childcare for Scout and Luna, you just go... where the fuck is Amelia? Scout's mother? They could have fixed this so easily with one sentence that says "Amelia is on a flight back to help with the kids" and then in subsequent episodes we can just say she's off-screen with Scout (and maybe Luna too). Without adding in that little detail it makes Amelia seem kind of awful, which I don't want!

Bob's Burgers: Heist Things Are Heist (16x10)

Cute!

Cons:

I felt like Linda's adventures in being bra-less could have been a little sillier, although I liked what we got just fine. Could have been more, though!

The Mighty Nein: The Zadash Job (1x08)

God damn, that was some incredible fight animation! So much going on here.

Cons:

Broken record, but yeah, now that I've seen the shape of this first season and how Essek was deployed as a character, I really would have done things differently. I kind of wish he'd been a presence this season in a way more similar to how Yasha was. Like, we see him, we get these glimpses, he shows up out of nowhere during a climactic moment to play keep-away with the beacon. Imagine if Trent saying "Essek?" was the first time we'd realized that they had a preexisting relationship. Imagine if we knew Trent had an off-screen conspirator in the Dynasty, and this was how we found out who it was. (By "we" I mean show-only watchers, of course.) This is all to say, Essek going after the beacon, failing to get it, and ending up seemingly in Trent's hands at the end of the season maybe would have worked better for me with a different arc for his character this season. I'm less frustrated than I was at some earlier points, but still not 100% sold on how they decided to do this.

The Mighty Nein: Belonging (1x07)

I really, really liked this episode, it is maybe my favorite of this season, to my surprise!

Cons:

I'm much less intrigued by the machinations of Trent Ikithon than I think they want me to be. He's just kind of a bog-standard villain in a lot of ways. Power hungry and pure evil. Whenever we spend time on him and who he's working with, who he's betraying, my eyes kind of glaze over. I think it's most interesting when we see the interplay between him and the Volstruckers, and we didn't really get that here.

Bob's Burgers: It's a Stunterful Life (16x09)

This was such a cute and fun episode!

Cons:

My least favorite of the plot threads, which was still fine but just nothing special, was Linda trying to save the Christmas trees that were destined to be made into mulch. This is a plot thread from an episode of Friends like 30 years ago. It's not that there's anything bad about it, I just saw Linda getting weirdly sentimental over dead trees and thought, yeah, yeah, I get it. I know where this is going. And there was nothing more really going on to challenge that.

The Mighty Nein: Many Gifts (1x06)

Okay, I have some Things to Say.

Cons:

At this point I just feel so... frustrated and unhappy with all the Essek stuff. I've been trying to fight this feeling, but so much of what made him interesting, structurally, in the campaign has been thrown out entirely in order to give him more of a main character arc. I think it makes him seem more sympathetic and also way more stupid. Seeing Trent influence him so easily, seeing him do his magic math on the chalkboard and then leaving that work when he leaves the room, and the Beacon, in the hands of the Volstruckers? Like, here we are in the first season, still very far away from Essek meeting the rest of the gang, and Verrat has... discovered Essek is a traitor? So, I guess the entire way Essek gets integrated into the story is completely out the window at this point. We're not going to see the Mighty Nein realize he's a traitor, as he's not going to be assigned to them by the Bright Queen. Or at least I assume not. I don't know, this feels dangerously like someone griping because they don't like change, but I promise it's not that. I'm not going to complain about the Yasha changes, for example. Big drastic changes to story can be great. But this version of Essek seems like a naive little baby who just stumbles into war crimes, and that's... not Essek Thelyss, to me. He is the weakest part of this adaptation to animated form so far, and he was one of the things I was the most excited to see.

Bob's Burgers: Les Lizárdables (16x08)

The rare Gene-centric episode, I love it!

Cons: 

To be honest, I felt a little let down by the whole subplot in this one. Linda's sister Gayle comes to visit, and brings her cats, which makes Bob's allergies act up. Also, Gayle is using Tina's room for massages, and the family thinks she's a sex worker? But then she isn't? Obviously? It felt like the setups didn't have punchlines that actually landed in any sort of significant way. I usually love a visit from Gayle, but this one just maybe didn't go hard enough.

The Mighty Nein: Little Spark (1x05)

Caleb, the epitome of a poor little meow meow. A lot of stuff in this episode hurt my feelings in the best way.

Cons:

So, I did love this episode, but in a weird way I'm coming to the conclusion that this show is suffering from comparison with the stream more than TLOVM did. By that I don't mean it's worse than the other show, but that my preexisting knowledge of stuff is getting in the way of the experience in some moments, in a way I wasn't expecting. The main way I see this function is in how the "reveals" manifest. I complained already about the Essek thing in the show so far, how the big "holy shit" moment of revealing his treachery is blunted by following along with his story. Now, here, something a little different is going on. See, since we started off with SO much information and focus on Trent Ikithon and the Volstruckers, I thought, wow, this is going to be such an intense and interesting reveal when the other members of the group find out that Caleb is a Volstrucker. When the audience finds it out. I felt like I knew how it would go down. That in a combat moment when shit was going wild, some of the bandaging on Caleb's arm would slip, and we'd see it: scars in a telltale pattern, the same as what we see on Owelia, Astrid, and Eadwulf. Everyone will gasp, as the truth washes over them in a singular moment of understanding.

The Mighty Nein: The Mighty Nein (1x04)

The gang's all here, y'all! Well, not all, but we're getting there.

Cons:

I've seen a lot of people feeling upset or even just ambivalent about Essek's characterization so far, and I have to admit that, yeah, I do have some real concerns about how this is shaking out so far. For one thing, him spilling the beans to Trent about his mother is just like... how stupid are you? I could buy the idea that over a long period of time, Trent sort of tricks Essek into revealing hints about his mother, as Trent feeds on his loneliness. But this was just like... my dude, what part of Trent Ikithon's whole deal makes you think you can trust him? Why are you confiding in him like this?

Bob's Burgers: Tube for Tina (16x07)

Awww, look at Linda being so supportive of her daughter. We love to see it.

Cons:

I don't think I have anything to complain about other than that I would have loved to see some of the Boyz 4 Now movie, that would have been a hoot.

Pros:

The subplot on this one involves an unfortunate bird that slams into the window of the restaurant and dies shortly after. Louise, Gene, and Bob go to Teddy's to bury it in his backyard, and then they find out that the bird was someone's pet, so they have to go with her to dig up the remains. One thing I liked about this one was how relatively few twists there actually were in the story? Like, I kind of expected once the lady saw the dead bird she'd be like, "oh, that isn't Zeus" and the whole thing would be for naught, or that the guy who knows about birds would show up and cause shenanigans or try to claim that this rare bird deserved to be in a museum or I don't know what else. Sometimes full chaos levels are fun, other times it's nice when a story takes the trajectory you more or less expect from it. Poor Phyllis having her conversation with Zeus at the end... I know it's meant to be funny but I got genuinely sad thinking about dead pets. :(

The Mighty Nein: The Fletchling & Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities (1x03)

That was a lot of fun! And the gang is (almost) all together now!

Cons:

The same aesthetic comments I made in the last review still stand, of course, but by and large I think this episode was my favorite of the first three!

Still in the category of questioning/wondering, I'm very curious as to what the implications will be for Caleb that this inciting incident that brings the group together was sort of caused by him? Like, he wanted to steal the bugs for magic, and that's what let the devil toad off leash, so to speak. Obviously Beau and Nott were also involved in things going bad, but I'm just curious about this as a character beat. I don't have strong positive or negative feelings about it yet, I just hope the implications are explored in a satisfying way.

The Mighty Nein: Who Will You Be (1x02)

Let's dive in! I'm still having a lot of fun but also I'm wondering about a few things... I wonder if I'm just being nitpicky or if other people agree with any of my comments in the "cons" section.

Cons:

I have a lot of... what I guess I'll call aesthetic objections? The show looks great, and a lot of this is a matter of preference, but there are a few things that I know aren't a big deal end of the day, and yet I definitely noticed them so I want to point them out.

The Mighty Nein: Mote of Possibility (1x01)

We're here! I'm going to start this review with the big caveat that my memory of campaign two of Critical Role is shaky as fuck. Like. With the Vox Machina stuff I was frequently making comparisons between the stream and the show, and here I'm going to try to do less of that because a) I don't remember what order shit is supposed to happen in, and b) I understand that this adaptation is going to be a lot looser about a lot of stuff. That said, same with Vox Machina, if there are particular moments or character beats that I remember and I have a comment about how they've adapted it, I'm going to say something! Let's dive into our first episode. I'm soooo hype for this, y'all.

Grey's Anatomy: When I Crash (22x06)

LET RICHARD RETIRE. Jesus Christ.

Cons:

A thing I don't like is how our broken up couples are in this stage of like... oh, we're not so angry anymore, we're starting to be wistful/fond about things. I was happy that Teddy said she and Owen were making the right decision breaking up, but I still don't trust that we won't have to get back on this merry-go-round. And with Lucas and Simone, I'm almost positive they're building to them being back together eventually. They're making Lucas nicer than usual and less annoying but it's not working on me because I feel like I know his true colors, and his true colors are whiny baby. ALSO in the romance department, Jules asked Winston out for a drink and to that I say boooooo. Stoppppp.