The Walking Dead: No Way Out (6x09)

Okay! A very strong opening for the second half of the season. I wouldn't be me if I didn't have some complaints, but I feel pretty happy with what I just saw, and I'm really excited to stick with these characters for the rest of the season.

Cons:

There were a few odd pacing/timing issues that I must mention. Particularly, there were scenes during the day and then suddenly it was night time, and I was forced to conclude unlikely things from that, such as the fact that Maggie was apparently stuck up on that tiny platform all day? Or that it took most of the day for Denise and the Wolf to try and make their escape? I don't know... maybe I'm thinking too hard, but these moments did take me out of the story a little bit.

Of all the many subplots and characters that this episode focused on, the only story that I didn't really enjoy was the one involving Carol, Morgan, Denise, and the Wolf. Basically, Carol angrily tells Morgan that she should have killed him rather than let him spare the Wolf's life. Now, Denise has been kidnapped. But meanwhile, the Wolf is actually seeming to soften, showing a more human side with Denise. He even goes back and saves her life when she is nearly overrun by Walkers. As a consequence, he gets bitten in the arm. As they try and rush back to the infirmary to help him, Carol shoots the Wolf from the window, freeing Denise from her captivity but also killing somebody who maybe wasn't all bad.

The Vampire Diaries: Postcards from the Edge (7x12)

Well... yikes. I'm just going to jump straight in.

Cons:

This episode had two main plot threads that, for the most part, detracted from the main plot in an annoying way. While neither was totally terrible, they also weren't all that great. First of all, it turns out that Caroline's babies are syphoning magic out of her blood and slowly killing her. The thing is... this is getting to be too much like Breaking Dawn. Magical vampire pregnancy that's killing the mother? I don't know... it's just too much for me. Also, if we're to buy Stefan and Caroline's love for one another, you would want all of Stefan's focus to be on Caroline in such a situation. But he was (understandably) focused on Damon, and thus the focus of the whole episode was really split. On top of that, we know from the flash-forwards that Caroline, Alaric, and the babies are going to be okay eventually, so it really doesn't scare me to think about Caroline in trouble right now.

Bonnie, Nora, and Mary Louise go looking for the Huntress, whose name it turns out is Rayna Cruz. They track her to an insane asylum and find that the mythic vampire hunter is an old senile lady. That is, until she gets Bonnie by herself and reveals that she remembers everything about her old life as a Huntress. She tries to strangle Bonnie, but Enzo turns up out of nowhere and kills Rayna. Or so we think. Bonnie leaves to find Nora and Mary Louise so they can help hide Rayna's body with Enzo, but when they get back, Enzo and Rayna are gone. Enzo takes Rayna away and does some sort of a spell to release her into her true form - a young woman who looks eerily similar to Nina Dobrev.

Elementary: A View With a Room (4x12)

I'm so happy right now. So, so happy I can't even process it. This episode was absolutely brilliant. I had no idea I wanted this, but I'm so happy I got it. Let's jump in.

Cons:

The reasons this episode made me happy had very little to do with the actual case of the week, which I found to be pretty awesome in most respects, but lacking in others. The case was set up brilliantly, as Gregson introduced Sherlock to a captain from another department, who wanted Sherlock's help breaking in to a biker gang's headquarters to steal evidence. This setup made me really excited because it subverted the typical murder plot. But unfortunately, while a lot of great stuff did happen in this episode, the heist itself never took place. Somebody did get murdered, and a separated investigation grew out of that. I didn't mind what we ended up getting, but I think I might have liked what the setup originally promised even more.

This is a small thing, but it did rub me the wrong way... Sherlock uses a glitzy pony-themed playhouse toy to study the layout of the gang's headquarters and figure out how to get inside. Joan makes a quip about Sherlock having the childhood he always wanted, as a little girl. I'm all about abolishing gendered children's toys so it just bothered me that Joan assumed something that was pink and had ponies had to be for little girls.

The Big Bang Theory: The Valentino Submergence (9x15)

I really didn't like this episode. There was only one plot thread that had actual promise, and even it wasn't great. Let's take a look.

Cons:

Penny and Leonard's plot involved them going out to dinner for Valentine's Day. When the wait at the restaurant is too long, Penny tires to flirt with the Maitre D' to get a table, but he calls her "ma'am," causing her to have a crisis about her age. Leonard and Penny decide they have to do something fun and young, so they end up dressing up in weird Valentine's Day cupid outfits and throwing confetti around in Sheldon's apartment. This plot thread wasn't fun or original in any way. So Penny is upset because somebody called her "ma'am." That's not necessarily a sign that you're getting old... and their weird way of being "young" was to cause a mess in Sheldon's apartment? I just didn't get what was funny about that.

Meanwhile, Raj finally decides to break up with Emily. He has been wondering if he should do it for a while now, and he finally pulls the plug. He then calls Claire and asks her out, only to discover that she's just gotten back together with her boyfriend. Raj goes to Emily and begs her to take him back, but she says no. Raj then calls Sheldon and Amy on their live edition of "Fun with Flags" and talks about how lonely he is. This plot thread is really not endearing me to Raj. He dumps Emily because she's not right for him - okay, fair enough. But then when he finds out that Claire isn't available, he rushes back to Emily because he's afraid of being alone. I can understand that. But what I don't like is the implication that Raj only sees women as either datable objects, or the spouses/girlfriends of his friends. He seems to be unable to imagine that women might be valuable for friendship. His weird insistence on forming romantic connections with everybody is rather unsettling.

Grey's Anatomy: The Sound of Silence (12x09)

We're back! I always miss this show when it's away. I'm not going to waste time with an intro - let's just jump right in to discussing the opening of act two.

Cons:

This is a teeny little nitpick, but I really hate it when this show tries to make references to its location in "Seattle." Mostly because they so very rarely do a good job with referencing the city that I've lived in (or rather right outside of) my whole life. The patient who ends up attacking Meredith refers to Pike Place Market as "Pike's market." Nobody calls it that. Everybody just calls it "Pike Place."

But setting that aside, the main plot of the episode was all about Meredith being violently attacked by a patient, and dealing with her recovery from that point forward. I loved almost everything at work here. I felt that we got a good balance of seeing different people's relationships with her... with one exception. Maggie was barely in this episode, and her sisterly bond with Meredith was completely set aside. If you were to watch this episode and not know that Maggie and Meredith were sisters, you would think that Maggie had a relationship no different than her relationship to Owen or Arizona or one of the other characters who only had a small amount of screen time. I understand the need to prioritize the relationships being put on display here, but while Amelia, Alex, and Penny get time to sort of parse through their relationships with Meredith, Maggie was notably absent from such consideration.

Modern Family: Clean for a Day (7x12)

This was a pretty good episode. Not great, but pretty good. It focused on the changes happening in the lives of Jay and Claire, as Jay retires and Claire takes up running the closet company. Let's take a look.

Cons:

Cam's role in tonight's episode was to freak out that Jay was going to die in a plane crash, and then not-so-humorously interfere until he almost puts himself and Jay in actual danger. It was sort of slap-stick-y, as at one point while Jay is taking his flying lesson, Cam manages to knock the instructor unconscious with a pipe he accidentally broke off from the inside of the plane. These kind of over-the-top antics just didn't do it for me.

Suits: God's Green Earth (5x13)

We knew that Gibbs would have to go after Rachel eventually, and here you have it. I have some problems with this episode, but they're sort of difficult to pin down.... I'm just going to start typing and see if it leads me to a clearer understanding of my own feelings about this.

Cons:

The big thing about this episode that has me scratching my head is the ending, where Mike decides that the best thing to do is represent himself in the case, which is scheduled in just two weeks. Mike tells Harvey that if he goes to prison because he himself failed, he can live with that. But he won't be able to live with it if he goes to prison because Harvey failed. What? Why? I think generally it's a bad idea to represent yourself in court, and in this case it seems to be a particularly egregious thing to do. The worst thing is that Harvey wasn't going to cut Mike out of the case and make stupid decisions... I think all along the assumption was that they would work on this as a team. And now Mike has unilaterally decided that he's going to be the one to take on this challenge single-handed? Why? I just didn't feel like we got enough of a reason behind this.

Supernatural: Love Hurts (11x13)

This was a middling sort of episode, but it had a number of praise-worthy things about it, and I came out of it ultimately satisfied with the results. Let's start with a few of the things I didn't enjoy, however.

Cons:

The actual ups and downs of the case, the twists and the monsters and the fights, were all super standard and predictable. There was not one surprising thing about the monster, or the motivations of the villain, or anything. I liked some of the character work, and I'll talk about that in a minute, but for the most part I was yawning through the scenes where Sam and Dean were working out what they were hunting and how to defeat it. It's nothing different than what we've seen a thousand times before.

There was one really jarring individual moment that I feel I must mention... when Sam has been incapacitated by the "white witch," who summons the monster to kill unfaithful husbands and the pathetic wives who want them back, he spits at her that she's "practically a feminist." I really don't know what to think about that. Was the purpose of that joke that Sam thinks this woman isn't a feminist, and should be ashamed of her actions? Maybe... but it didn't come across that way. To me it made it sound like being a feminist is being a man-eater, in the sense that Sam was accusing this woman's behavior of being that of a feminist, and therefore vicious. I don't really know what to think. It would be unlike Supernatural to have Sam, of all people, make such a strangely sexist remark, but the whole joke just felt off to me. Maybe I'm missing something?

Castle: Tone Death (8x09)

They're deciding to play the whole "Castle and Beckett broke up for some reason" thing for laughs now, and I guess it does work a bit better than the angst of the first half of this season... but I'm still not liking it much. Let's take a look at an unfortunately sloppy opener for the second half of this season.

Cons:

The murder this week involved Martha, as she was there when the body was discovered at the theatre where she was working on her show. I love Martha, but her presence was totally underutilized here. There was this whole thing about how she felt personally connected to the victim, all because the young woman had talked to her once. It was weak. Now, if the victim had been someone who Martha had known for a while, and had actually bonded with, that would be different. As it stands, it was a bit confusing how personally upset Martha seemed to be.

The Vampire Diaries: Things We Lost in the Fire (7x11)

Okay so wait a second - is Elena actually... did they really... or was it part of Damon's hallucinations? What about Tyler? And, like, did they actually just do that? When I first watched this episode, I was ridiculously confused. Let's back up a bit and we'll talk through this mind-trip of an episode.

Cons:

Too many plot threads! I liked each individual thing that was going on here, but it all piled up to such a degree that I was having trouble focusing. There were moments with Bonnie and Nora, Caroline and Alaric, Matt and his struggles as sheriff, Julian and his mission to destroy Mystic Falls, all mixed in with the larger story of Stefan and Damon each trying to recover from their experiences in the Phoenix Stone. When the episode ended, I was left overwhelmed by some of the smaller stories at play here, to such an extent that the biggest, most important thing to happen in this episode almost seemed like just one more detail in a whole pile of happenings.

Elementary: Down Where the Dead Delight (4x11)

I really liked this one! Both the main plot and the subplot got the proper amount of attention and nuance, and I greatly enjoyed Joan getting a bit more to do this week.

Cons:

The main plot, as I just said, was very good, but it did start with an annoying red herring that I could have done without. Essentially, this episode begins with a morgue exploding. As they are trying to figure out who would want to hide evidence on dead bodies, they discover that there are several gang hits in the morgue, and they suspect the gangs who did the killing to have something to do with it. They even bring in a lawyer and talk to him about it. Turns out, it had nothing to do with any of those bodies. I understand the need for a procedural to go down a couple of wrong turns before they get on the right track, but for some reason this seemed like a bigger time waster than usual.

Also, speaking of the beginning, I really liked the lady who died in the morgue blast, and how she and one of the morgue workers had a flirtation going on. He was devastated by her death, and I would have loved to bring the story back around to him at the end, maybe show him feeling a sense of relief that her killer was apprehended. As it was, his little plot thread was left dangling.

The Big Bang Theory: The Meemaw Materialization (9x14)

Totally shrug-worthy in most respects, as are the majority of episodes with this show. But it got a few chuckles out of me, all the same. Let's dive in.

Cons:

Raj and Howard's subplot had some good parts, but also some annoying parts. Essentially, they meet a girl in the comic book shop, and she and Raj seem to hit it off. She asks for Raj's help with a children's screenplay she's working on, because his expertise as a scientist will help. Later, Howard and Bernadette chastise him for flirting with this girl. Raj calls her and tells her that he has a girlfriend, but the girl says it's okay - they can still get together and talk about her screenplay without it meaning anything. Later, when they're working together, Raj fantasizes about marrying her and having a kid. Raj's incompetence with women is supposed to be endearing or entertaining or something, but to me it's just creepy. It seems to prove that he only sees women in terms of a relationship he can have with them, and not as individual people.

Suits: Live to Fight (5x12)

This wasn't the episode I was expecting to get at this point. It was Donna-centric, which seemed to come out of left field. But in many ways that's what made it work so well. There's a lot to talk about with this one, so let's get started.

Cons:

This episode featured flashbacks, and for pretty much the first time in this show, I didn't much care for them. The problem is that the flashbacks told us no new information - in fact, the same relevant points were covered in exposition in the present day story. Essentially, Donna's father asks her to ask Harvey for a loan so he can complete a deal. It's a sketchy endeavor, and Harvey refuses to get involved. He even goes so far as to threaten Donna's father, telling him not to let Donna put up her 401K assets for her father's sake. This causes, years later, Donna's father to be brought up on charges of making a corrupt deal. This is merely a bargaining chip that Gibbs is using to try and get Donna to turn on Harvey and Mike. I love the idea of this plot thread, and I loved meeting Donna's father, but it's like I said: they just didn't need flashbacks to help tell this part of the story.

Then there's Gibbs, who is supposed to be holding her own with the other baddies of the Suits universe. The problem is, she doesn't really hold a candle to Hardman or Forstman or even Soloff, who all come across as much more interesting corrupt individuals. Gibbs just isn't doing much for me at the moment. I'm still waiting for her to become more interesting.

Supernatural: Don't You Forget About Me (11x12)

I just want to say, first of all, that I'm so happy this episode exists. I feel as though we only got it because of the upsurge of fan attention and support for the idea of the "Wayward Daughters," that is, Jody, Claire, and Alex. I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Cons:

To start with the one rather large complaint, however... I have to say that the actual Monster-of-the-Week plot here was pretty lame. It was a copy of so many other stories, where in the end the bad guys (vampires, in this case) pontificated for far too long with their captives (Jody, Claire, and Alex) until the Winchesters could show up and try to save the day. Both are incompetent enough to get themselves nearly killed, but all is well in the end, as the ladies take out the baddies. There was kidnapping, an all-too-obvious connection with Alex's past, and the annoying fact that none of the adults believed Claire when she said something fishy was going on. I felt like we were falling into a lot of Supernatural's least interesting clichés.

Another smaller thing - what with Claire's heavy importance to the episode, you would think it would have been all too easy to mention Cas. They did briefly talk about how they hadn't heard from him, but I was a little miffed that Claire didn't ask about him, or the guys didn't talk about him in connection with his vessel's daughter.

The Vampire Diaries: Hell Is Other People (7x10)

This episode was super filled with Damon & Stefan brotherly moments, which as you all know is my main reason for watching this show. So... I'm happy. Like, really happy. And surprisingly, that's not the only thing that made this episode awesome. All in all, it was a real winner, with only a few small things to complain about.

Cons:

Julian had a brief appearance this week, in one of the many Hell-loops that Damon was repeating again and again. This small scene just re-emphasized to me how little he works as a character. His love for Lily kept things interesting, but now with Lily's death I'm left without much of a stake in his character. We'll have to see where it goes.

This is a small thing, but I must mention it... this show has never been big on historical accuracy, and its attempts to put the characters back in their original historical context has always been charmingly off-the-mark, to say the least. The one thing that always bothers me, though, is when they talk without using contractions in order to make themselves sound old-timey. It just doesn't make any sense and it's very distracting.

Elementary: Alma Matters (4x10)

Unfortunately this one didn't really do much for me. It suffered because the subplot was better than the main plot, and I was left frustrated by the lack of time devoted to the much more interesting story. Let's take a look.

Cons:

The case of the week featured a for-profit college running a scam wherein they recruited reformed criminals to their schools, saddled them with a bunch of debt, and then used the debt as blackmail to get them to go back to their ways of crime and complete unsavory tasks for the owner of the school. The thing about this case is that the solution to the mystery was both obvious and confusing at the same time. The bad guy was so obviously bad that you thought there had to be an extra twist, and when the truth came out, it turns out that it was the guy we all suspected from the beginning. His method of evil was a bit convoluted and a bit... too sinister, if you know what I mean. I'm not saying there aren't truly bad guys out there, but this one just seemed to lack all pretense of a sensible motive. He was just power hungry and evil.

Suits: Blowback (5x11)

WHAT EVEN IS THIS NONSENSE. I'm so happy you guys. I'm so happy. Harvey and Mike. Just. Wow. Okay. Let's dive in and forestall the ecstatic flailing for a bit.

Cons:

Mostly this episode is just about the fact that Mike has been arrested, and dealing with the fallout from that. There were a few moments that felt a little bit too rushed, or too overdramatic, though. The main one was that Rachel admits to Mike that she had a brief moment of consideration about the idea of turning on Harvey and Jessica, if it would keep Mike safe. Mike blows up at her, believing that she's going to leave him if he ends up in jail. I can see the idea of Mike thinking Rachel will leave him being something that the show could explore moving forward, but it all happened so quickly and dramatically. Does Mike really have so little faith in their relationship?

Similarly, Louis and Jessica had a moment that didn't sit right with me. Jack Soloff is back on the attack, and Louis says that if they make him, Louis, managing partner, it will deflect the threat from Jessica. Jessica immediately accuses Louis of making a power grab. So, like, okay. I can get why it would be hard to trust Louis after all the crap he's pulled, but he wouldn't make a blatant bid for power like that. It lacked the nuance I usually expect from the conflicts in this show.

Supernatural: Into the Mystic (11x11)

My poor boys are in so much pain and I want to hug them all a lot but at the same time this episode filled me with such joy. I have one giant complaint and one smaller complaint, and then several things to praise. I'd say this episode doesn't quite hold up to last week's killer installment, but it was as solid as a C-plot episode ever has been. Go Robbie Thompson!

Cons:

Giant complaint is as follows - Dean/Amara is disgusting and not at all compelling. In this episode, we see that Dean is vulnerable to the attack of the Banshee because he is hung up on Amara. He also confides in Cas, or Lucifer, rather, that he's had two shots to take Amara out and he's been unable both times, due to his connection and attraction to her. It's just creepy, is what it is. I'm sorry, but Amara is as old as the universe itself, but she's also only been alive for like under a year in a human vessel. And other than the compulsion drawing them together because of the Mark, I don't understand at all why Dean would be drawn to her. I mean, in getting rid of the Mark, Dean was supposed to have banished those dark thoughts completely. Right? This isn't a Sam/Ruby situation, since Dean isn't still being corrupted by dark power like Sam was when he was drinking Demon blood. It seem like this is a pale imitation of that earlier Sam/Ruby storyline, but with a much less compelling reason, nonexistent chemistry, and even more uncomfortable questions about consent. I keep trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but Amara just doesn't do it for me, either as a love interest for Dean or as a proper villain.

Elementary: Murder Ex Machina (4x09)

I don't know. I mean I liked a lot of things about this episode, but it also felt a little black and white. Usually I like dealing with moral ambiguities in this show, but this episode felt like it was trying too hard to be deep at certain points. Let's take a closer look.

Cons:

The case of the week was a little bit too twisty. It involved international spies and hit men and hackers and self-driving cars and technology companies and weapons dealers and honestly it just kind of made my head spin. Throughout all of these really big, dramatic things, we had Sherlock insisting that even though the murder victim was a bad guy, justice must be served. No murderer should ever walk free. A fair point, but the complexities of the statement were never explored to their full potential. And the murderer ended up being a guy only briefly encountered at the beginning of the episode. I always hate it when they do that. It doesn't ring true.

There were a few things that had the potential to be awesome in this episode, but instead fell a bit flat because they didn't have enough time to dive into them properly. Most significantly, there was the introduction of an autistic woman who worked for a tech company. She was a total genius but had a hard time with social interactions. She talked about how Joan and her boss were NT (neuro-typical) but that she didn't know what Sherlock was. The implication that Sherlock is on the spectrum is one I can totally get behind, but as this was the very first time the show has ever brought it up in concrete terms, I wish it could have been explored more fully. Perhaps it will come up again?

Supernatural: The Devil in the Details (11x10)

I was so excited for this episode to air. I was expecting a lot of angst between the brothers. What I got was... well, I got some brother angst, but more than that I got a surprising amount of Rowena and Cas. Not what I would have asked for exactly, but it turns out it was exactly what I wanted. This episode was amazing. Let's dive in.

Cons:

Unfortunately, the amazingness isn't across the board. There were a few things to really hate about this episode. There was some good representation from the ladies to start with: four women with actual names. Amara, Rowena, Billie, Ambriel. But the bad news is, two of those ladies end up dead by the end of the hour. Ambriel was a one-off character, and I quite liked her. Turns out, she was really just there to give Cas a crisis of self-confidence and then die. Lame! And then there's Rowena. While her death served the function of shocking the audience, it ultimately feels sort of pointless. Am I the only one who felt like her build-up on this show has been totally wasted? There was so much more she could have done. So much more they could have explored. But she ultimately met her end as nothing more than an example of what Lucifer is capable of. Ugh.

And as long as we're talking about the women, let's just touch on Amara. Last time we saw her, she had been mega-smited by a whole host of Angels. It didn't do her in, to nobody's surprise. She's  back to being her old creepy self in no time. She kills Ambriel but spares Cas to send a message to Crowley: "I am coming." I know I'm suppose to be scared of her, or maybe I'm supposed to think she's hot, but it's just not working. It's not the actress's fault. As of yet, I'm just more annoyed with the Darkness as a villain than anything else. I keep waiting for her to start showing up as a proper Big Bad, but she doesn't even come close to making the kinds of waves Lucifer made in this episode.