Grey's Anatomy: With a Little Help From My Friends (18x04)

This episode felt a bit like treading water to me.

Cons:

So... is Megan like... sticking around? I find it odd that she and Owen have spent so little time together, and that we're adding this contrived thing where Farouk is sick. Give the poor kid a break, after everything else he's been through! Maybe they're setting up a Hayes/Megan thing since apparently Riggs and Megan broke up offscreen, and they're pairing Meredith with this new boring Minnesota guy? I don't know. I'm not saying I'm completely uninterested in all that, but I will admit I'm kind of confused how it fits in with everything else.

In this episode, we get Amelia explaining herself to Addison, the reason why she and Link aren't together anymore. "I hated the life that he loved." Basically, she was overwhelmed and miserable and close to relapse during the pandemic, while Link was handling it better and falling in love with domesticity. I guess I can understand this, and it does feel a bit more grounded than a lot of the earlier stuff with this dumb drama. But it still just feels super contrived. This show needs to learn how to make established couples interesting. Breaking them up at all felt like such a cheap and unnecessary move, and so all the time we're devoting to it just makes me frustrated anew every time. We don't have much time to spend with Addison, and she spends it helping Amelia with her relationship drama? What about Jo, having a new mentor? What about Meredith and the kids? So many more interesting things could have been happening here.

Grey's Anatomy: Hotter Than Hell (18x03)

Well... awww. That was kind of adorable.

Cons:

There was a moment when Link and Teddy were together and Link was lamenting all this bullshit with Amelia, and Teddy was like "trust me, I've been there" and like... bitch, what?!?! Sorry, but Teddy cheated on Owen, meanwhile Link has done nothing wrong and also Amelia was the one who was manipulative and difficult in their relationship. Not to be an Atticus Lincoln stan or anything, but Teddy, these two things are not the same. Jeez.

I found Hayes' subplot about his kid not talking to him... well, it's not that it's a problem in and of itself, but I found it to be a little one dimensional. See, there's a sixteen year old girl who ran off to meet an internet friend and got injured, and she refuses to call her parents. The guy she's with says she really hates them. Now, I know teenage angst is a thing, but if you're that seriously injured and in that much pain, surely you'd still want your parents with you. Unless, of course, your parents are seriously bad news: neglectful or abusive or in some way otherwise unsuited to parent you. The whole time this subplot was going on, I expected there to be a reveal/twist that the patient had good reason for wanting to avoid her parents, and that Hayes was allowing his own situation to cloud his judgment. But... nope! I don't know, maybe I'm being overly sensitive to this, but I feel as if this whole idea lacked nuance.

The Walking Dead: For Blood (11x08)

Well, for a midseason finale I'm a little bummed we didn't spend any time with the most interesting characters or plot threads... let's dive in.

Cons:

So like. I'm not invested in Daryl and Leah. So when Leah does her whole double-cross thing and I think we're all supposed to be like oh no, poor Daryl, I'm just like... yeah, dude, you have a family and it's not her and it never has been. We saw them sharing a life together in one episode forever ago, and it wasn't exactly a convincing portrayal of love ever after. I also thought Daryl was kind of a dumb dumb about this whole situation, like, did he really think after seeing all the fanaticism that Leah was going to just come with him? He should have run without waiting for her to cross him.

I'll also just say as a more general note that nothing is new under the sun, so even elements of the story that feel perfectly adequate, where I can't point to it and say "this is stupid and here's why", still aren't grabbing my attention in a meaningful way. Like in Alexandria, I wanted Virgil and Judith to talk more about Michonne: that's interesting, that's character-driven drama and intrigue. But instead the bulk of the story there is dealing with inclement weather and a Walker breach, so we've got all the cute kids in peril and Carol, Rosita, etc. running around trying to save the community from crumbling entirely. I get that the stakes need to be high, but sometimes the stakes are boring because we've seen them over and over again.

Grey's Anatomy: Some Kind of Tomorrow (18x02)

Okay, stuff is happening, let's dive in!

Cons:

I'm not sure I like the wishy-washy decision that we reach in the Meredith plot. So she's going to accept the huge cool new opportunity, and she doesn't have to move away from Seattle? Okay... seems kind of weird to artificially inject that drama, doesn't it? I also just find her love interest dude to be pretty bland. Not bad by any means, but also not particularly interesting.

Owen and Teddy are not compelling to me as a couple, sorry! I feel the need to keep repeating that.

The Walking Dead: Promises Broken (11x07)

This felt like a "arranging things on the chessboard" episode in that a lot happened but a lot of it felt like a ramp-up to something more down the line. That's not necessarily a bad thing, although I do have my complaints...

Cons:

At this point the whole Pope thing, with Daryl and Leah and whatnot, is just... not working for me. I like Daryl, I like seeing how he's going to be able to make it out his various scrapes, but I'm... bored and annoyed and I feel like there's nothing new to explore with this concept.

The scene where Eugene punches a guy for being rude felt so overprescribed, like, it was obvious from minute one that this performatively douchey dude was going to wind up being the son of someone important and it would mess with their chances. I had (and still have) such high hopes for this weirdly sheltered community and where the story might go from here, but that moment was such a cliché that I couldn't really get behind it.

Grey's Anatomy: Here Comes the Sun (18x01)

We're back!

Cons:

Hey, I still don't care about Teddy and Owen! The big cheesy wedding in the bar at the end does nothing for me at all, I feel nothing, I am dead inside!!! I think it's just that they've both been fundamentally so shitty to other characters, and that Teddy had an actually somewhat interesting vibe with Tom, and that a lot of the characters who have sustained me in these later seasons of the show are gone now... it's all just a little draining. It was nice to see Megan, but her and Riggs broke up? Oh come on! What's the point of that! If they're not on the show anymore, just let them stay together! They had a death defying love, for god's sake!

The guy that Meredith has dinner with is apparently someone who's been on the show before, but if you gave me a million dollars I wouldn't be able to tell you anything about him or his impact on her or the show. It's been four seasons and several other potential Meredith love interests since then. Why bring this guy back? I like the whole Cormac Hayes romance. I like the information we got here, that they'd tried to date but that Cormac's son had had a hard time with it. That's an interesting story right there. Why bring in this rando? I get this is a soap opera, but Meredith has mellowed out over the years. Give her a fundamentally peaceful, if still complex because they're both single parents with dead spouses, romance! It's sitting right there, for goodness' sake.