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.