The Walking Dead: Acheron: Part II (11x02)

Hey so I'm sorry but I don't care about Maggie.

Cons:

This episode, much like the last one, had large stretches where Maggie, Negan, Daryl et. al. are just wandering around dealing with Walkers in the dark and there are zombie noises and it's hard to see and I just... zone out, waiting to see who, if anyone, gets hurt or dies. And in this episode, there are characters who lose their lives whose names I literally never bothered to learn. Like the guy who says "tell my kids I didn't die a coward" - who was that? I don't know and I also do not care!

I also feel like the stakes are a little hard to grasp when we haven't checked back in with Alexandria in these first two episodes. I want to be reminded of the home base they're all fighting for, so I understand what the risk and what the reward is. That's a small thing, but it's there.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Set Up (8x06)

Repeating myself here, but it is a tough pill to swallow, watching this show try and muddle its way through these serious topics.

Cons:

I think one of the things that's started to rub me the wrong way more and more is how... gleeful Jake is about his job. He's excited about a bomb on a bus because it's like a movie. His whole childish delight in the potential for disaster is supposed to be an immaturity thing, and I get that, but it's also kind of gross. Because they're trying to show the corruption in the system, the fact that Jake is so eager for a "cool" case that he ends up arresting an innocent man is... well, I know the episode paints it as a problem, but for me it was hard to root for Jake at all in this episode, and I do think that's an issue.

Pros:

That said, this is probably the strongest episode of the season thus far, at least in terms of addressing corruption in a real way and also being funny. O'Sullivan is cartoonishly evil in his desires, so the moment when he's offering Jake help really shines a light on how anyone can get pulled into the corruption. I like hating this character; the delivery was excellent, I loved the repeated blackmail attempts that didn't work.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: PB&J (8x05)

Okay... is anyone else just over it all?

Cons:

Somehow the whole Doug and Jake friendship thing is rubbing me the wrong way when you have a black criminal and a white cop and they're such good buddies but like... Jake is still taking him to prison for five years, and then he has to stop him from escaping... does anyone else get like, weird vibes from it? It's not that I hate Doug, but I kind of hate the whole cat and mouse thing when it's a comedy parody of a black man with a family desperately, frantically, trying not to get locked away for five years. I don't know.

Then there's the whole "Jake might lose his job" thing. Are they trying to set this up like that's the outcome at the end of the season? Jake and Amy and the others all quitting their jobs because being a police officer is bad? I just wish this sitcom wasn't trying to take on the whole weight of police corruption in hits final ten episode season. I want to say it's... admirable that they're addressing it? But honestly it's messy as fuck to try and do this, and I'm not convinced it's working. There's no nuance being added to the conversation, here. Do I think Doug should go to prison? Well, no, but then I'm a fan of abolishing prisons altogether for nonviolent crimes. But should he escape and just be a fugitive? Seems like an unsustainable system, to me. But in setting up these two options as a dichotomy we ignore the fact that Doug is a nice person but undeniably a thief who keeps going back to his life of crime, despite saying he's left the life. They've circled the drain with this character so many times that I don't even know what I'm supposed to think anymore.

The Walking Dead: Acheron: Part I (11x01)

Man, the degree to which I Do Not Care is kind of bumming me out. I'm trying to be excited to see what this final season of the show will bring, but I keep thinking about how this sucker is going to stretch over two years of airing and I'm already tired! Let's take a look.

Cons:

Maggie's plot thread is the one where I found myself not caring the hardest. Basically, she and Daryl and Negan and some other randos are on a mission to find food, because Alexandria is low on supplies. They have to go through a creepy tunnel full of dead bodies-slash-Walkers that keep waking up to accost them as they approach. They're silent because their throats have been slit, so that's adding a creepiness factor to the proceedings, for sure.

A lot of this plot is just silent shots of people walking, killing Walkers, being scared, the screen is so dark I can barely see what the heck is going on... I don't care... then we get a spike of interest with Negan confronting Maggie, and then that stupid cliffhanger where it looks like Negan leaves Maggie behind to die.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Balancing (8x04)

This one was just kind of "blah"' to me.

Cons:

The main conflict here is about Jake and Amy juggling between work and childcare. Things get chaotic when an outbreak of lice shuts down daycare and forces them to have Mac with them. Amy is working on a big presentation that could lead to important police reform. Jake is working on a long-running murder case with a murderer who provides fun clues and riddles that Jake loves to solve. I guess I really just noticed the triviality of it all? Especially Jake, upset that he was missing out on the "fun" murder case. Like. People are dead, though? And Amy's reform presentation was unsurprisingly vague, it was just clear that she was a good guy fighting the good fight, while her opposition was one of those bad racial profiling proponents. It all felt a little too neat to me.

The entire concept fell a little flat, too. The struggle was Jake and Amy each having to potentially give up important work moments for the sake of raising their son... but at no point did they go to the obvious solutions. When Charles is standing right there, basically it's like... Jake could take lead on the case or Charles could. Why didn't Charles offer/why didn't Jake ask, for Charles to watch the baby while Jake went? And Amy has Terry following her around as a cheerleader while she's preparing for a presentation. That she's giving alone. Terry seemed to have nothing else to do - why didn't he watch the baby? Meanwhile, Holt and Rosa's subplot is happening in the background - they certainly didn't seem busy! Why not ask one of them? The whole thing just fell apart for me.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Blue Flu (8x03)

I'm not sure how to fully articulate the level of distaste I felt at watching this episode. I don't envy the writers the task they have, at trying to keep a liberal show going under the guise of all the main characters being cops, but... this ain't it, that's all I can say.

Cons:

So, the premise of this episode is that a bunch of police officers pretend to be sick in protest for a police officer being "attacked" when he found a mouse in his burrito. They're obviously faking, so it becomes the task of the Nine-Nine to prove that it's a hoax and end the "Blue Flu" so the cops will get back to work.

Um... okay. So. Collective action is one of the most important tools our workforce has to combat unfair working conditions, right? In this story, the cops were striking for a bad reason, pretending to be victims and basically punishing the populace for all the anti-cop sentiment that has been rising up over the last couple of years. But in concept, unions are... good? And the collective power of a strike is... good? I just found it really weird that this story was: "let's stop people from striking." It felt messy to me, when in reality, if we really, really want to be honest about the police: each individual police officer isn't a "bad person", whatever that means. Pretending they're all evil and want to hurt you isn't going to do any political good. If all the "good ones" or whatever could use their collective bargaining power to demand real systemic change... that's a good thing? We should want systems in place allowing them to do that?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Lake House (8x02)

Well... why did we resolve the Kevin/Holt thing so quickly? That was kind of weird!

Cons:

Maybe I just like angst too much, but I would have liked to explore Holt and Kevin's relationship issues a bit more before just saying they're going to try and get back together. Maybe we'll get to learn more about how they're doing in couples counseling? But in that case, why not just frame it that way from the beginning, instead of saying they've separated, which makes it seem way more serious? I don't know. I just thought it was all kind of abrupt.

Maybe because this was a vacation episode where the gang is away from the precinct, but I found myself missing Gina's energy. I hope she makes at least an appearance or two in this final season.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Good Ones (8x01)

And we're back. This is going to be interesting, writing about this show for one final season, given... well, given 2020. Also given the knowledge that this is likely the last time I'll ever watch a procedural cop show. Not that I was ever big into them before, but... yeah, I mean, it's propaganda, it's always been propaganda, and I can't exactly see past it anymore. Anyway. Enough of that soap box, let's take a look!

Cons:

So, part of me just doesn't know who this is for??? Like, this first episode is about police brutality and Jake is painted in mostly sympathetic yet problematic light, where he's going around agreeing with ACAB actually but then in the same breath saying "not all cops! Not me!" So if this is for liberal fans of the show, it's like... do we need to see cops frowning about how hard this has been on them? No. And if it's for conservatives to try and humanize the cops and then show that there are real problems, then... well, there aren't conservatives watching this fucking show in that way, are there? I don't know. It feels messy. This is why most cop shows that touch on corruption within the cops makes the main characters the "good guys" working within the system. This is what this show has done up to now, and I can sort of appreciate them trying something a little more complex, but I also feel like I'm tangling myself up in circles trying to decide what the heck point they're trying to make.

Then again, I have to acknowledge that I don't know what the show could have done as an alternative? I suppose part of me wanted them to quit en masse and started a PI company together, like Rosa did, but that also would have felt like pandering, so... there's basically no scenario that would have pleased me and a lot of other people too, I bet.