Grey's Anatomy: Break Down The House/Get Off On The Pain (14x01/02)

Grey's Anatomy is a soap opera. I mean that's not a surprise to anybody, but every once in a while you see episodes that reminds you - Grey's Anatomy is a soap opera. I don't even mean that in a bad way, actually. This episode had a lot of great moments, and the extreme drama of them is what made them great. It also had just one or two moments that had me on the verge of an eye-roll... let's take a look.

Cons:

To anyone who's been reading my reviews, it'll be no surprise to you that I'm annoyed about Amelia. Owen has his sister back, and Amelia has been avoiding him and acting horribly. Then Owen tries to talk to her about it, since he knows something is really wrong, and she lashes out again. All last season I kept saying that Amelia needed to get over herself, and now we learn, thanks to her participation in a sex study (I'll get to that later) that her erratic behavior is actually because she has a giant brain tumor. Okay... did we not already do this with Izzy? This was the big shocking cliffhanger at the end of the two part episode, and it felt like the most cliche, overwrought thing that could have been done at this point. Amelia has been pissing me off for... well, forever now, and it seems like sort of a cop-out to blame all of her shitty behavior on a medical drama cliche like a brain tumor. A brain surgeon has a brain tumor?! Gasp. How surprising.

Maggie was also getting on my nerves a lot last season, and while she did have some good elements in this episode that I'll get to later, she still had one of her quintessential annoying moments. Nathan and Owen have decided not to tell Megan about Nathan and Meredith's relationship. Teddy thinks this is ridiculous, and Maggie agrees. She says that she was in Megan's position once, in that she found out about Nathan and Meredith and it was weird. Okay. The utter hubris of comparing what happened with her to what's going on with Megan is... ugh. Maggie. Please. I still can't believe how much she built up that whole thing. She had an unrequited crush on a guy. Nothing even happened, and he started dating someone else. How can you even compare the situations? She also spends her time being awkward around Jackson, and he spends his time being awkward right back. I'm convinced that this is perhaps the least interesting potential romantic relationship this show has ever done, right after DeLuca's unrequited thing for Jo. Please stop.

Modern Family: Lake Life (9x01)

Modern Family  is a show resting comfortably on its laurels at this point. It doesn't have to reach for anything new or surprising, because we're all pretty comfortable with the premise and the characters. This wasn't anything too special, but it wasn't a flop either. Let's take a look.

Cons:

This episode was too crowded. Everybody had their own little plot threads to carry, and several of them didn't have time to land. The premise is that everybody is out on a boathouse to see the total eclipse. Instead of keeping everybody in close quarters and having fun with the ensemble feel, everybody pretty much goes off in their own directions. For example, Gloria and Cam spend time out on a boat, where Cam is trying to hide from the sun by covering himself in comical clothing, a giant hat, and excessive sunscreen, because his antibiotics don't do well with sunlight. Meanwhile Gloria is afraid of the water because in Columbia the water was a place for dumping drugs and bodies. So this plot thread was essentially just a time-wasting exercise mixing some uninspired slapstick from Cam with some fairly stereotypical and problematic commentary about Gloria's homeland.

Then we've got Mitchell, who runs in to the first boy he ever kissed working the bait shop in town. The memory is an embarrassing one to Mitchell, who kissed this boy at age thirteen only to find out he was straight. He decides, on his father's advice, to run toward embarrassment so it won't have power over him. He apologizes to this man, only to discover that the man is indeed gay, and was only "not interested" in Mitchell himself, not because he was a man. This leads to Mitchell questioning his desirability. The punchline, that the guy is gay, was obvious from miles off. I really wish they had subverted expectations. Maybe the guy could have been straight and this could have been a moment where Mitchell feels relief at not being ostracized by a straight man for a youthful moment of weakness. Instead, we go for the uninspired cheap laugh.

The Big Bang Theory: The Proposal Proposal (11x01)

Cute start, lackluster continuation. Let's take a look.

Cons:

So, I'll talk in a minute about how the actual proposal moment was pretty adorable, but Amy and Sheldon spend the rest of the episode sort of at odds, and it didn't feel like a sensible transition. They go out for dinner with some of Amy's colleagues at Princeton and Sheldon gets annoyed when everybody seems more interested in Amy than in himself. Amy gets pissed at Sheldon taking all the attention, and Sheldon later realizes that he should have been a "cameo" in Amy's movie this time, instead of trying to steal the show. So, they make up.

I guess this plot thread just feels like more of the same drivel, and it was surprising to get that feeling in an episode where something big like a proposal took place. Couldn't they have found a way to keep Amy and Sheldon content for twenty minutes, instead of immediately spinning the proposal episode off into a seemingly unrelated and repetitive conflict? Pretty uninteresting.

Also, the Stephen Hawking cameos are insipid, guys. Every time I see him on this show I keep thinking that he deserves better than to be on a show that by its very nature it spends time making fun of nerds. Like, please. There are better places that Stephen Hawking could be spending his time.

Outlander: All Debts Paid (3x03)

Yay!!!!! John Grey is amazing. I'm really happy that he's getting a good amount of screen time. This episode includes some of my favorite passages in Voyager, and I'm very pleased with how they were handled.

Cons:

I will admit that the pacing felt a tad off in the Ardsmuir scenes. In the books, this is stretched out over a long period of time. John Grey and Jamie Fraser go from vile hatred to respect, friendship, and even unrequited love on John's part over the course of countless meals and games of chess. Here, we only see key moments. They hate each other. Jamie escapes briefly. They have a confrontation. They're playing chess. John screws it up by coming on to Jamie. John leads Jamie away to his new life at Helwater. Not a ton of time for the friendship to breathe.

Okay, also: Murtagh is still alive. I mean on the one hand I'm thrilled because I love him dearly. But this feels like a rather strange deviation from the source material. One of the tragedies of Jamie's life is how isolated he is at this point in the story. In fact, that's one of the things that leads to his friendship with John, because he finds against all odds that he can talk to this man somewhat as an equal. All of that is a bit undercut if he still has Murtagh, a close personal friend and family member, to lean on emotionally during his time in prison. Maybe this is a nitpick, and in many ways I am thrilled that Murtagh is still around, but... I don't know. I wonder how his character is going to fit in moving forward.

Outlander: Surrender (3x02)

Fergus!!!! My darling!!!

Cons:

Honestly, this episode was pretty close to perfect. The one thing I have in the "cons" column is more a question about how they've chosen to pace this season. In the books, the time with Claire would be spent with her in her late forties with adult Brianna in Scotland, like how last season ended. By going back and focusing chronologically on Claire's life, we're not going to get as much build over time of Claire's decision to go back and find Jamie again (I know, shocking spoiler, right?). This also means probably less screen-time with Brianna and Roger before the fateful moment of separation between Claire and Brianna. In last season's finale, I found Brianna a little one-note, and I was looking forward to getting some more time with her to flesh out the character a bit. She's really important moving forward, and I don't want the TV show to skimp on Brianna Randall just in the interests of focusing more on Claire and Jamie, as much as I like them.

Pros:

Literally, though, this episode was great. To start with Claire and Frank, they finally rekindle their sex life, but it seems pretty clear that Claire is thinking of Jamie whenever she's with Frank, and he eventually calls her on it. They go back to having a sexless marriage, although they are still amiable and still both love their daughter greatly. We also see Claire make the decision to go to medical school. As she sits down in her first class, she is ostracized by her fellow students, and the professor seems intent on ignoring her existence. She is approached by Joe Abernathy, a black medical student. The two share a brief moment of bonding over their shared isolation.

Suits: Donna (7x10)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's pretty much all I've got for the intro.

Cons:

Alex got a plot thread this week where the other name partner at his former firm tries to poach one of his clients. With Louis' help, Alex gets the guy on tape admitting to trying to screw Alex over, which fixes the problem. This was a perfectly fine plot thread, and I'm liking the way Louis has fully accepted Alex in the firm. But the whole thing felt like an afterthought in an episode already dealing with Harvey and Mike's big case, and Rachel and Robert's pro bono. Why throw it in now? Why did we need another moment to show that Alex is loyal to the firm? I feel like we already did that.

Pros:

Let's start with Robert and Rachel's plot thread. It wasn't anything too surprising or really innovative, but we got to see Rachel as a child and we got to see Robert's sister. I like the fact that she wasn't a passive victim in her poor treatment, and actually tried to stand up and do what's right. Robert was the one who took a backseat and let this thing slide. Robert's sister died young because she got sick, and Robert's guilt has eaten him up ever since. I like the fact that Robert's temper actually got him in trouble on a case for once, and I also like that Rachel is the one to come up with all the answers. This episode had a lot of cuts between two thematic scenes happening at the same time. The best use of this was when we cut between Robert talking to the CEO of the bank, and Rachel talking to the board, leading to the moment where ultimately the board signs documentation to remove their CEO, and the CEO signs the settlement agreement.

Outlander: The Battle Joined (3x01)

Yep, still good. This season is going to have to move along at a nice clip, honestly... I'm wondering if they're going to stick with the chronological storytelling, or jump us forward to the juicy reunion stuff and then tell parts of the story in flashback. At this point, I'm actually not sure what I think would be better... but this was an extremely strong opening and I'm beyond excited to see where we go from here.

Cons:

Okay, so, for the most part Jamie's side of the story was very strong. I really admired how they were able to keep me invested in what was essentially just Jamie lying there on the verge of death and contemplating the battle he's just miraculously survived. However, there was one moment towards the end that felt hokey, and that's when Jamie arrives back in Lallybroch. See, I can suspend my disbelief enough to believe that Jamie would survive the battle, and then survive execution because John Grey's brother (Hal, although we don't exactly get formally introduced at this juncture) happens to recognize Jamie's name. It's a little harder to swallow that Hal would actually go to the trouble of getting a cart to send Jamie away from the battlefield, and even though I know it happens this way in the book, I'm not entirely clear how he ends up safe and sound in Jenny and Ian's arms by the hour's end. How does a delirious, half-dead Jamie Fraser make it back to Lallybroch? Who was driving that cart? I don't know... maybe it just felt a little too easy, despite all of the hardship I know is to come.

Pros:

But all of that is nitpicking. Because - for real, this premiere was stunning. Let's start with the way they did the famous Battle of Culloden. We see Jamie, barely breathing, with a redcoat lying on top of him. Jamie's arm is around the man's shoulders, almost like they're holding each other. Around Jamie, we see the bodies of countless fallen Jacobites. Various redcoats patrol the field, killing anything that stirs with a swift stab of the bayonet. Slowly, we see snippets of the fight. We see Prince Charles calmly setting up to watch the battle, confident in victory. We see Jamie and Murtagh exchange quips. We see Jamie and the other soldiers charge fiercely into battle. Everything is disjointed, nothing makes sense. We see Jamie and Jack Randall make eye contact and rush each other, each intent on blood. We see Jack take a blow at Jamie's thigh, and finally we see Jamie stab Jack in the gut, mortally wounding him. As we continue to switch between the flashback and the present moment, we are finally greeted with the chilling sight of a dead Black Jack Randall and a barely living Jamie Fraser lying in a pseudo-embrace, their faces nearly touching.

Suits: Shame (7x09)

Ah, yes. The Mike and Harvey banter and bromance continues. This is the good stuff. However, unfortunately that doesn't mean the whole episode was a winner.

Cons:

This is a small thing, but I wanted to bring it up because it's been bugging me. Why does everybody feel the need to have serious conversations in bathrooms? You've got Gretchen walking in to the men's room to confront Louis, and then Louis walking in to confront Gretchen later on. You've got Rachel finding Donna in the bathroom... it's just a lot of bathrooms. I always think about the convenient timing, that people always seem to find each other washing hands, and not still in a stall. It's just kind of weird.

Rachel and Robert's plot thread felt a little disconnected from the rest of the narrative. Robert wants to work with Rachel on a pro bono, and so they start going after a bank that apparently racially profiles. When they can't prove their case, Robert gets disproportionately angry, and reveals to Rachel that the real reason he wanted to go after the CEO of this bank is because back in the day, Rachel's aunt and Robert's sister worked for this guy, and he made her life miserable by sexually harassing her in the workplace. I liked this plot thread a lot, but like I said, it felt a little out of place. How does this connect with any of the other stories of the episode? And why bring it in now as a brief little plot thread just before the hiatus? I've wanted more for Rachel to do all season long, but this feels like an odd way to utilize her as a character.