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.

The Walking Dead: On the Inside (11x06)

That was legitimately quite spooky, I've got to admit!

Cons:

The problem with this show and all of its same-y storylines is that... well, I don't care enough to pay attention, and thus I have to look up characters. I didn't realize who Virgil was until halfway through the episode, because this show's ensemble cast is just too dang big! I like Virgil, I liked him and Connie and their scenes, but I wish they'd do a damn "previously on" or whatever so I could remember this stuff.

I continue to be unimpressed with the whole "Reapers" story-line. I like seeing Daryl handle it and come up with creative ideas to help his friends, but beyond that, I find "Pope" to be an obnoxious addition to our long list of villains, and all the macho posturing and hostility from the one random guy that hates Daryl... I just don't feel any interest in this whatsoever.

The Walking Dead: Out of the Ashes (11x05)

I wouldn't say this episode was some fantastic gem that made me invested again, but it did feel a little more attention-keeping than some of the others.

Cons:

While there were good things about seeing Alexandria and the kids, and seeing the impact this way of life has on people, I did think some of the Judith stuff was a little cheesy. Rosita telling Judith that everyone she loves is still with her in her heart or whatever... give me a break.

I'm a broken record on this, but Negan and Maggie just aren't keeping my attention this season. I'm not invested in this conflict, because it's not nuanced or interesting. Either Maggie kills him or she doesn't, and I don't care enough about Maggie as a character, or Negan and his redemption arc, to feel invested in this. When some of Maggie's people showed up at the rendezvous, it was clearly supposed to be a big moment of relief, but I don't know or care about any of those characters, so...

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Last Day (8x09/10)

I wish I felt more, I honestly felt kind of disconnected from this finale, just like I did the whole season! It wasn't bad, but it didn't really spark joy.

Cons:

This season tried to clumsily address issues of police brutality, only for the finale to have no mention of it. I'm not trying to be a party pooper here but if this season is meant to talk about the desperate need for reform, and then the finale is... well, Amy and Holt got those promotions, Terry gets a promotion, Jake's going to be a stay-at-home dad, the end? The show's status quo hasn't really shifted here at the end. It's a little bit more of the same.

It's hard to articulate, but the comedy just didn't really hit for me in a lot of the heist scenes because it was actually too convoluted to follow. Whenever we saw somebody win out over someone else, turns out there were still three or four layers of betrayal until we uncovered who actually had the lead all along. I know it's meant to be more comedy than an actual mystery to solve, but if it's this convoluted, it's not even clever anymore, it's just a lot of chaos being thrown at the screen until the episode ends.

The Walking Dead: Rendition (11x04)

Guess who gives a shit about Leah? Well, I don't know. But it's not me.

Cons:

So, the Reapers are a creepy group of religious extremists who speak in flowery, over the top language and are creatively violent with strangers? Wow, how original. I just can't give a shit about the various cults we've been introduced to over the years. The Governor, Negan, Alpha... where does it end? I can't bring myself to be invested in "Pope" and his creepy speechifying. It all just blurs together in my head.

Even when he burns one of his men, I'm just like... okay? I didn't know that guy. Do I care? It shows that he's insane, but was I really supposed to be surprised by that revelation? If anything it just makes me more bored and annoyed by Leah.

The Walking Dead: Hunted (11x03)

This episode was so much time with characters I don't care about, doing stuff that bores me because we've seen it a thousand times.

Cons:

You mean to tell me that Maggie and her gang are in danger from a group of dangerous and insane humans who want to hurt them in creative ways for some unknown reason? Wow, what a novelty! There was a death scene in this episode where I literally didn't know who the person was or what his relationship to Maggie had been. Maggie shows up and has this off-screen closeness with all these people, but we the audience don't know them, so it doesn't work to elicit any sort of emotional response!

Same with when Maggie is watching a girl get torn apart in front of her. Who was that? I don't know and I don't care. Even when she's chatting with a dude from Alexandria who used to be with Negan, I don't remember this guy or if he has a preexisting relationship with Maggie or why I should care. They leave him behind and it's supposed to be this poignant moment, but I don't give a shit! I should say that this is in large part my fault, because I could pay better attention or look this stuff up, but honestly the show hasn't made me care enough for that to seem compelling. So who are you really going to blame?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Renewal (8x08)

Okay I'm trying to be chill about this but I honestly think this show's treatment of police corruption is SO messy and convoluted!

Cons:

This episode features two characters grappling with their relationship to their work. Holt, who is going to retire to please his husband, but who in the end just takes a new role, because his job is important to him and Kevin respects that. And then Amy, who gets a big promotion to chief, and wonders how she's going to balance work and family.

Okay, so, this is fine, right? Except... the careers they're both talking about are careers as cops, and there's a lot of baggage in turning that into a big part of your identity. Do we praise the show for showing that Amy and Holt are both dedicated to reform, and that's why they're currently passionate about their careers? Because that hasn't exactly been a consistent factor, and we need to be honest about that.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Game of Boyles (8x07)

That was a solid installment, I will say. Probably because it stayed away from the precinct and police work and didn't make me think about all the messy ways this season has tried to grapple with serious issues.

Cons:

The fact that Jake is on suspension barely seems to register in this episode. He has a moment where he's too caught up in Charles' family drama because he misses being on the job, but other than that brief mention, this episode doesn't feel any different than any other. I want consequences to matter on this show.

I really don't understand including this late game... twist? I guess? That Charles is the product of an affair and thus not a "real" Boyle? It's the kind of thing that a better show would contemplate as an actual psychological factor in Charles' life, but here it's introduced and doesn't matter by the end of the episode. Just kind of clunky.

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.

The Handmaid's Tale: The Wilderness (4x10)

Oh boy. I don't even know what else to say. Just. Lots of stuff happening here.

Cons:

So, obviously I'm going to talk about the Fred situation, but I actually want to start by saying there was a logistical weirdness with the end of the episode that kind of troubled me. For one thing, and this is just a script decision I don't understand, why does the mailman open the mail and see the severed finger and wedding ring? Why not have Serena opening it so we get the full impact of the horror? That just felt odd to me.

And then... the ending. June comes back to say goodbye to Nichole, and says she's leaving in five minutes. My initial read on this was that she was going to go and face the consequences/get locked up for what she did to Fred. But then I realized that made no sense, and maybe she's instead going back to Gilead to get Hannah? See, the problem here is that a) I'm bored of Gilead and want to keep the story in Canada. And b) June's connections with Lawrence and Nick seem to be able to get her a lot of things... it feels like it would be a relatively simple matter to snatch Hannah and run at this point, wouldn't it? The narrative stakes feel uneven, after what we saw June was capable of orchestrating in this installment.

The Handmaid's Tale: Progress (4x09)

Wellllll.... shit.

Cons:

I've got to say, I'm just not thrilled with watching Janine have to play the part and get sucked back into the whole Gilead lifestyle thing. Poor Esther got caught up in it as well. This doesn't bode well for my continued enjoyment of the show, but I really must say that my attention starts to wander every time we're back in Gilead. I want all that juicy Canadian drama, please and thanks.

The scene where Luke says that June should go and meet Nick was... really weird? It was framed almost sinister, like Luke was blackmailing June into doing something she didn't want to do. And June was clearly very shaken by the thought of seeing Nick again, I get that, but it did feel weird that she wouldn't have brought it up herself.

Pros:

I was so mad when the episode ended and I learned that Fred Waterford was going to go free, in exchange for information on Gilead. So mad that my blood boiled. In other words, it was very effectively done. I like that we see Fred's growing frustrations as he realizes his fellow Commanders in Gilead have forsaken him. Then we just get the news dropped very casually, and Moira and Luke react with anger while June is seemingly pissed but mostly calm. Then she snaps, screaming about how Fred is a rapist. It was the perfect buildup and execution, and the idea of Fred walking around, free... it's chilling to contemplate. What's going to happen?

Grey's Anatomy: Someone Saved My Life Tonight (17x17)

I found so many, many, many things about this episode incredibly frustrating! And I'm frustrated by my own frustration, because I just wanted to have a good time and be done with it.

Cons:

Where to start? I think one of my issues with this episode was the time wasting that happened from last week's installment. Why did we have that whole little tiff between Maggie and Winston about when to get married, if they were going to arrange a quick wedding, then call it off literally during the ceremony, then just have a bigger ceremony later on? What was the point of that whole little run-around?

And even more annoying because the stakes are so much higher... why have Jo denied custody of Luna, then go through all of the drama of having Link foster Luna, and then just show that Jo won and got custody... all happening offscreen so we didn't get to see any of that juicy drama play out? Why not stretch this journey out over the past couple of episodes, and instead of showing Jo getting denied, show that there are difficulties in front of her, and that she needs to fight, then have it be framed through that lens of fighting for what she wants? The Link fostering Luna thing was so absurd and then we didn't even really see that play out at all. Link, a man who wants more children, didn't get too caught up in the fact that he's the legal guardian of a baby? Okay then...

The Handmaid's Tale: Testimony (4x08)

Well, there's certainly a lot to talk about, isn't there?

Cons:

Now that we've got June out of Gilead, I find myself fundamentally much less interested in anything still going on there. Yes, I find Commander Lawrence and Aunt Lydia both to be fascinating characters in their own right, but it's just the same ol' same ol' circling the drain with these two. I'm happy Janine is alive, but, again, what is going to be different about this from every other time a Handmaid has escaped and been apprehended, brought back into the fold? We've got the opportunity for so many fresh stories over in Canada, that the Gilead stuff just isn't as urgent for me as it should be.

Pros:

But honestly, that subplot took up so little time, and the rest of the episode kicked ass. Let's start with the Waterfords.

The moment when Fred speaks out at the hearing was so intriguing to me, because at first I was like "wow, what a dumbass" but then seeing those protesters cheering on the Waterfords at the end? Truly a chilling experience. Here I was thinking that Fred was behaving rashly, but he actually has a lot more political and social savvy than people give him credit for. I don't know that he really believes any of the religious stuff, but he's certainly using it to his advantage in this situation. It was literally hard to watch the people screaming and cheering and holding up signs praising Serena and Fred. It made me sick to my stomach! I would hope that counter-protesters would also be there on June's behalf, but we didn't get to see that this time around.