What We Do in the Shadows: The Night Market (4x04)

This wasn't the strongest installment, but it was by no means bad!

Cons:

The Lazlo and Young Colin stuff just didn't grip me the way I wanted it to! Nothing was particularly hilarious here. A few funny jokes, and of course good delivery as always from the actors, but the gimmick of Lazlo raising Colin has already started to wear thin. I wish this wasn't the case, but there you have it! And wasn't it kind of weird that Lazlo was trying to encourage Colin to look at the world as a more boring place? You'd think he'd want to do just the opposite.

Similarly, Nadja's subplot this week didn't really do much for me. She's dealing with labor disputes with the wraiths, which is what sends the whole gang to the eponymous "night market", looking for a way to bribe her wayward employees. I'm just not finding the stuff with the nightclub as fun as I wanted it to be either! There's a spark missing, somehow. I'm sure we'll get it back. Again, in terms of line delivery, everything Nadja says is still wonderful.

Roswell, New Mexico: Dig Me Out (4x07)

Honestly, really liked this episode!

Cons:

In some ways, I liked it so much that it shed a light on some of the pacing issues this season has had thus far. This felt like the point in which several plot threads were finally starting to find their footing, things moved forward in interesting ways, and I think if I were taking a red pen to this season, we'd want to have hit this point in the story maybe just one episode earlier? Cut away some of the sluggishness and extraneous stuff?

I was so happy to see Rosa again! This is maybe a nitpick, but I wish that the scene at the restaurant had gone a little differently. It felt super hasty for Rosa to get up and storm out after Liz and Shivani were talking science for like... forty-five seconds. It undercut Rosa's attitude in the next scene where she's being all mature and telling Liz to be herself. I would have rewritten that slightly so that Rosa stays at the restaurant but looks visibly uncomfortable/annoyed, and then afterwards when they get back to Rosa's place, says something to Liz about her behavior. That would have felt more mature and less awkwardly extreme. How many times have you actually gone out to a restaurant, sat down to eat, been annoyed by a family member for a minute, and actually got up to leave?

Westworld: Zhuangzi (4x05)

No Caleb or Maeve this week, which means my attention was wandering even more than it usually would! Oops!

Cons:

I'd say by and large, this episode didn't really give us new revelations, just showed us the impact of last week's new data. That's... fine, except that in a lot of ways the pacing seemed slow. So for example, Christina spends this episode building up to the huge reveal that she has been writing out the fates of all human beings, instead of just writing stories for video game characters. We see her also start to write the story of Dolores from the Westworld park, as it seems some spark of memory is trying to push its way through. It's with Teddy's help that she has her big "aha" moment. My issue here is one of pacing. We, the audience, had already figured this out a couple weeks ago. So watching Christina, a character who doesn't really have anything interesting about her other than the fact that she's a part of Dolores, come to the conclusion we've already reached just isn't as thrilling as I want it to be.

What We Do in the Shadows: The Grand Opening (4x03)

Sometimes I truly can't believe the shit this show actually puts out into the world. Madness, in the best way.

Cons:

I'm struggling to come up with anything I'd truly call a negative about this one! In terms of the comedy, I suppose I'll say that the scene with Lazlo and young Colin Robinson when they're robbing art from a museum was probably the least funny to me. The stuff with Colin has been surprisingly hilarious so far, but the repetition about the Legos, and Lazlo doing stunts with the lasers, it just felt slightly less inspired than most of the rest of the episode for me. Not bad by any means, though!

Pros:

But Colin's musical theatre references, and his performance at the end, saving Nadja's nightclub, was genuinely so funny. I love how Lazlo and Guillermo are essentially co-parenting this bizarre little nightmare together. Guillermo is offering him encouragement and being such a good dad, and Lazlo is trying to mold him into something he'll never be, until he learns his lesson about accepting his weird son for who he is. It's such a creepy uncanny valley sight, seeing that adult man's face on the body of a child, but it's cracking me up every second.

Roswell, New Mexico: Kiss From a Rose (4x06)

Sick Michael is kind of the most precious thing I've ever seen lol.

Cons:

I don't really know what to make of Bonnie as a character. I'm extremely torn. I was excited to find out that her kiss with Michael had ulterior motives, but now we find out that those motives were her trying to help him, not hurt him. She hits that "born sexy yesterday" trope for me, where she's this wide-eyed innocent excited for someone to teach her about the world, but she's also super dangerous. It's tired, it's lazy, and I don't like how she's just willing to follow whoever happens to be nice to her at any given time. On the other hand, I do like that they're kind of keeping us guessing with her character. So I don't know.

Everything with Eduardo and his daughter felt like a waste of time to me. As we move further and further through this season, I'm realizing how much these side characters and new characters are eating up the screen time I'd rather be spending with our core cast. Anatsa was like that, and the new trio, especially Bonnie, get so much attention, and Eduardo with his family drama, Shivani with her sick daughter and semi-estranged wife... I don't know. I wish they'd known when they were making this season that it would be their last. Maybe they would have tightened the scope and focused on the things we're already invested in.

Westworld: Generation Loss (4x04)

There's so many different timelines... so much is going on... but this was a great episode!

Cons:

I don't like having to work so hard to figure out what's going on. We get that scene at the end with Bernard, and the mystery woman who rescued him and Stubbs. Turns out, that's Frankie, Caleb's daughter all grown up. I don't need to be that confused about timelines! Why is it always Bernard, who's in the middle of all the timeline fuckery? It's kind of exhausting.

I've got to say, visually I didn't really enjoy Caleb's "oh shit" moment when he goes outside and he finds out that Hale's future dystopia has come to pass. It just looks like a generic sci-fi vision, a big creepy panopticon tower or what have you. Visually, despite how impressive a lot of the effects are, this show can have the tendency to get a little same-y.

What We Do in the Shadows: Reunited/The Lamp (4x01/02)

Ahhhh!!! I discovered this show during quarantine and I am so excited to be back with new episodes.

Cons:

Nothing really to report, here! More just a general wish list of things I hope we can explore later. There's this part of me that wishes season four had broken with the formula a bit more, and played around with the diaspora... the fact that we start with Nandor, Nadja, and Guillermo all returning home, and don't really get to see them having their adventures, is maybe a little disappointing? But that's maybe more a pie in the sky wish of what I wanted, as opposed to a judgment on what we actually got.

Pros:

Where to begin? I always find writing about comedies to be particularly challenging, because a lot of what was great about this episode were individual funny lines and moments, and it's not exactly fun for me to just list jokes and say they made me laugh. Suffice it to say, a lot of these jokes made me laugh!

Roswell, New Mexico: You Get What You Give (4x05)

I don't know, y'all. I just don't know, this one was not a super fun watch for me.

Cons:

So I have a bias, I know I do. I watch this show for Michael and Alex, and I won't pretend otherwise. So yes, part of my disenchantment with this episode is no Alex, and no mention of Alex being missing or in trouble. I really wish that by now we had at least Michael or the others starting to realize there might be a reason to be worried about him. I get that actor availability is a big factor here, but I think they could have handled this better. I guess I'm just a little bummed out. This is the last season of this show we'll ever get, and Alex Manes, at this point, is probably going to be gone for more than half of it.

I am really, really, disappointed in Jenna Cameron's story-line this season. I like Jenna. She's never been the world's most interesting or complex character, but she has some good energy, and her relationship with her sister always really warmed my heart and made me feel for her in a big way. But to have what looks like Cam's last episode end like this? To have her come back after a full season away, and to have her still be feeling regret/angst over what could have been with her and Max? God, that's just so... lazy, and lame, and not at all what I wanted to see! Why not give her a more interesting story? She's just there to give Liz and Max relationship advice and be a little moody about her own loneliness and then leave? Jeez.

Westworld: Années Folles (4x03)

Okie dokie, things are getting creepy up in here.

Cons:

We're back with Bernard and Stubbs, and god, I had to go back and remind myself how things left off last season, and even after the reminder I just so super did not care. We're talking about The Sublime, and different timelines and versions of events, and what basically amounts to robot heaven, and we've got the maze, and all this imagery from earlier seasons, and I don't know, y'all, it's just not gripping me. I remember in season two, I found Bernard's stuff wicked confusing and literally couldn't figure out where he fit into the timeline or connected with the rest of the events, and I'm nervous that the same thing will happen here.

Pros:

Thankfully, I really enjoyed the other plot threads that we got to focus on this week. First we've got Caleb's family, his wife and daughter, trying to get to safety. The utter spookiness of people not being who they look like is employed so expertly here. I loved how Frankie started picking up that something was wrong right away, and managed to solve the mystery, while her mother was still none the wiser. But then of course they're able to work together to try and get away. I'm surprising myself with how invested I feel in Caleb and his family.

Westworld: Well Enough Alone (4x02)

Ooooh we're going back to the park, hell yeah!

Cons:

Let's just get there faster, though, shall we? I'm sorry, but this show was at its best when it was a little more contained, so I'm super eager to get back into the confines of a fucked up park scenario as quickly as possible. There were a lot of things about this episode that mostly just made me yawn. The stuff with Christina in particular just seems kind of unmotivated and meandering? I want to care more, I want to move this along a little quicker, it's really just not doing much for me.

It's been a while so I feel like I'm kind of confused on the specifics here, but basically Dolores (using Charlotte's body) is controlling a host version of William, making him the face of Delos and an enforcer, along with Clementine, or a copy of the original Clementine, in order to take over the world? While keeping human William alive and in stasis? I don't know, maybe it's just me, but just typing that out kind of left me confused and exhausted and annoyed. William was such an interesting character for a while, and now this show is pretty much literally dragging his corpse around far past the time when he should have exited the proceedings. At least, that's how I feel.

Roswell, New Mexico: Dear Mama (4x04)

This episode is going to be difficult for me to classify. I feel like I can list a million things I don't like about it, but at the same time I enjoyed it over-all? Like, my list of complaints is going to give a misleading impression as to my real feelings. I don't know. Let's just dive in.

Cons:

Starting in subplot land... Anatsa feels like a waste of time now that we've seen the end of her story. I get it, she was never going to be endgame with Isobel, but why drag out four episodes were Isobel can't get up the nerve to tell her truth, and then have Anatsa end things right before Isobel actually tells her? Anatsa had so much potential to be an interesting character. Imagine the angst potential, if Anatsa knew the truth and couldn't stop herself from doing her job as a reporter anyway. It would be an interesting parallel to Liz's science putting the aliens at risk. Instead, all the hesitation and Isobel getting a pep talk from Cameron... I don't know. I'm left feeling like a lot of the time we spent with Anatsa was completely pointless, and that's not how I want to feel. Also... Cam saying she still wonders about Max makes me irrationally angry, I really didn't need to know that. Sigh.

Westworld: The Auguries (4x01)

Man, I don't remember season three of this show at all. I just remember being kind of confused by it and not caring enough to figure out what was happening. In other words, a great place to be as we're starting off a new season! Ha.

Cons:

I mean, there's just so much dramatic framing, so much artistry put into the construction of the plot, but things are so convoluted that the impact is often lost. So like, for example, the whole opening scene with William. Is William dead? Is this a copy? I think so, but I literally have lost track. Also Christina - is she Dolores, in any way? Or is this an entirely different consciousness? We have so many people walking around with the same faces that I literally get confused about who knows what, who's human, who's a construct, and what the lines between those things actually are. I know this is my own fault, I know I could pay closer attention, but I don't care very much, and therein lies my problem.

We've got Christina who is working as a writer for NPCs in video games, and finds out that the people she's writing for might somehow really exist. Cool premise. I didn't appreciate the super cheesy "gosh, I'm just writing about simple things like love, and girls who want to break free and go on adventures" vibe, though. It was a little too trite for my taste, and the time we spent with this character was a lot of repetition in what I felt could have been addressed more quickly.

Roswell, New Mexico: Subterranean Homesick Alien (4x03)

Not to be predictable, but an episode without Alex Manes is never going to be my fave. Plus I thought a lot of this was just kind of boring and underwhelming? Let's dive in.

Cons:

So, there were a couple of characterization things in this episode that felt like someone was writing these characters without the full context of their growth. Max, for example, being a little keyed up and nervous and overcontrolling about the new aliens, sure. That tracks. That makes sense. But his hostility towards Michael was a little over the top, and it wasn't addressed meaningfully in the episode. Liz had to babysit him through his feelings and get him to admit that Michael had a good idea, which I found sort of annoying. Also, maybe this is just a me thing, but I hate it when Max uses the name "Guerin" for Michael. It doesn't fit for them.

Speaking of Michael, I rather liked him in this episode for the most part, but I find the inconsistencies in his relationship to music to be sort of annoying. The first time we ever see Michael with a guitar, when he's explaining that it quiets all the noises, he's saying that to Alex. It's part of their origin story together. So when he's telling Bonnie he taught himself how to play, when the two of them are bonding over that, it's weird that there was no verbal or even visual callback to Alex whatsoever.

Roswell, New Mexico: Fly (4x02)

Allie Meyers is a lesbian, the gays are WINNING this pride month.

Cons:

So, this isn't something that's going to change ever, and I know complaining about it is fruitless, but the one thing I want this show to deliver on is more group scenes where all of our characters get to hang out, or at least we get to see different group combos, and it almost never happens! Like, sure, it's cool that Alex was briefly in a scene with Max and Dallas, but I want more of that energy. Particularly, Kyle is going on dates with some random new woman he met at the hospital, and I don't want Kyle to be cut off and in his own little bubble like he was for so much of season two. More group scenes, please!

I like Anatsa just fine, but something in her story-line, the amount of antagonism between Max and Anatsa, just didn't quite seem balanced to me. That exchange was painted as if Anatsa was being unreasonable, and maybe she was, but Max jumped to a level of aggression that wasn't really properly explained. This episode also made me realize how badly I miss Max and Isobel's relationship. We haven't seen them spend any time together this season and I hope that changes soon.

Barry: starting now (3x08)

Uhhmmm. Billiam Hader can we talk? Jeezus CHRISt on a cracker.

Cons:

I think the introduction of the Albert character this season was probably the weakest point structurally. When we get to the big climax and Albert is pointing a gun at a sobbing Barry, I just kept thinking that this guy isn't someone I really feel connected to, in terms of his personal investment in Barry's fate. It's a small thing, but that's one element of the season and this episode that just doesn't click with me as strongly as everything else going on.

Pros:

Let's start with Sally. I love that I predicted something of this a couple weeks back, without knowing I was making a prediction. Sally is back, and she wants Barry to torment Natalie, the way he'd offered to do to the streaming site lady earlier. Barry tells her no, that he doesn't want her to go down that path of violence. Then, we get an intruder breaking in after Barry. He tries to choke Sally and kill her, but she manages to stab him with a knife and then beats him to death brutally with a baseball bat. The killing mostly happens in a closed sound booth so we get to see it but not hear it. When Barry wakes up from being knocked out, he grabs Sally and tells her that he did this, that it was him, that she needs to leave and pretend she was never there.

Roswell, New Mexico: Steal My Sunshine (4x01)

Y'all I'm so happy to have new content of this show! Over the past couple of months my brain has been completely overtaken by this crazy world and delightful characters. I hopped on board just in time to experience the final season week to week. Let's jump in!

Cons:

I thought this was a very strong premiere and set up a lot of the various dynamics that I want to see more of moving forward. I will say that the actual alien-related plots on this show are never all that gripping to me when they stray away from direct connections to our leads... so, I'm interested in Nora and Jones because of the pod squad, I'm interested in Project Shepherd because of Alex... but when you have these new characters and the Alighting and all that stuff, my brain does tend to wander a bit. It's not bad, it's just par for the course with a genre show like this. I guess what I'm saying is that none of this stuff is why I tune in, so it'll never be my favorite!

I was really excited about the Hatch Day group scenes, and then it ended up being so brief, our characters splintering off into different directions right away. I liked what we got, but it was too little. And no Alex, no Kyle at the party... one of my big hopes for this season is that we'll get at least a couple times of the gang hanging out and vibing together. We virtually never get to see that. For a lot of the show, and especially last season, Alex was especially banished from group scenes. I suspect actor availability was a factor there, but in any case, I wanted Alex to be at Hatch Day! Jeez.

Barry: candy asses (3x07)

Well then. Just one more episode and the season is over? What is this nonsense, time is fake!

Cons:

This was probably my least favorite episode of the season? The pacing has been so frenetic and then this one really felt like a held breath, like a pause, in the midst of the chaos. While I expected that to be a good thing, it didn't quite come together for me.

Barry's only role this episode is to almost die and to hallucinate the people he's killed. I get that there were other things to focus on, but I'm not sure I learned anything new about Barry from this. He's dying, he feels guilt about the things he's done... this is not new information.

Meanwhile a lot of this episode was taken up with the investigation stuff over who killed Janice. I understand that for the purpose of propelling the plot forward, you need all of this. But Fuches telling Barry's big secret to yet another person, everyone getting rattled and angry at Barry for what he's done... there's really nothing new here, it's just turning the dial ever-so-slightly on stuff we've been watching all season. It's not that any of this is bad, it's just not quite as invigorating as I know this show can be.

Barry: 710N (3x06)

Well dang! As always, I never have any idea where an episode of this show is going to take me.

Cons:

As I've been saying all season, Fuches is definitely the character that I feel the least interested in. His stuff isn't bad, it's just never as gripping as everything else going on in a given episode. I was shocked when he got shot right at the start of this episode, but then his journey for the rest of it was just kind of boring to me. He's staying with a kind family who cares for him, at one point it looks like he's giving up on revenge on Barry, but then he decides he's not done yet, and contacts Detective Moss's father to speak about her death. So ultimately, Fuches ends this episode on the same crusade as he started it on, with very little to speak for after his detour.

We didn't see much of Noho Hank this week, which makes me sad, and time spent with the police detectives also feels like it's pulling focus from the most riveting stuff the show has to offer. Like I said, none of it's bad, it's just not where I feel the most glued to my seat.

Grey's Anatomy: Out for Blood/You Are the Blood (18x19/20)

Owen went back to annoying so quickly!! Okay, this is the finale, so a lot happens, but I'm going to do my best (ha) to be brief about it all...

Cons:

It just feels like they haven't properly examined the logistics of Owen's whole scandal with helping veterans to death with dignity. Washington allows physician assisted suicide. I get that some of the patients are from other states, okay, fine. But this just feels so contrived and it reintroduces the angst into Owen and Teddy's relationship that I find so truly insufferable to witness. Owen wants to help a man with his dying wife who's in pain, and Teddy says no, and then the man turns Owen in and Bailey finds out and the whole time I just felt like... "ughhh we don't have time for this, there are so many other stories and characters I care about more!" I'm not nervous about Owen's fate, send him to jail for all I care. I'm sorry, but it's just Owen. He's annoying anyway. And what exactly is the plan now? Owen and Teddy, two young kids in tow... what are they supposed to do? Are they going off the grid? Fleeing the country? Jeez.

Meredith spends a lot of time with Nick in this episode, which annoyed me mostly because he's boring, but also because I want to see her interact with the other characters on the show. She's felt so isolated this season, which would make sense if she's leaving Washington, but it's just not satisfying to see as a viewer. The big surgery felt like drama for drama's sake. We've never met this patient and her elderly aunt with dementia before. I don't feel connected to them, to be honest! So when things go wrong with the blood, my heart wasn't in my throat the way it might have been with other patients and other stories, like Simon and his pregnant wife. I did find the ending moving, but more because of Meredith's personal baggage. The idea of Nick being this thing she's afraid to lose just does not sit right with me.

Barry: crazytimeshitshow (3x05)

Oh my god... that kid at the end...

Cons:

We saw a brief glance of Fuches continuing on his quest to turn the families of people Barry has killed against him. Since we have the story of the mother and the son, further Fuches material in this vein seems kind of unnecessary? It's not bad, it just doesn't seem to add an awful lot.

We also see that an FBI agent has shown up to try and help solve Moss's murder. Again, I don't have a huge problem with this, but spending time with these characters is far less interesting to me than everything else that's on the table, so I was always hoping we'd switch back to one of the more pivotal characters soon.