Summary: June is summoned by the Waterfords to DC so that they can continue to pressure Canada to return Nichole. Lydia accompanies her. The Waterfords stay with Commander Winslow who offers Fred a promotion after seeing his dedication to Gilead in the videos he is shooting. June discovers that some handmaids have been silenced, horrifying her and Aunt Lydia. The Swiss arrive to conduct interviews on behalf of Canada. June tries to make a deal with them to keep Nichole out of Gilead by letting them speak to Nick, a commander. However, the deal falls through when the Swiss check up on Nick's past. Serena tells June that Nick was a soldier who fought in the crusades. June is upset that the deal falls through and has a spat with Serena.
The Good: As usual, this was acted brilliantly and shot beautifully. This show is beautiful to behold and it took that to a new level in this episode. Things like the destroyed Lincoln Memorial, the modified Washington Monument and the new Union Station were lovely to see and they added a lot to the world of Gilead. There were some really good scenes of character interaction as well. June's final scene with Serena was emotionally charged and was a good way to provide a climactic moment in their conflict regarding Nichole, though it did have its problems (see: The Bad). Lydia and June's scene was phenomenal, showing a more human side to Lydia and giving us some really good emotion. Though again, that moment had problems (see: The Bad). Lastly, I really enjoyed the brief moments between June and Rita as they took a few seconds to relax and talk amidst a hostile environment. I appreciate that we finally got to learn more about Nick. His backstory seems to take his character in an interesting new direction and I'm happy about that, though like everything else in this episode, I had my fair share of problems about this development too. The Bad: That shouting match between June and Serena didn't achieve its full potential for a number of reasons. First of all, this logistically should never have happened. If Gilead is so restrictive, how on Earth is June able to get away with such a loud shouting match? And in the Lincoln Memorial of all places with its loud echoes! Surely everyone would have heard that. Additionally, there is no way that June was allowed to go to Lincoln Memorial alone, especially not in the capital where it has been established that the rules are far more strict. Furthermore, all of these fights between Serena and June are beginning to feel a little bit numb for me and the only thing that keeps them engaging is the acting from Elisabeth Moss and Yvonne Strahovski. I've seen them fight and make up so many times by now that the repetition outright annoys me. Nick's past really seems like a last-ditch effort to give the character something to do, and it comes off as something that is pulled out of nowhere. I can't fully remember the backstory given to Nick in prior seasons, but I'm confident that nothing like this was even hinted at before. The reveal doesn't feel earned at all unfortunately. Furthermore, it seems odd that Nick's previous life caused the Swiss to refuse to speak with him. Surely speaking with a commander is too big of a chance to pass up regardless of somebody's past. As much as I loved Lydia and June's scene, it seems very out of character for Aunt Lydia. This same woman would torture the handmaids without a second thought, yet she is freakishly horrified by the idea of silencing and then proceeds to actually open up a little bit to June. It doesn't fit with what we know of her character, and continues the show's trend of making characters contradict their past actions. I didn't like the idea of the silenced handmaids. It is unnecessarily excessive brutality, even for Gilead and it seems fairly counterproductive. After all, how would they hide this from convoys from other countries? Surely other countries would have discovered the horrors of Gilead if they are as careless as this. Furthermore, it feels like a manipulative way to gross us out. Just showing the handmaids with cloths over their mouths is telling enough and it sends the message. The rings in the mouths are pointlessly excessive and don't add anything other than a gross out for the viewers. Fred's promotion doesn't make sense to me, especially since he was literally just demoted a little while back. The way that Winslow's impression of Fred suddenly changed offscreen was very convenient and it didn't work for me. The Unknown: Does Winslow have any other plans for Fred? Is he earnest in his offer of a promotion? What were the crusades that were mentioned in Nick's past? I'm interested to learn more about them. Best Moment: Probably Lydia and June's scene, flawed as it was. Character of the Episode: June. Conclusion: This episode was fine overall if not the most exciting, but the problems underneath the surface detracted massively from my enjoyment. The show is hitting a midseason lull once again. Score: 53
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Summary: The next POI is a man named Khan whose antivirus business is being targeted by somebody. Khan is fired and Finch and Reese have to protect him. Khan is paranoid that he is being attacked by an AI. The team realize that he is being targeted by Samaritan. Root comes by to help after obtaining a mysterious briefcase. The group eventually discover from a Samaritan hideout that Samaritan is trying to locate the Machine. A group of Samaritan agents including Martine attack the group. Khan joins them for answers. Root has an opportunity to kill Martine but Reese stops her. Khan meets Greer who reveals Samaritan and kills Khan.
The Good: This was another really strong episode. I enjoyed the main story a lot and Khan was a really good POI character. He was played by Aasif Mandvi who gave one of the more memorable performances for a POI character, helped by the fact that he was given some god material to work with as his paranoia about being attacked by an AI lands him into dangerous situation after dangerous situation. It's a really strong story, and the fact that it involved Samaritan made it even better. I especially enjoyed the scenes with Khan in the prison. I love that the episode actually took its time during this sequence, allowing us to experience the horror alongside Khan as Samaritan closed in on him for the kill. I especially enjoyed the lengthy shot as Khan looked around at his prison establishment, and eventually everyone started receiving texts and began to look at him with murderous intent. The scene perfectly captured the fear and terror that living in a world where an AI is trying to kill you would consist of. It's something that I wish was explored more in-depth this season, but I'm glad to be getting it now rather than never. Khan's death scene was ruthless and surprising. Often times, characters fates would be left open-ended but Khan's was not. We get to see him coldly executed, and it is stunning, horrific stuff, consistent with the content that has been given to us in this episode. Once Samaritan targeted Khan, there really was no saving him. Samaritan was outstanding in this episode. Early in the season I expected Samaritan to pose a greater threat and be more aggressive in accomplishing its goals and that didn't exactly happen. But here I got exactly what I expected and wanted from Samaritan. Things like the texts it sent the prisoners, shutting off cameras and activating traps on the road make it clear that this is Samaritan's world now. I also really liked how Samaritan overheard Khan questioning its existence through a cell phone that happened to be nearby. This was excellent stuff that made Samaritan feel like a threat. And it appears that Samaritan could very well locate the Machine soon. This is a huge development and it really feels like the final battle is coming up soon, hopefully in the season 4 finale. This episode had all of the details right, not just the Samaritan details. I loved the continuity with Finch and Reese referencing Maple from back in "M.I.A.", as well as the existence of yet another secret Samaritan hideout. I was pleased to see Root's connection with the Machine being used in a creative way as she located security cameras for the team to destroy. Lastly, the sequence where Root gasses everyone was signature Root and it made for a good laugh. The Bad: Why wasn't Samaritan this threatening before? We see it listening in on Khan's conversation through a phone, but is this seriously the only time that this would have happened in the span of season 4? Is there really no other time where Reese/Finch/Root/Shaw were discussing Samaritan in the public when Samaritan could have been listening? It breaks my immersion when I realize that the characters have such large plot armour when necessary. Furthermore, Reese not being identified, escaping the cops and surviving that deadly car crash were very convenient and continued to hurt the sense that somebody could be in real danger this episode. I didn't like Root's fight with Martine very much. Root really shouldn't be able to overpower a trained agent so easily, and the whole fight felt rushed with not enough emotion in there. This should be a seminal moment for Root as she gets to avenge Shaw, but it isn't given enough time to be emotional. Furthermore, shouldn't Root have really asked her where Shaw was? If anybody knew if Shaw was alive or not, it would be her. Lastly, Reese getting Root to lay off of Martine for no apparent reason was a bit convenient. The Unknown: Where is the Machine located? Will Samaritan find it? What was with that egg in the briefcase? Why did the Machine want the briefcase? Why is it important? Best Moment: I will go with Khan in the prison. A very good piece of television. Character of the Episode: Khan. Conclusion: This was another really strong POI case, only this one was mixed in directly with the Samaritan story, making it even better. I really enjoyed this, though everything was a bit too convenient to score a 70. Score: 69 Summary: The next POI is a woman named Francesca who is trying to kill Ray, a man who stole from her boss. Reese gets involved in the case and so does Harper. Harper helps both parties come to a conclusion without any death. Reese deduces that she is getting texts from the Machine. Meanwhile, Finch continues the plot against Samaritan he set in motion back in Hong Kong. He meets with Beth with intention to attack Samaritan with a Trojan horse. However Beth's number pops up so Finch and Root work together to solve the case. It turns out that Root was the threat to Beth since she doesn't want Finch to take an unnecessary risk and die. Root plans to kill Beth and Finch disagrees with this. Finch tries to kill himself but Root is able to stop him from doing so. Finch's set-up with the Trojan horse is destroyed by Root, upsetting him.
The Good: Finch and Root had the strongest story here. Their conflict was one of the best character conflicts we have seen in the series and it led to a number of memorable, poignant moments. Both characters were thoroughly understandable and I found myself sympathizing with both. We are well aware of Finch's morality after 4 seasons, so it's easy to understand why he would be concerned for Beth's well-being, especially since they are friends now. His attempt to stop Samaritan is also very easy to understand since it would be ideal for the world to be rid of Samaritan for good. Root is also very sympathetic as we can easily understand why she wouldn't want to lose any more of her very limited supply of friends. In the end both characters simply had different priorities and that resulted in them clashing several times throughout the episode in some of the episode's best moments. The Root twist itself was superb. I was caught completely off guard by it yet there were still so many moments of obvious foreshadowing earlier in the episode. It changed the dynamic of the episode drastically and made me more engaged than before. The story ended in heartbreaking manner too. After both Finch and Root bared their hearts to each other when trying to win the conflict, they ended up alienating each other a little. Root's disgust and disappointment when Finch tried to kill himself felt very real, while Finch's anger towards Root at the end of the episode made perfect sense. It's heartbreaking to see these two characters who have such a close bond be broken up, even if it is only temporarily. The rest of the episode was fine. The POI story dominated the episode and it certainly had its moments. Frankie felt like a much more entertaining and logical version of Harper, and her interactions with Reese were fun for the most part. The action scenes were creative too and I particularly liked the handcuffed fight. The climax was also set up nicely and I appreciate that the story built up to a single moment that resolved the many stories that were at play. It was well written and fairly satisfying to watch. The Bad: Harper continues to be grating. The interest I had in her back in "Blunt" is practically ll gone now as she returned pretty much exclusively with all of her worst character traits. I found it hard to believe that Harper would work as a convenient solution to everyone's problems at the end of the episode, and it felt like the show trying too hard to make us like her character by making her strong. It's made worse by the fact that Frankie is also in this episode, and I like her character much more. Iris' story is very generic and unfortunately her romance with Reese did nothing for me. I really enjoyed their therapy scenes, but I find myself to be a little indifferent to them being in a loving relationship. The show has done so well developing Reese as this closed off character, so whenever he opens up a bit for a romance it just feels strange. There were some logistical issues I had with the Finch/Root storyline. It's hard to believe that Root wouldn't just knock Finch out and forcibly take him to the hospital. Furthermore, I'm confident that she has a cell phone so why not make the 911 call from there? Also, I found it a little hard to believe that Root wouldn't allow Finch to plant the Trojan horse. Even the Machine wanted it to happen, so evidently Root should understand that Finch likely isn't in too much danger if this is the case. I can buy into her wanting to keep him alive, but I feel like Root should have only gone to such drastic measures for something much more dangerous. Lastly, Finch recovered a bit quick for a guy who just drank a neurotoxin. The Unknown: Harper getting texts from the Machine is a very interesting development. I wonder, who else could be getting texts like these? Will Root and Finch reconcile later? I really hope so. Best Moment: As much as I loved Root revealing that she can't stand losing another one of her friends, I'm going to have to give it to the final scene of the episode. The sight of Root and Finch at odds with each other is very powerful, and it provides a perfect conclusion to one of the show's best character conflicts. Character of the Episode: It's a real toss-up between Root and Finch. I'm going with Root. Conclusion: This was one half of a brilliant episode and one half of an average episode. It doesn't quite get a 70 because the POI story wasn't the best, but the Root/Finch story was still top tier stuff. With the season winding down, I'm looking forward to what "Person of Interest" has in store for us in its climax. Score: 69 Summary: Flashbacks show that Finch attempted to kill Alicia Corwin as revenge for Ingram's death but ultimately chooses to spare her. The next POI is a man named Edwards who has been framing people he thinks are responsible for crimes. Morris, the man convicted for killing his wife, comes after him. Reese and Finch try to talk Edwards out of getting revenge but Edwards threatens Morris with a gun anyways. Edwards reveals he plans to kill himself and frame Morris for the murder but Finch and Reese talk him out of it.
The Good: This episode was all about revenge. Every character and every story in the episode ended up revolving around the act and consequence of getting revenge, giving this episode a dedicated focus and theme. Edwards is a very interesting POI character. His drive for revenge is pretty basic (a man killed his wife so he wants to put him away), but it fits amidst more complex and interesting stories from Reese and Finch (more on that later). The part of his character I found most interesting was his style of vigilante justice where he would frame bad people for crimes they didn't commit to bring about justice. Not only is this a creative and interesting idea because of the morality of the whole thing, but it also brings about good drama when we are watching Edwards go about his business, unsure of what he is planning. Finch's story in this episode was the most fascinating to me. Michael Emerson was given a lot to do in this episode, and we got a great reminder of just how good of an actor he is. He played Finch's moral conflict in the flashbacks really well, especially when he had to make the decision to blow up Alicia or not. Honestly there was enough conflict here to fill an entire episode with Finch's decision coming at the climax. I enjoyed seeing Finch hinting at his desire for vengeance for Ingram (it even ties nicely back into the therapy scene in "The Devil's Share" which is a phenomenal piece of continuity), and I also liked The Machine attempting to stop Finch from doing this crime by constantly ringing the phone and even popping Finch up as the next POI. Reese had a very subtle tie-in with revenge in this episode. His scenes with Iris were fine at the beginning, but the last one was really great. Reese got to open up a little more once again and seemed to hint that the revenge he got for Jessica back in "Many Happy Returns" didn't end up fixing anything. He was left just as broken as he was before, which is very sad. I'm surprised I'm saying this, but I really like that this episode had no tie-ins with Samaritan or the Brotherhood. It was its own personalized story and it worked really well because of it. The Bad: Unfortunately the timing of this episode is poor. With six episodes left in the season, we should be getting episodes that ramp up the tension and develop the long-running storylines. I feel like if this episode came at an earlier point in the season, it would fit much nicer in the chronology of the show. This episode was really missing Shaw and Root. While the storytelling was really strong, the team dynamic feels lessened with the lack of banter that comes from Shaw and Root. That makes it less enjoyable to watch the team in action, especially since we have already seen more than enough episodes of Reese and Finch doing cases on their own. Going back to just the two of them does feel like a step back. This episode does suffer from a lot of the usual POI case problems. Edwards is very bland as a character and there isn't much depth to him. The same goes for Morris. This episode completely hinges on the revenge theme, and underneath that there is very little of substance to actually uncover. Alicia's dialogue while in the car was a bit too corny for my liking. It seemed a little too on-the-nose that she would say these lines that are so full of exposition and dramatic weight. Some more organic dialogue would have helped. The Unknown: So was Morris actually the killer or not? The episode left it open-ended, which I liked. It feels more consistent with the revenge theme that sometimes you won't get anybody to blame for the terrible things that happen to you. Best Moment: I really enjoyed the Finch/Alicia scene. Finch's moral conflict was easy to understand, and Michael Emerson portrayed Finch's conflicting emotions so well. The phone ringing int he background was a wonderful touch too, making us feel a little bit of the pressure that Finch must have felt when making his decision. Character of the Episode: Finch. Conclusion: This was the best POI case I can recall in a long time. The revenge theme added a lot and made this into a better episode than what I was expecting. Score: 64 Summary: Serena is still unhappy because she wants to be with Nichole. She arranges a deal with June to have June call Luke and arrange a meeting between him and Serena so that Serena can see Nichole. At the meeting, Serena threatens Luke into letting her share some time with Nichole. June gives Serena some tapes to give Luke as a gift. The tapes have messaged from June on them and she tells Luke everything that happened. Back in Gilead, June is taken by some Eyes to a set. The Waterfords a filming a TV spot demanding the return of Nichole to Gilead.
The Good: Scene by scene this show is outstanding. There was tons of emotion on display in this episode and some of the scenes were as good as anything else this show has produced. June and Luke's moments in particular were wonderful. I really enjoyed their actual phone call as Luke was overjoyed to hear June's voice, while June stoically kept herself together so she could spout the dialogue that everyone wanted her to say. Because of how fake this felt, the conversation felt somewhat disappointing. But that was the point. By the end of the episode we get to see what their conversation should have been as June gets to spill everything to Luke over a cassette tape. The scene is wonderful, and O.T. Fagbenle ended up doing his best work on the show as he reacted to the bombshell revelations that June gives him. This was by far the most likable Luke has ever been. He had some wonderful internal conflicts to deal with in this episode as he got to speak with his wife for the first time in ages. We see him pondering the validity of what June said on the phone, we see him processing the information that June fell in love with another man, and we see him choose to obey Serena when he realizes that his irresponsible actions could have massive consequences for June. There is a lot for him to do in this episode and thankfully O.T. Fagbenle stepped up to the task. Serena and Luke's scene ended up being quite brilliant. While getting to it was a bit iffy (see: The Bad), the scene itself carried a lot of weight, even in their opening dialogue as Serena gives a generic Gilead greeting while Luke swears at her hatefully. Serena initially tries to be kind, but when she sees it isn't working, she desperately goes towards a subtle threat in order to get some more time with Nichole. Seeing that his wife is in danger, Luke's resolve shatters and he gives in to Serena's demands. What's most fascinating is that Serena doesn't even seem to acknowledge that she played dirty against Luke. I think she believes she is being a genuine person, and that she does have a mother's right to persuade Luke to let Serena be part of Nichole's life, no matter how she goes about it. One of my biggest issues with this show is the lack of consequences for its characters. So when the show takes the time to make a character's actions have disastrous results, it feels even more satisfying. This is the case with the ending of the episode as June sees the Waterfords attempt to bring baby Nichole back to Gilead. And the worst part is that it's all her fault. She was the one who inexplicably tried to get them back together. She was the one who showed Serena kindness and agreed to let her see Nichole once more. And now her kindness has ended up in her baby being in danger of being brought back to Gilead. June's willingness to work with the Waterfords completely backfired on her, and these are the kinds of consequences I want to see characters face when they do stupid things. There were some other moments I enjoyed as well. I liked Lawrence sharing some time with his wife as they listen to the mixtapes together. It was a lovely moment that seems to hint that Lawrence isn't a bad guy underneath everything we have seen from him in the past few episodes. I also enjoyed Ofmatthew's horror when she became pregnant again. Evidently her pious act is a sort of denial, and when faced with the loss of another baby, she seems to be losing her composure. I've finally picked up that it's "Nichole" and not "Nicole". Better late than never I suppose. The Bad: The show is suffering from the same big issue as last season. The continuity between episodes is non-existent and there is never any change in the story. The fact that we are back at a Serena vs June conflict is ridiculous, and I don't care to see that explored anymore this season. Furthermore, we have several moments which breach the continuity of the show. We have never heard back from June's attempt to start a rebellion back in "Useful". Aunt Lydia faces zero consequences for beating up Janine last episode, and she seems to be back to her old self again without any development. Lawrence and June's interactions aren't advancing at all and the constant repetition is already testing my patience. The show is facing the danger of completely losing its quality in the middle section of its season once again. Serena has been woefully underused this season. For 5 episodes, all she has done is cry, cry, and cry again. It gets old quick and it's disappointing to see somebody as talented as Yvonne Strahovski forced to play the exact same scene over and over again. Honestly if I had a shot of alcohol every time Serena starts crying this season, I would be dead. Serena's character has been inconsistent, and not in a good way. The show seemed to set her up for a redemption arc, but now they have cut the legs off of that story by having Serena demand to bring Nichole back. Why would she do this? Does she no longer care about the safety of her daughter? It's so out of character for her to completely back out on her choice to let Nichole go. Worst of all, she makes this decision off-screen so we can't even see her get pushed to decide that Nichole must come back. Also, why is she back with Fred now? Did she forget that he had her finger cut off? I can't see a single reason for Serena to stay with him or listen to a word that he says. It's absurd. Furthermore if she wants to see Nichole again, why not leave Gilead? That would be much more organic for her character to do this, yet because the writers need to keep spinning the show's wheels we instead have Serena remain a villain. The Gilead government is really stupid in this episode. Clearly they are aware that Luke has Nichole. So why do they need to wait for Serena to say something before they demand to get her back? Shouldn't they be searching tirelessly for her already? The fact that they only did something when Serena actually wanted them to is so stupid. Another problem is the phone call from Luke to June and the meeting they arranged. Did the government really just allows June to make this conversation? And did they really just allow Serena to leave the country without her commander? Having the main plot of the episode built on such a flimsy foundation ended up hurting my immersion in the story a lot, making me less invested in the story being told. With stronger writing, the story would have hit a lot harder. 5 episodes in and there has been nothing for Moira and Nick to do. If you have these side characters, you should give them something to do. As it stands, they are useless to the story right now. The Unknown: Does Lawrence still have good in him? Who left that satellite phone in Serena's bag? How will that be significant in the future? How will the world react to the Waterfords broadcast? Will Canada fight back? Will they be pressured to give Nichole back? Canada better at least try to prove that Nichole isn't related to the Waterfords at all because she really isn't. So why hasn't Emily or anyone else tried to start a revolution against Gilead? Why haven't they revealed more about the truth of what is going on in Gilead? Best Moment: As much as I loved the Serena/Luke meeting, I have to give it to the moment when Luke listens to the tapes that June recorded and reacts to a flood of information. Such a lovely scene. Character of the Episode: Luke. Conclusion: On the surface, this is another excellent episode. I think the actual scenes we have been given this season are the strongest since season 1. Yet the lack of consistency and consequence drags things down once again, and an episode that should have been incredible ends up being merely good. Score: 63 Summary: Monica invites her parents over for Thanksgiving but hasn't told them about her and Chandler yet. Ross and Joey want to leave the party early to go hang out with Janine and her dancer friends. Rachel tries to make a nice dessert but messes it up.
The Good: Most of this episode was wonderful. Episodes where all of the main cast stay together the entire time are always the best and this was no exception. As stupid as some of these scenes were, they just worked because of the chemistry between cast members as well as the constant sense of fun, and the rapid-fire jokes. There are so many jokes in this episode that it's okay if a few of them miss. The highlight of the episode was everyone barraging the Gellers with sudden reveals, and it was a hilarious moment. Other parts of the episode were also great like Joey enjoying Rachel's dessert, Ross and Rachel's awkward hallway conversation and almost all of the wonderful random encounters between the friends throughout the episode. The Bad: A few things were awkward. The clearly faked immediate reaction to Rachel's dessert was stupid (though of course the scenes following the immediate reaction were hilarious to make up for it). Phoebe's sudden love for Jack wasn't funny at all and further dented Phoebe's credibility. Lastly, Chandler trying to get Monica's parents to like him ended up being a weak storyline with bad jokes and a very forced resolution. Best Moment: The Gellers being barraged with information from everyone. My favourite part of this exchange was Ross' terrified face when Monica revealed the truth about the playboys. Character of the Episode: Ross. Conclusion: This episode was hilarious and continued the trend of excellent thanksgiving episodes. Sure there was some silliness sprinkled in, but for the most part the episode worked magnificently and had shades of the brilliance that "Friends" has showed in the past. Score: 76 Summary: Harper is the next POI. She stole money from the Brotherhood who are out to kill her. They capture Trey, Harper's boyfriend. Reese and Fusco protect her and try to broker a deal with Dominic but their attempts fail. Reese saves Trey while the Brotherhood and the cartel come to blows. The cops arrive to arrest them for unregistered weapons. The cartel are arrested but the Brotherhood are not since Harper warned them ahead of time. The Brotherhood make peace with Harper. Finch attempts to follow Root who is trying to get an app for the Machine. She meets with Caleb from "2PiR".
The Good: Harper's character is an interesting one. She is much better than Anna from the previous episode and has lots of more charisma and unpredictability. Though I have my problems with her (see: The Bad), she is a lot more interesting to follow as a main POI character, and I liked that she had a connection with both the main group and the Brotherhood. Dominic had a good episode. Winston Duke's performance felt more complete than in previous episodes, and that made the character a lot more interesting to me. I especially enjoyed the diner scene with Reese (see: Best Moment). This latest episodes of season have frequently been reintroducing characters that have been absent for a while (Ex. Claire, Zoe). This episode continues that trend by giving us the surprise return of Caleb from "2PiR", a return that I'm more than happy with. It feels like the show is giving us all of these returns so that we can have a large group of characters going up against Samaritan. The Bad: This episode felt rather stagnant. The POI story took a long while to get going and it didn't develop into as much drama as we usually get. Plus the episode was really lacking a sense of urgency or reason for me to care about what was happening. Trey's capture did nothing for me and he ended up being a really useless character. Furthermore, did we need an entire B-story of Finch attempting to follow Root to set up the ending reveal with Caleb? I feel like the same feeling could have been accomplished with 5 minutes of screentime shaved off. It's not like "Person of Interest" to stretch out a plot line that doesn't have much story behind it. This show usually does the opposite and condenses a complex story into just 45 minutes. The Brotherhood have been really disappointing as villains. Unlike Vigilance who always seemed like they would have an interesting involvement with the Machine, the Brotherhood don't seem to have any actual bearing on the main Samaritan story, so they come off as unimportant side villains that we are spending far too much time with. I enjoy them for their personal connection to Elias, and I want to see them cross paths with him, not with Reese, Fusco and Finch. I think that having the Brotherhood appear in an episode without any tie-ins with Elias was a very poor decision, and it did nothing to further the story that I became invested in back in "The Devil You Know". Harper is a pretty annoying character at times and the actress playing her doesn't do a particularly great job. The biggest issue I have with her is how non-innocent she is. I struggle to believe that Finch and Reese would care so much about the well-being of a con artist who has done some pretty bad things to criminals. Worse yet, they seem to believe that her behaviour is almost justified which feels at odds with the morals they usually display, particularly Finch. Dominic calling out Reese for siding with Elias, a pretty bad man by all rights made perfect sense and I don't think that Reese was able to give a sensible answer to Dominic's inquiry. Surely this moment should have been a bigger deal than it was. It would have been nice for either Reese or Finch to maybe consider a peace offering with the Brotherhood that closely matches what they have with Elias, especially earlier in the story. Dominic seems like a reasonable guy, and he only seems to attack those who have purposefully and knowingly wronged him. Why not work with him? Elias certainly did much worse than Dominic back in season 1. The Unknown: What will this mysterious app do? Is Caleb going to be used to create the app or maybe for another larger purpose? Will we see more returning characters soon? How about Leon who hasn't appeared in nearly 2 seasons now? Best Moment: Reese and Dominic's meeting was pretty good. It was shot like one of those old school movie scenes where the protagonist and antagonist have a tense stand-off in a diner. The writers clearly put much more effort into that scene over anything else in the episode. Character of the Episode: Dominic. Conclusion: This episode was a mixed bag. There were some interesting aspects, but as a whole this felt lacking. Score: 54 Summary: Ross whitens his teeth for a date, but is horrified when they get way too white. Rachel spreads a rumour that Phoebe kissed Ralph Lauren but is shocked when she realizes that Phoebe didn't actually kiss Ralph Lauren. Joey becomes girlier while interacting with Janine, much to Chandler's chagrin.
The Good: This was a fun episode. There was still a lot of stupid stuff (see: The Bad), but there were tons of great jokes. All three storylines are fun and they made me laugh consistently. Watchign Joey devolve into a woman had some fun moments. I particularly liked Chandler going to Joey's and Ross' only to find them doing girly things. It reminded me of the great joke where Joey kept running into Ross trying to hunt down the hot girl. Ross' teeth are decently funny and everyone's reactions to his teeth are quite funny. Rachel's story is excellent and it has some lovely moments. Phoebe's stupidity is great, Ralph Lauren's brief cameos are hilarious, and Kim interpreting Ralph ignoring Rachel was hilarious. All in all, it's a pretty great storyline. The Bad: Joey becoming so girly is a bit out of character for him and it's a bit too much of a stretch. Hillary getting so mad at Ross for whitening his teeth didn't make any sense. Surely she would understand. It felt forced to end the scene with the two of them shouting at each other. Best Moment: Chandler visiting both Joey and Ross to find them doing girly things. Character of the Episode: Rachel. Conclusion: This was a great return to form for "Friends", though I get the sense that this episode is the exception since it didn't really fix any of the problems I have had with this season. Still, it was great fun. Score: 73 Summary: Finch is contacted by Claire who is in over her head and is trying to be killed. Claire is shot so Finch takes her back to a safe place. Reese works alone on the next POI case with Fusco's help. He is trying to save a girl named Anna, a worker at a software company who is being targeted for investigating a suspicious suicide case. Claire tells Finch what happened when she was taken and Finch tries to save her. However, Claire is working as a double agent and captures Finch with intentions of getting him to join Samaritan. Finch refuses and is saved by Reese. Claire escapes.
The Good: Claire's return was excellent and it provided some nice follow-up from "Nautilus". Her presence gave the episode a shot in the arm early on, and all of my investment in this episode came from me wanting to see what would come of Claire running into Finch once again. Her scenes with Finch were quite good and I thought that all of her stories about what happened to her were very well written, and competently acted. It did a great job of building up some sympathy for her, and does a nice job of distracting us (at least for a little while) from the twist that she is a double agent. The twist itself was predictable (see: The Bad), but I don't think it was bad. Claire being a double agent simply had to be the correct way to end off this episode. There is no way that Claire would have escaped alive, and the convenient sniper shot when she talked to Finch was pretty questionable. I thought that Samaritan sending Claire on this mission made perfect sense. Though we didn't see it, I presume that Claire ended up mentioning the mysterious man she spoke with before taking her new job, and I could completely buy into Greer/Samaritan deciding that this man was Finch. Once that was figure out, a plan to use Claire to ensnare Finch is an obvious solution and it works for the story. Samaritan wanting to recruit Finch also makes perfect sense. It adds a little more grey territory to the idea of Samaritan as a ruler. We can clearly see that Samaritan is currently doing really good things for humanity by improving things like education. Additionally, giving Finch the option to live by joining its forces makes Samaritan seem much more peaceful and reasonable than it initially seemed. It makes me wonder if Finch may actually regret not taking a way out and saving the lives of Reese, Root and Fusco by refusing Claire's offer. The Bad: Of course Samaritan's avatar is so cartoonishly evil that it becomes clear that Samaritan isn't actually going to take a peaceful route. I think that's a shame because exploring a genuinely caring AI slowly turn bitter and resentful would be a wonderful story to explore. The POI story in this episode was a total dud. It did nothing to interest me and I didn't care at all about Anna or her struggles. The villains were as bland as they could possibly be and I felt like the episode was just wasting time whenever it cut to whatever Reese or Fusco were doing. Finch choosing to leave Claire for dead is very cold, even for him. I definitely buy into Finch suspecting Claire's story to be false, but for him to react by wanting to kill Claire seems so out of character. This man goes to so many lengths to save lives, so having him nearly indirectly murder a teenage girl was ridiculous. His explanation of it being because he lost Shaw doesn't work either. We know he has lost people in similar circumstances before (Ingram, Carter), yet he never had such an irrational change in his morals. I just can't buy into Finch going so ruthless without a lengthy character arc setting this up. The Unknown: Is Finch's cover blown now? Surely Samaritan can easily find him just like they could with Shaw earlier this season. What is on Finch's laptop? Is there anything that Decima or Samaritan can use? What is Root currently up to? Apparently she is doing missions for the Machine. What missions? Why did the sniper shoot Claire when he wasn't supposed to? It seems really dumb because Claire needs to be alive to get to Finch. Why would Decima risk such an important operation by almost killing Claire? Is there an actual answer to this or is it just a plot hole? Do Decima plan to kill Claire when they are done with her? What's going on with Elias? It has been so long since we have seen the Brotherhood storyline. I hope it gets wrapped up soon since it could quickly become inconsequential considering how high the stakes are with the Samaritan story. Best Moment: I'll go with Claire revealing that Samaritan wants to bring Finch into the fold. It was a nice moral conflict for Finch who evidently considered the option briefly before denying it. Character of the Episode: Claire. Conclusion: The Claire story was rock-solid with some fun moments. However, the POI storyline sucked and I had a few big issues with the Claire story too. In the end this was a decent episode, but one that I feel should have been much better. Score: 57 Summary: The handmaids and commanders go to a ceremony celebrating the children of Gilead. June meets with Serena and Fred and tries to sort out their relationship. June orchestrates a deal for Fred to allow Serena to have some power behind the scenes, and it seemingly gets them on good terms again. Janine goes to see her baby again and oversteps her boundaries. Lydia gives in to her darker side and viciously beats Janine, but she immediately regrets it afterwards. Luke is seen on TV carrying Nicole. Emily reunites with her son and is emotional when she returns to her old life.
The Good: The focal point of this episode was on June trying to restore the fractured relationship between the Waterfords. I thought the scenes between June and Serena/Fred were pretty compelling. It was easy to understand June's goals, and I thought that it was a clever idea to examine both of the Waterfords individually from June's perspective as they attempt to put their marriage back together. The acting was superb as expected and I was surprised by how sympathetic all 3 characters were throughout this story. Aunt Lydia had a really good arc in this episode. Following her injury back in "The Word", we have seen a darker and more bitter side to her character after she had been hurt by the handmaids that she loved so much. She snapped at June back in "Mary and Martha" which was a sign that she wasn't taking her injury too well. Here we know for sure that this woman isn't the same one we met at the beginning of the show as she viciously takes out all of her anger on Janine, brutally beating her down for a mistake which was pretty understandable. Everyone was quite uncomfortable watching Janine get smacked around, and after the moment had passed, Aunt Lydia was suitably horrified by her actions. It seems clear that these rage issues are eating away at Lydia from the inside, and now it seems that she may be facing some big consequences for lashing out like that in front of so many commanders and their wives (see: The Unknown). Ann Dowd conveyed Lydia's fear wonderfully in the ensuing scene and I'm curious to see where her story goes next. As usual, Emily's story was quite good. I liked seeing her reunite with her family and there was definitely a lot of emotion in her returning to the life that she had lost in Gilead. Bledel was spectacular as usual and she really made every moment she was on screen count. The Bad: This episode was problematic for a number of reasons however and I'm nervous that the show may be falling to its familiar trappings once again. For one, repetition mixed with slow pacing is a deadly combo for TV shows. The past few episodes of this season have felt fresh with a pace quicker than what I was expecting, even too quick at times. Yet everything came grounding to a halt in this week. This entire episode (outside of Emily's story) took place during a single gathering where nothing particularly interesting actually happened. The episode really milked this gathering for all it was worth and I don't think there was enough substance to justify this. Surely the Waterford storyline could have been incorporated into a plot with a bit more forwards momentum. Additionally, the show milked some more time through world-building by revealing this celebration for the recent children of Gilead. What is the problem you may ask? Well the issue is that nothing new is revealed through this. We already know that Gilead values its children, and we have even seen some of these celebrations last season, in episodes like "Seeds". There is nothing new on display for the world, so the entire episode hinges on minor character development and plot movement for Aunt Lydia and the Waterfords. What's worse is that all of the more exciting storylines coming out of the last episode were ignored for the brunt of this hour. There's no Lawrence, who has been by far the most interesting aspect of this season. And there was also absolutely no mention of the rebellion which was teased heavily at the end of the last episode. Not following up on any of these moments make this episode feel a little disappointing overall. June's plot armour continues to grow to ridiculous amounts. Just look at everything she is doing in this episode without consequences. She actively goes against Aunt Lydia to pull her off Janine and nobody says a word. She is constantly engaging in normal conversation with the Waterfords yet nobody seems to care about this. Even the Eyes don't punish her for eavesdropping on their conversation. By far the worst thing is that she is actually able to follow Serena, talk to her and even smoke without anybody noticing this. News flash, when people smoke the smell sticks around them for a while! Everyone would smell the smoke on her and she would be busted immediately. I'm struggling to comprehend how June's relationship with the Waterfords became so caring. Last season these same people raped June while she was pregnant and did a number of other vile atrocities. Yet now June seems to genuinely care about them as people and is actively trying to help them. I always thought that June was manipulating them for her own goals, yet in this episode she feels oddly genuine. I have no idea why she is so attached to them now, and that hurts my immersion in the Waterford storyline. The kid actors in this show are awful. Oliver was pretty bad and his line delivery did nothing for me. Kid actros have always been an issue in this show. I initially liked Hannah's portrayal back in season 2 because she seemed so creepy and messed up in the head. Looking back on it, it's clear that I was never supposed to look at her scenes in this regard (June seems to think that Hannah is just fine) and it was just a really bad performance by the kid actor playing her that gave off these vibes unintentionally. Really Luke? Your going to show off a kidnapped baby on the news for everyone to see? How stupid is this guy? The Unknown: What's the story behind Ofmatthew? She is getting a decent amount of screentime so I think she will have some importance. I'm curious to learn how she became so pious. What consequences will there be for Lydia's actions? Could she be fired from her position for such a vile misuse of her power? Is Gilead going to target Luke now? What are they going to do to get Nicole back? Will they send some men to kidnap Nicole? Or perhaps they will send men to kill Luke. Or will they do something else entirely? Best Moment: Lydia beating down Janine simply because she had a very human desire to go back with the people she thought of as family. It's a very powerful scene, and Lydia's reaction after realizing what she has done was chilling. Character of the Episode: Lydia. Conclusion: This episode had some glimmers of greatness with the Lydia storyline and most of the Waterford storyline. However the stagnant plot, strangled pacing and inconsistent characters hurt the episode. Score: 57 Summary: Finch is sent to jury duty by the Machine to check on the next POI, Emma. Finch eventually determines that Emma is being forced by an outsider to get the juries to agree on a guilty verdict on an innocent man. Finch stalls the juries while Reese attempts to figure out who is controlling Emma. Reese runs into Zoe who helps out. The jury is temporarily adjourned and Emma is told to kill Finch. Emma attempts to kill herself but Finch stops her. The culprit reveals himself to be Tim, another one of the juries and he tries to kill Finch himself. Reese saves Finch and Tim is arrested. Reese begins to engage in a closer relationship with Iris.
The Good: The storyline is fun to watch. It's nice seeing Finch play the role of a jury as it sees Finch go out of his normal environment. I thought that the actual plot was decently interesting too and it did well to hold my attention. Emma had a little more depth than the usual POI characters so that helped make this episode s little better than what we usually get. It's been a very long time since we have seen Zoe, so her return was a very welcome surprise. I had a blast seeing her interactions with Reese again, and I liked the way that they forwarded Reese's interesting new romantic story in this episode (see: The Unknown). I liked the background story of Reese and Finch wanting to protect Fusco. It made sense and helped show us the more human sides of Finch and Reese. Additionally it gave the great Kevin Chapman some great content to work with as he got to portray Fusco's determination to stay involved with the organization that allowed him to become a good person. I enjoyed Reese's therapy scenes. We learned some good new details about him, and I'm surprised it took this long for all of this information to come out. It makes sense that we wouldn't know though considering Reese's extremely private nature. It nicely demonstrates how in the end this show is just about a bunch of people with serious mental problems working together to save some innocent lives. The Bad: There were some really sloppy moments here. Finch blatantly following Emma felt so odd. They both know each other, so I found it hard to believe that Emma wouldn't see him and get suspicious. Additionally, it felt odd having Finch talk to Reese during the jury meeting. Surely the people sitting next to him would hear this. This is a problem I have had for a while now but I just kept forgetting to mention it. The characters in this show aren't that good at whispering. Tim as a villain was awful. If he was a jury anyways, why did he go through the trouble of making Emma do the work for him? It was inefficient and unnecessary, and ended up making him seem meaningless as a villain. Furthermore, the moment when he introduced himself to Finch and Emma only to have a monologue was very cliché and did nothing for me at all. Did nobody ever think that Chris was being framed for murdering his wife? They only realized when Emma agreed with Finch, which I found hard to believe. Anybody would be open to the possibility that Chris is innocent, so it felt odd that the characters were dumbed down to make this totally unsurprising "twist" happen. The Unknown: Is there something up with Iris? While I'm very happy with Reese finding somebody he likes, I feel like everything won't just be exactly as it seems. Could she be a Samaritan spy? I feel like there is something more with her. Best Moment: Fusco asserting that he knows the risks of his job and doesn't want to be left out. Character of the Episode: Fusco. Conclusion: This was your average episode. There were some things that really pleased me, but some generic tropes reared their head once more. Score: 59 Summary: Milton tells Andrea about The Governor's offer about Michonne and he shows her The Governor's torture chamber. Andrea escapes Woodbury in the night and The Governor goes after her. Andrea manages to elude him and gets to the prison but The Governor catches her at the last second. Martinez takes Tyreese's group to collect some walkers. Tyreese is horrified and a fight breaks out between him and Allen.
The Good: Milton's little resistance was good and it made sense for his character. His relationship with The Governor is important to him, but Milton certainly doesn't agree with what he is doing. This leads to a half effort resistance from Milton who tries to prevent The Governor's atrocities, though Milton's fatal mistake seems to be that he refuses to do anything about the man himself. Milton is a horrible liar, so it also made sense that The Governor deduced that Milton was working against him. I liked seeing The Governor easily spit lies out at Tyreese and his group. He is such a good manipulator, and I appreciate that he thought out how to keep Tyreese's loyalty to ensure that he won't be a problem. The Bad: The main part of this episode was really bad. The whole chase sequence was atrocious and probably the worst piece of television this show has done yet. There was a distinct lack of urgency as Andrea never showed actual fear of the Governor in her body language. This was especially prevalent when Andrea casually walks out of the building when the Governor is seemingly beaten. It's a very dumb scene that hurts the intelligence of Andrea. Andrea's character took a hit too. Andrea is a survivor, yet she doesn't act like one. Here she is clearly just a damsel in distress and she doesn't behave like a survivor. She is constantly ambushed by walkers in stupid ways, and she somehow isn't able to quickly navigate a hostile building to efficiently escape from The Governor. We're talking about someone who survived practically alone for 6 months, and here she is behaving like a total rookie. The Governor is even worse here. His evil behaviour did nothing to me and felt at odds with the character we have come to know. He taunts Andrea and casually strolls to a building, which for all he knows could be flooded with walkers. Had this show been realistic, The Governor's loud and careless behaviour should have gotten him killed. The threat of walkers took a massive hit in this episode with loads of stupid scenes. The sudden roadside ambush on Andrea was really poor. It's extremely predictable that a walker would attack with the lingering shot on Andrea's face. Furthermore, how convenient that all of the walkers somehow stayed out of Andrea's sight until the attack started. These stealth walkers make absolutely no sense. Speaking of stealth walkers, what was with the walkers sneaking up on Andrea in the building. Shouldn't they be knocking stuff over left and right? Furthermore there is an atrocious moment where many walkers are standing stupidly in a staircase doing absolutely nothing. What the hell? How are they all there? That's absurdly convenient. What's worse is what comes next. After Andrea blatantly attracts their attention, they don't swarm the door for whatever reason. Hell the door has a broken window on it, so they should still be able to see her! Then it gets worse. Andrea opens the door and somehow none of the walkers try to go after the easy target behind the door and try to kill The Governor instead. The walkers are portrayed so stupidly here. But along with that, they are portrayed as weak. The Governor seriously survived a horde of like 20-30 walkers? Well walkers are just useless aren't they! So to conclude, this episode portrayed the walkers as weak, stupid and not worthy of our main characters' attention. So why should we even view them as a threat? The plot was as convenient as possible to get The Governor to Andrea. Of course Andrea would just walk casually through a field with no cover when she knows she is being hunted. Some survivor she ended up being. And naturally The Governor somehow found her exact location by just looking around. That's so improbable. And I can't stress how dumb it was that The Governor just sat there and honked his horn at her until she ran away. Just get out of your car and get her you idiot! There should be an extremely slim chance of him finding her again after he loses her. But of course The Governor needs to find exactly where Andrea is hiding, so he does. But what's worst is when The Governor conveniently catches Andrea right outside of the prison in the most generic and uninspired way ever. The Governor is somehow silent as the wind and he closes ground on Andrea absurdly easily. This episode failed hugely for one main reason. This isn't character drama anymore. The way the episode is directed suggests that this episode is supposed to get its value by leaving us on the edge of our seats. Yet I never felt a singly drop of tension due to the abysmal execution of the episode is just about every department. The writing is awful, the acting is nothing special, the directing boring and the soundtrack sounds like stock music. Nothing about this episode inspires tension so it fails at its primary purpose. The B-story of this episode is really bad too. Allen and Tyreese's conflict is not good at all. I don't care about these characters at all, so their conflict does nothing for me. Furthermore, neither men are likable in their scenes. Allen is just a prick and we are clearly meant to hate him. But Tyreese? I don't like him either. He is hypocritical, cruel and selfish throughout the episode and it feels so odd to see him placed in the hero role for this story. I don't like him at all, so I don't care for his story whatsoever. The Unknown: So Michonne did know those walkers. Who were they to her? What did they do that made them deserve their fate? What will The Governor do with Andrea? How about Milton? Now that the Governor knows he is a traitor, I don't imagine Milton will face zero punishment. Best Moment: The Governor lying to Tyreese. Character of the Episode: Milton. Conclusion: This episode was atrocious and easily the worst of the series thus far. The writing was terrible, the tension non-existent and the actual cinematic aspects were totally bland. This episode did absolutely nothing for me and managed to be way worse than the lame "Arrow on the Doorpost". This season is going downhill, and I seriously hope that the final two episodes can get something worth watching out of this Woodbury storyline. Score: 37 Summary: Lawrence invites other commanders to his house for a meeting. Nick is now a commander. June gets to briefly speak with Fred. Lawrence continues playing mind games with June. After the meeting they get into an argument. Lawrence reveals he saved Emily because she is useful to the world, and refuses to do the same with June who is selfish and useless. Lawrence gives June the option to save 5 women who are going to be sent to the colonies. June initially refuses but eventually gives in and selects 5 women she thinks will be best to kick off a rebellion. Serena is isolated from Fred and struggles to overcome the sorrow of losing her baby. She visits June who helps her get through it. Nick has been assigned to Chicago and visits June to say goodbye.
The Good: As usual, the acting was stellar. The scenes between Lawrence and June highlighted this the most as the two of them continued to play mind games on each other. But it's clear that Lawrence has the upper hand here. He sees through June's manipulation attempts and fires back at her at every step. Lawrence is not as easily controlled as Fred, and he makes that clear in this episode. The two characters end up having some fascinating moments together. The two that stand out are the scenes during the commander's meeting and the argument they had afterwards. I was really pleased that we got a look into Lawrence's mind to learn why he is so hostile with June when he was mostly kind to Emily. He believes in judging a person by the goodness of their heart, as well as their intelligence. Rather than accepting everyone as equals, Lawrence clearly puts values on people and he judges them based off of this value. And it's this belief that led to the creation of Gilead. It took 3 seasons to finally get an explanation about this, and thankfully what we got didn't disappoint. Lawrence makes it clear that the commander's wives aren't just randomly selected women; rather they are the most suitable mothers in the world, the one's with the purest hearts. The problem he has with June isn't that she has a confident nature. His issue is that she is selfish and does things solely for herself and her immediate family with no intentions of helping others. And he's right. Since the beginning, June has been selfish and only looks out for her own interests. She has never done a selfless act and is obsessed with bettering her life with no regard to those around her. I love that the show had first presented us with such a flawed main character, and now has presented us with an antagonist who perfectly goes up against these flaws. This Lawrence/June story has been fantastic so far and I think I could watch Elisabeth Moss and Bradley Whitford going up against each other for days without getting bored. Yvonne Strahovski got a chance to shine as an actress one again. While Serena's story may not have been the very best (see: The Bad), Strahovski still manages to make us feel emotion by how brilliantly she is able to express the emotions that Serena is feeling. In this episode Serena is mourning the loss of her child and is desperately hunting for a way to rid herself of this pain. She goes to her mother first and then to June, and is forced by both to face up to her emotions and emerge stronger. She finally does so at the end of the episode, and judging by her giving the cold shoulder to Fred, she may become a valuable new member to June's planned rebellion. Fred had a pretty good episode too. Yet again, he is manipulated so easily by June who is able to get exactly what she wants from him. Fred is really kind of pathetic to watch in this episode. He is such a weak-minded person and he has given up his entire heart to Gilead. It was pretty painful to see him practicing being genuine at Jezebel's because he didn't have enough confidence to simply talk to Serena and win her over. I think deep down inside he is aware that he is a bad person, but he is too happy with his current life to make any effort to change this. The Bad: I wish there was more clarity to Serena's mental state. Since the first season, she has probably been the most complex character in the entire show and episodes focused on her have usually explored some unique and interesting moral dilemmas. Yet when we look at this episode, her story is so basic. It's very odd to watch Serena going through such a basic storyline where she is squarely placed as sympathetic because she has never been portrayed through such a black/white lens before. Serena has always resided firmly in grey territory. It feels inconsistent to suddenly push her as a good guy in this episode. June and Nick's farewell was a great scene. Yet it didn't work in the context of the whole episode. For one, we have no idea how Nick got into this position. How is he a commander? Why? What did he do to get this promotion? It makes very little sense, and I really can't be bothered to care for his character if the writers don't give me enough details. Furthermore, the goodbye scene is so short and doesn't really have any set-up or follow-up surrounding it. This makes it lose weight, and it feels like a rushed scene that doesn't belong in such an overcrowded episode. And we get another "empowering" ending. I liked the scene with Serena since it paid off of her story. But June's? It was weird having her suddenly change her mind about saving the 5 women. That's not because I don't buy her changing her mind - I definitely do - but it's because we don't spend any time with June making this decision. In a show which loves to focus on the actors as they make decisions, the absence of any focus surrounding this decision stands out in a bad way. The final scene feels tacked on just to give us another "yeah women are strong!" moment. The Unknown: What happened to Cora? Did she die? Or was she sent to the colonies? How did Nick become a commander? Will we ever get an answer for this? Did he just get written out of the story? What was the relationship between Nick and Beth? I recall them meeting back in season 1, but I'm not sure if they had an actual relationship. Their interactions suggested a history between them. Feel free to let me know in the comments if I missed anything. Why did Serena get to leave Fred? What are the rules about a wife leaving her husband anyways? Who is Serena's mother? Why does she get to live without a commander? Best Moment: Lawrence revealing why he is so against June was an outstanding moment. It's a great explanation of the system that Gilead operates under while also paying off of the tensions between June and Lawrence in an awesome way. Character of the Episode: Lawrence. He has injected a much needed freshness into the show. Conclusion: This was another very good episode that just misses out on hitting a 70. While each episode this season has had its own individual flaws, the overall story is gelling together in a way it hasn't really done before. I'm liking season 3 so far, and I hope that the quality can keep up. Score: 69 Summary: Ashley O is a popular pop star and Rachel is a big fan. Rachel buys an Ashley Too doll and enjoys talking with it. Her sister Jack doesn't care much for it and eventually hides it because it's a bad influence. Ashley's manager Catherine is forcing her to continue making music to pander to her fans. They get in a fight and Ashley is put into a coma. Catherine continues producing her music and plans to replace Ashley. Ashley's mind fragments into the Ashley Too doll. The doll requests Rachel and Jack to help her get back at Catherine. Rachel and Jack take the doll to Ashley's comatose body. Ashley wakes up and they drive to where Catherine is introducing a new Ashley Eternal. Ashley makes her presence known and Catherine panics. Some time later, Ashley and Jack are performing together as a new rock band.
The Good: This episode had a pretty interesting concept. The doll thing was interesting and I like the idea of a person's consciousness living inside of a doll while still having control of their body. I thought that the doll coming to life was a pretty cool moment and its interactions with Rachel and Jack were pretty funny at times. I liked the commentary on music stars. Ashley's story is pretty rough to watch and it sends a good message, showing how the creativity of people can be squashed by greedy people who are hungry to pander to a specific audience and make money. It was particularly powerful seeing Catherine taking Ashley's musical dreams and just changing them to suit her views with just a few button presses. It's so easy to assimilate creativity into something fake with no heart. The Bad: Unfortunately this episode was bad. The characters of Jack and Rachel are so boring and uninspired. There is no real story for them, and the emotional beats are completely glossed over. These characters don't change or develop and they are completely boring. I'm given no reason to care about either of them. Their arguments are generic and boring, and they don't even lead anywhere. The lack of a character story for them is a huge flaw of the episode, especially considering how much of the episode is spent with them. The first 3/4 of this episode are bad. The story is stagnant, the characters are boring and after watching the episode, it's all quite pointless. Rachel and Jack's story gets a ridiculous amount of build-up, yet it goes nowhere. The fact that their story is shared along with Ashley's doesn't help either storyline, and it made the episode feel fragmented for a while. Furthermore, there is hardly anything of value for these first 40 minutes. The episode is padded out to a ridiculous degree. The writing was really poor for the climax of the episode. So many of the things that happened were absurdly poorly executed and made little sense. The house infiltration was ridiculous. It was extremely convenient that they arrived at the house just as Catherine was leaving. The rodent exterminator thing was so, so dumb. Neither Jack nor Rachel were convincing in the role, and I couldn't buy into Bear letting them in at all. He really should have just told them to go away, especially since Ashley's comatose body was inside the house. Another stupid detail was how Ashley woke up (which is dumb enough itself), and Rachel/Jack apparently don't even talk to her. They just leave her until Munk arrives at the house, which is when they conveniently knock him out. Another stupid moment was them running the red light for absolutely no reason. Why do something so incredibly dangerous for no reason? Having them try to drive away from the cops was even worse and only added to the many stupidities I had just witnessed. The ending of the episode ended up being atrocious. It isn't even an ending. The episode hits its climax and then it just ends. It's sudden and reeks of the writers being too lazy to come up with a proper resolution. The band scene at the end is pretty stupid and it doesn't feel earned in the slightest. No plot threads or character arcs were fully resolved and I felt like I waste an hour of my life going on this journey with the characters. There is absolutely no pay-off for any of the stories. This doesn't feel like a "Black Mirror" episode. The overly goofy tone is so weird, and the abysmal writing makes this feel even worse. It's so hard to believe that this episode is part of the same series that produced harrowing episodes like "White Christmas" and "Shut Up and Dance". The Unknown: What happened to Catherine? Was she punished? Were there any consequences for the police chase at the end of the episode? What happened to the Ashley Too doll? The episode isn't even interested enough in exploring how to morally deal with this human consciousness inside the doll. Best Moment: Probably Catherine and her men sabotaging the music in Ashley's dream. Nothing else really stood out to me. Character of the Episode: Ashley. Conclusion: This was a poor episode. The story was practically worthless and the writing was really bad. This was a bad way to end off season 5. Season 5 ended up being disappointing. The first two episodes were good but unspectacular, and the last one was atrocious. In the end, this was easily the most forgettable season of "Black Mirror". The show has taken a steep fall in quality since season 2 and this season did nothing to reverse that. Following "Bandersnatch", I feel like this season was rushed out and didn't really end up having any heart as a result. Let's hope the writers can take their time with the story for season 6. Score: 38 Summary: Reese and Root go hunting for Shaw in the small town of Maple. They capture a Samaritan agent and Root tortures her to get the location where they took Shaw. Reese and Root go there and kill several agents. Unfortunately, Shaw was not there and they were following somebody else's trail. Root is angry and begs The Machine for help, but The Machine tells her to stop. Fusco works a POI case and runs into Silva. They tackle the case together successfully. The POI is Weiss, who is the perpetrator. Silva eventually kills him to save Fusco. Shaw wakes up, hidden away somewhere with Greer.
The Good: The main story of this episode was pretty good. What connected me the most to this episode was seeing Reese and Root's determination to get Shaw back. We have rarely seen the two of them working together, so this feels like a fresh change. Add on the emotion from them fighting to get their friend back, and this story ends up being pretty great. I really enjoyed the scenes at the police station and with Leslie Thompson. The vile police chief Wicker was pretty funny, and I got a laugh out of Root taking care of him, as well as Reese's awkward smiles to the secretary. These scenes are light and fun, yet they fulfill the purpose of showing Root and Reese's darker turn as they do anything and everything to get Shaw back. This is totally at odds with the later scene where Root and Reese have very dark scene as they torture Thompson to get information from her. Root coldly drilling a hole in her hand was horrific, and showcased Root returning to her former monstrous nature now that she is angry and bitter. The final twist of Delia being the one Reese and Root were tracking all along was heartbreaking. After all that effort and hope, it all got crushed in one vicious moment. Root's rage was very sad and Amy Acker did a tremendous job of selling the moment. The following scene of Root begging the Machine for some help was powerful, and ended in yet another heartbreak for Root as the Machine simply tells her to stop searching for Shaw. Fusco and Silva get a decent B-story. It's nice to see Silva again, and it gives Fusco something to do. The Bad: The story of Weiss is pretty dull though, and I wish that there was more depth and importance to what was going on with him. Despite Fusco and Silva's work being fresh, I didn't find myself particularly interested in what they were doing. The Unknown: Where is Shaw right now? What does Greer plan to do with her? Will she become a Samaritan agent? Will Root keep hunting for Shaw? What does she plan to do next to find her? Best Moment: There were some terrific scenes, but my favourite was probably Root begging to the Machine to help her out, only to be rejected. Character of the Episode: Root. Conclusion: This was a solid episode. The A-story was great, and while the B-story was lacking, I was still satisfied by the episode overall. Score: 65 Summary: June adjusts to life in Lawrence's household. Lydia pays her a visit and expresses distaste for her prior actions. The marthas are planning an escape so June joins in. Lawrence sees them and wants the marthas gone, but June convinces him to leave them be. The escape attempt goes awry and a martha is shot. She gets refuge in Lawrence's house. Lawrence is not pleased and the martha eventually dies. June buries her, but there are huge tensions between her and Lawrence. In Little America, Emily goes to a doctor and adjusts to her new life. Luke struggles to deal with the fact that June decided to stay in Gilead. Emily reunites with her wife, Sylvia.
The Good: It's great to see Ann Dowd again, and her performance is stunning as per usual. She is facing some physical consequences after Emily destroyed her back in "The Word", and I definitely like that she has suspicions over Lawrence because of this. Her interactions with June are very consistent with her character. Lydia is still kind to her since she is a handmaid, but there are huge tensions due to June's stunt with the McKenzies in the last episode. The moment when Lydia snapped after June tried to talk down to her was wonderful, and it nicely encapsulated June's growing confidence and Lydia's distaste for her current physical state. This episode was all about June though. The story that this episode was centered around was June's growing arrogance and confidence. In this episode she does so many bold moves, actions which she would never have dreamed of taking at the beginning of the show. Despite the change of scenery, June doesn't spend time building up a relationship with Lawrence and instead she negotiates with him as she would with the Waterfords. Furthermore, she overhears some rebellious acts between the marthas and she immediately joins in with efforts to bump up the scale of what they are doing to make a bigger impact. June doesn't intend to waste time in Gilead, and she wants to ensure that change will happen. Yet June's confidence leads her astray. You can't just force change in the blink of an eye, and June realizes that as all of her actions totally backfire. One of the marthas are killed, and June takes the blame for forcing the action. The mission is a failure and it nearly ends with Lawrence's rebellious actions being found out by the Guardians. Furthermore, Lawrence could have easily been a valuable ally for June. Yet June's arrogant actions have completely alienated Lawrence, who may be more of a threat to June than she may expect. Speaking of Lawrence, we learn here that he is not a good of a guy as he may have initially seemed. He is shown to have some very disturbing personality traits here, particularly his interesting hate for strangers, and his continually odd interactions with his hateful wife. Bradley Whitford's portrayal of Lawrence is really great, portraying him as intimidating, mysterious, and even scary at times. Lawrence is gripping to watch in every scene he is in, and I really hope that he will have more depth than Fred did. Another very interesting detail was Lawrence suggesting that June wasn't a stranger to him, which raises some big questions (see: The Unknown). The Little America story was mostly excellent in this episode. Emily's scenes were fantastic as per usual. It's amazing how I have to draw attention to Alexis Bledel's performance in every single episode because she is just that good in every single scene she is in. It's really something special to watch. Emily had two huge scenes in this episode. The first was in a doctor's visit where Bledel's facial expressions really sold Emily's confused, mulit-layered reaction to being told that her biggest problem is high cholesterol. Then of course there is the ending when Emily and Sylvia finally connect again in a very powerful scene. The Bad: Luke's story was a bit dull and rushed. It didn't have the emotional resonance I was expecting, which has become typical for Luke across the run of the show. His emotions were practically skimmed over and I didn't really have any kind of a connection to what he was feeling. It doesn't help that O.T. Fagbenle has consistently been one of the weaker actors on the show. I thought it was a little odd that Lawrence would change his mind and let the marthas stay. It seems like far too large of a risk for him to be willing to take, and I was unsure what reasons he may have had to simply go along with it. It makes Lawrence seem lazy if anything, since it seemed to me that he just didn't want to argue with June over letting the marthas stay. I thought the martha story wasn't the most engaging. We hardly knew any of the characetrs, so it was difficult to care much about what they were doing. The weakest parts of the episode were probably the scenes of June with the marthas. The Unknown: What is wrong with Mrs. Lawrence? I can't recall if it was explained in the last season or not. Lawrence implied that he knew who June was before he met her. How is that possible? Is there some decision-making process for which handmaids can be smuggles out of Gilead? Does Lawrence have access to some resources that we don't know about? Best Moment: There were many great scenes. I'll go with Lawrence snapping at June after the martha died. June facing the consequences of her actions is really important for her character, and Lawrence was as terrifying as ever. The fact that his wife was the final nail in the coffin before he started shouting suggests that maybe there is something more to that relationship than what we have seen. Character of the Episode: Lawrence. Conclusion: This was a great episode with a lot to like. The acting is still phenomenal and the storytelling was very strong. This season is off to a promising start. Let's hope it can maintain this quality, unlike last season. Score: 68 Summary: Chris is a taxi driver but he stations himself at the headquarters for Smithereen, a social media app. He also attends group therapy sessions but never really says anything. One day, a man named Jaden gets Chris' service. Chris takes him to a hidden location and pulls a gun on him, and they switch cars. Some passing cops notice Jaden captured in the backseat, so they go after Chris. Chris spins out in a field and cops surround the place. Chris is still alive as he threatens Jaden's life. Chris wants to call Billy Bauer, the head of Smithereen, and after some tense struggling with the cops and the FBI, he eventually gets a hold of Billy. Chris reveals he lost his fiancée in a car accident because he checked his phone while driving, but he was never blamed for the accident since the other driver was drunk. Chris intends to kill himself and attempts to talk him down by Billy and Jaden fail. In the end the cops are forced to shoot him after a scuffle between Chris and Jaden breaks out.
The Good: I enjoyed this a lot more than the last episode. While last episode told a good story, it didn't really invest me into the characters/plot, plus the pacing was painfully slow. This episode fixed these flaws by giving us a mysterious main character who ended up being very compelling, as well as a plot which was dripping with tension that capitalized on the slow burn pace to maximal effect. The episode goes on for 70 minutes, yet it never lost my attention because of how well it built towards a dramatic climax through some slowly escalating drama and an interesting mystery. The episode's tone was quite perfect too. It's clear through the music, camera shots and colour that there is something up with Chris early in the episode. These cleverly edited tricks kept me in suspense during the slow opening scenes of the episode, which is much more interesting that what "Striking Vipers" had to offer in its opening moments. One of the central themes of this episode was grief, and I thought it was executed wonderfully. Hayley as a side character is really good and she works as a strong mirror to Chris with how she deals with the grief of losing her daughter. Hayley doesn't know why Kristin killed herself and that is what is eating at her for all of these years. Yet Chris is the opposite. He knows that he is responsible for his fiancée's death, and he rejects himself because of it. For Chris it isn't a quest for answers, it's all about cleansing himself of the guilt he feels. Speaking of Chris' guilt, the episode it its peak when he confessed everything to Billy. His story is powerful and sad, and Andrew Scott does a marvellous job showing Chris' grief. I thought the final portion of the episode did a great job of conveying Chris' delicate emotional state, showing us why he had been so unstable for most of the episode. I thought that Chris' emotions emerging was very believable, and I really like how it seemed to touch Billy and Jaden too as the two of them did their absolute best to help Chris survive this ordeal. The other main theme is that of social media. While this one isn't executed as well (see: The Bad), it still has some great moments. I really liked Chris' rant about phones when he realized that Jaden wasn't the person he was looking for. It's a fairly funny moment on your first watch because of how little we know about Chris, but on rewatch it's quite tragic and is a great rant about the exact problem Chris has with Smithereen: it's too addictive and it controls your life. I thought the ending was wonderful. After all that happened, Chris' fate just ends up being another notification on Smithereen. Everyone sees what happened, has a sad look on their face, but then they just resume their lives as if nothing has happened. Social media is desensitizing violence in the world as well. The Bad: I thought that the climax of this episode was unfortunately quite disappointing, despite everything it did right. After so much build-up, I expected something new and crazy to happen at the end of the story. Unfortunately, "Black Mirror" opted to go with the easiest and most predictable ending to the episode and that left me feeling a little bit underwhelmed, especially after so much slow paced build-up. For the final message to just be "phones are bad", after all the tense drama I had just witnessed, was just a big disappointment. Furthermore, Chris' reasoning seems a bit extreme. It's hard to buy that he would go through all of this trouble to talk to one specific guy just because he felt guilty. It didn't feel very realistic that Chris would do all of this. I certainly buy Chris blaming Smithereen to offput his guilt, but I could hardly buy him doing this whole stunt just to tell Smithereen that he blamed them. The Unknown: Did Jaden get hurt or killed in the scuffle? Could he have accidentally been shot instead of Chris? I hope not because it would hurt the ending if Chris didn't actually die. Best Moment: Chris letting everything out when talking to Billy. This scene felt so real and I think anyone could relate to this. Chris had gone as far as to rehearse this conversation, yet when he finally got to it, he could hardly bring himself to let everything out. Watching him break out in tears during his big confession was so wonderfully real, and will make even the hardest of people sympathize with Chris even after all of the terrible things he did. Character of the Episode: Chris. Conclusion: Most of this episode was excellent, and there was a lot of emotion presented throughout. But the anticlimactic ending leaves a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth, and I'm left feeling that a better conclusion is all that stands between this episode being good and it being great. Score: 69 Summary: Danny and Karl are best friends that play a video game Striking Vipers together. Seven years later, Danny is married to Theo whiel Karl is still dating. Karl gets Danny a VR version of Strikign Vipers and they play it together but they end up having sex with the characters. Weirded out, they try to stop it but they keep coming back. Theo notices something is off with Danny and wants answers. Danny decides to cut Karl off and he resumes his life with Theo. The next year, Danny and Karl meet again and Karl says he can't replace Danny with anyone else. They eventually do it again and Danny realizes he likes it too. Danny and Theo make a deal to remain married but both of them now indulge in other activities to stay fresh. Danny continues his fantasies with Karl while Theo now gets it on with strangers in the bar.
The Good: This was an interesting episode. The story is quite simple and easy to relate to. The three lead characters had all grown up and were living their lives, yet none of them were truly happy. There was that spark that they were all missing, and they desired to bring it back. By the end of the episode, all three characters were able to work things out and get the happiness they were craving. It's a simple story, much simpler than most "Black Mirror" stories, but it works and is easy enough to enjoy. As usual, the writing and acting is rock solid, which adds on to the experience. This episode also does the little things really well. I appreciated the subtle moments early in the episode that showed the unhappiness that the main characters were all experiencing. Additionally, I liked the amount of red herrings that were included while the story built up. I was never too sure what the episode was going to be about in the first 15 minutes. At first I thought it may involve some kind of love triangle, or maybe an affair, then I thought maybe it would be heavily about the VR concept, but in the end it was a simple, heart-warming story about a very unorthodox gay couple. The episode certainly knew how to be unpredictable with its concept. The technology aspect of the episode was quite strong too. I liked the Mortal Kombat parody, Striking Vipers and I like that the show explored what a fully VR game would be like and how it could be used for purposes other than what was intended. The Bad: This episode is very slow and I don't think it needed to be an hour long. The first 15 minutes were a chore to get through and the subtle build up for the episode wasn't enough to keep me fully invested. It took far too long for the story to go from the introduction to the hook, and by the time we got there, 1/4 of the episode was done. An accelerated pacing early in the episode would have really helped. Furthermore, the extra time really doesn't add any extra value to the episode. The episode barely explores its story. For one, the characters were surprisingly simple. "San Junipero" had detailed characters who had many complex layers. Compared to that, the characters in this episode are quite embarrassing because of how 2-dimensional they are. All three are remarkably forgettable, and I bet that within a week I won't even remember their names, nor will I care. Since the characters are so bland, I didn't really get emotionally invested in this episode. It was well written and I enjoyed it, but it really didn't do anything special for me. I also wish that the VR concept could have been explored more. It ended up being hardly touched upon, and it really didn't impact the story very much. You could easily tell the same story without the VR and it becomes a normal story of an affair. All the VR does is add the "ick" factor to the episode, and that isn't anywhere near enough of a contribution. I was left wanting more from a "Black Mirror" episode that tackles the evolution of video games, particularly a closer look at how people would balance their real life vs their life in a video game. In the end, "Playtest" remains the superior video game episode of "Black Mirror". I was disappointed that the conclusion of the Theo/Danny conflict was glossed over. It would have been nice to see Danny and Theo working out their problems together, and I think that a scene about this would have added some much-needed emotion to an episode I struggled to get fully invested in. The Unknown: Was Danny lying when he said he felt nothing when he kissed Karl? I'm not sure I buy his response. Best Moment: The ending with everyone getting a happy ending was nice, and the most emotional moment of the episode. I also really like that both Danny and Theo seemed pleased with the one day every year deal. It's a nice way too look into morality as you get to decide for yourself whether this one "cheat day" is good for a relationship or not. Character of the Episode: Nobody really stood out at all. But I'l go with Karl since he made me laugh a couple times. Conclusion: This episode told a nice story, but it was overly long and lacked the heart of most "Black Mirror" episodes. There could have, and should have, been more depth to this episode. Score: 61 Summary: June returns to Lawrence who reluctantly agrees to take her to the McKenzie residence. June sees Hannah again but she is caught. June is returned to the Waterfords. Serena is angry that June left Nicole with Emily but eventually relents. In an act of defiance towards Fred, Serena burns down the house. June is punished for her escape with lashings to her feet and she is assigned to a new household: Commander Lawrence's. Emily makes it to Canada and meets Luke and Moira.
The Good: It felt surprisingly good to be back in Gilead. While season 2's average score was pretty solid, I finished the season feeling disappointed and uninterested in seeing more. My feelings towards the season were much more negative than the score suggested. So colour me surprised to say that it was an absolute delight to be back in Gilead for this episode. There's something about the unique style, impressive imagery and darker colour tone of the show that makes it stand out among other TV shows. And then of course there are the performances from the actors which never cease to amaze (except Max Minghella, he sticks out like a sore thumb). I really stand by the fact that this show would stink if the performances weren't so good. I think every scene I enjoyed in this episode was carried by a strong performance by one or more actors. Some of those aforementioned scenes were pretty spectacular to watch. The Waterfords interacting with June is always a blast, and I thought that Serena and June's interactions in this episode were mostly strong. Fred remained relevant too and his despicable character shined through in his scenes with Serena as he tries to damage control her newfound rebellious attitude. Lastly, the scenes between June and Mrs. McKenzie were quite great. Elisabeth Moss is so damn good it's almost unbelievable. She poured her heart out portraying June as she and Mrs. McKenzie discussed how Hannah has been living in Gilead. The burning of the Waterford house feels like a significant moment. At least the show didn't pull the reset to June returning to the Waterfords like it did so many times last season. I thought they captured something really good with the Waterford house being burned down. It was a wonderful moment for Serena, who after seasons of being static is finally undergoing the major character shift I was hoping for. A few scenes prior, Fred had mentioned how he just wants to protect his house and family. Serena, bitter and angry after losing her finger, spites Fred by burning his house to the ground, proving that she is finally going to start fighting back. I liked that we got such a nice look at Little America. I think it was the most we have seen of the place, which is welcome since the show has been so poor at its world building. Emily's arrival and her surprise at being applauded was a genuine moment that allowed Alexis Bledel to shine once again. The ending of the episode was very interesting. I wasn't very interested in Lawrence last season since he seemed like a convenient side character to get Emily and June out of Gilead. But his presence in this first episode seems to suggest that there is a lot more to him than I initially expected. More than anything, he feels like a gust of fresh air on a show which desperately needed it. I'm unsure what his role in the show will be or how he is going to interact with June. I think that watching June live in his house could lead to some really good stories if executed properly, and I'm excited to see more. The Bad: I'm still in total confusion as to why June chose to return to Gilead. She didn't even come up with a good plan to save Hannah and simply got captured again. The stink from last season's ending did pass on to this episode unfortunately. Furthermore, how exactly did June get found out so quick. I was left confused by how the Guardians knew exactly where to go to find her. Serena and June's relationship appears to have greatly improved, which I'm all for. Yet they remain as inconsistent as ever. This episode featured a completely out-of-nowhere moment of hostility from June who continues to spite Serena despite their growing bond. The moment felt awkward and I was surprised by how quickly Serena and Fred forgave her words. June's lack of consequences is getting absurd. Can she seriously kidnap a baby and send it to Canada without any major consequences? Serena got maimed for something much tamer than this. Even Emily suffered worse back in season 1. Yet June only gets a few lashes on her feet, something very tame compared to what we have seen before on this show. The plot armour that has been growing on June in the last season hit new levels in this episode. The stupid musical choices on this show continue to ruin so many shows. The random 80s song during the burning of the Waterford house completely ruined the moment for me. It just feels so odd when a show so atmospheric and miserable has a cheesy empowering moment. It completely breaks my immersion every time but the show still persists with it. Did this episode really need to be called "Night"? The season 1 finale was called "Night" too! How uncreative. The Unknown: Is Lawrence an ally or an enemy? He helped Emily and June escape, yet I feel like he isn't as good as he appears to be. Is it possible that Lawrence notified the Guardians about June being at the McKenzie house? Where will the Waterfords go now? How will the destruction of thier house affect their relationship? Will Fred suspect Serena of intentionally burning down the house? Best Moment: I was going to say the burning of the house, but the music ruined it. So it has to be Emily getting applauded after arriving in Little Canada. It's a great moment of relief for a character that has suffered so much. Character of the Episode: June. Elisabeth Moss is too damn good. Conclusion: This was a solid season premiere that promises us that the story will head in a new direction this season as opposed to the repetitive season 2. There were still problems for sure, but my overall outlook after this episode is cautiously optimistic. Score: 63 Summary: Control is still working with Samaritan, doing her job. Samaritan tells her to dispatch of four terrorists, and she sends Grice and Brooks. Three are killed, but one of them, Yasin, escapes. Control wants to track him from his laptop but Samaritan refuses access to it. Controls ends Grice and Brooks on a secret mission to access the laptop but it fails, the laptop is destroyed and Yasin escapes. Samaritan instructs Control to stop. Control continues attempting to kill Yasin but she is captured by Reese and Root who are hunting for Shaw. Finch informs Control about what happened at the stock exchange but Control doesn't believe him. Finch gets a hint at Shaw's potential location and the group go to investigate. Grice and the others rescue Control. Control tracks down Yasin who reveals he won the nautilus game and did work for an unknown corporation. His friends died mere hours after their work was complete. Control doesn't believe his story and kills him anyways. Control investigates the stock exchange and notices wet paint on the walls.
The Good: Control's return is really fun and immediately adds momentum to the story. We haven't checked in with her for a long while, so it was a pleasant surprise to start the episode with her. The focus on Control throughout the episode was excellent and made this episode stand out amongst the others. The central focus on a character outside of the main cast reminded me a lot of "Relevance", which is a very good thing. Control's motives in this episode were explored nicely. She has always been a character who fully believed in the job she was doing, akin to Finch, and it's easy to see that in this episode. She is stiffly sticking with her belief that Samaritan is doing its job locating terrorists, and that her job is of utmost importance. While we don't learn anything new in this episode, we do get to see how committed Control is to her duty, made all the more tragic by the fact that the four people she killed in this episode were all total innocents. In the end, her trust is misplaced and it's entirely possible that he blind faith in her job could spell doom for her. This is a compelling story to explore, and I'm looking forwards to see more. And judging by that final scene, Control may have a few doubts about her employers. I think that Control grappling between her faith in her job and the words that Finch said to her has potential to be riveting to watch. The drama in the episode is a bit slow at first, but it really takes off when Control starts working on her own to discover what is inside of that hard drive. I was invested by the mystery of what Samaritan is really up to and what significance the laptop held. I was just as curious as Control was, and that surprisingly helped me connect a little more with Control and relate with her, a character who I wasn't particularly interested in before this episode. I really like the scene between Yasin and Control. There was something powerful about Control coldly killing him in spite of the possibility that she may be wrong about him. The dialogue beforehand was quite strong too, proving that Control does have some doubts about her job. After all she could have just killed Yasin, but she instead decided to listen to what he had to say. The injection of Root, Reese and Finch was excellent. It seamlessly fit into the story of this episode, and the interrogation scenes were really well done. All three characters were able to nicely communicate their current emotions based on their scenes with Control. Reese seems deflated, Root angry and vengeful, while Finch remains calm and realistic. I also appreciated the parallels with Root having Control captured after being captured by her last season. There were a couple other really strong moments in the episode. Reese letting Grice live because of what he did for Shaw was a lovely moment, even if the dialogue leading up to it was bit clunky. I also really liked the callback to the nautilus game, and the reveal that Samaritan is actually offing its own men to keep secrets is really dark. Yet it's a logical move for Samaritan to make and is one of the many reasons why Samaritan won't be as ideal of a leader as Greer expects. Lastly, I loved the final scene with Root, Finch and Reese (see: Best Moment). The Bad: This episode had some pretty big problems which prevent it from being one of my favourites. The biggest is the fact that the main crew's immediate reactions to Shaw's death are glossed over. That makes it hard to relate with what they are doing int his episode because we aren't sure where they all are mentally. While the episode eventually gets there in that scene near the end of the episode, much of the episode is hurt by the fact that I couldn't entirely understand what their thought process was. The biggest thing about this that bothers me is that we don't know why any of them believe that Shaw could be alive. The doors closed, the gun was pointed at Shaw's head and there was a gunshot. I'm not entirely sure why they all believe that she is alive after this, and I would have liked to see them process Shaw's "death" so that I could see how they came up with this idea. I was displeased by the fact that Finch took so long to speak with Control. Where was he when Root and Reese were literally torturing the woman? Why wouldn't he intervene earlier since things like this are clearly against his moral code? Unfortunately, it looks like the charisma vacuum kid actor playing Samaritan's avatar is here to stay. I wish that the show had gone in a different direction when personifying Samaritan, because I'm just not enjoying this kid very much. I feel like Samaritan would be more imposing as a villain if it didn't speak or have a human appearance. The episode took a long while to really get going. Some of the early scenes weren't very interesting, and I didn't start feeling any suspense until about 10-15 minutes into the episode. Compared to "Relevance" which had me engaged from its first moment, this episode doesn't build up its drama very well. The Unknown: Why did Samaritan deny access to the laptop? What was ont hat laptop? What is the code that Yasin said he worked on? Why did Samaritan deem the information so important that it had to cause the deaths of Yasin and his friends? Why does Samaritan want to meet with the president? Does Samaritan have a new plan for the future? Or a deal perhaps? Will the lead on Shaw go anywhere? Best Moment: Reese, Root and Finch talking at the end of the episode was powerful stuff. Having matured since losing Carter, Reese no longer wants to isolate himself but he looks completely defeated after losing Shaw. Root on the other hand tries to remain herself but is bottling up loads of emotion on the inside, which is portrayed wonderfully by Amy Acker. Finch has to most normal reaction, but it's clear that he is hurting in his own way as he mourns Shaw. Seeing the three of them closer than ever in an attempt to get their fallen friend back was heartening and hit me hard emotionally. I really have come to care about this crew of characters after 4 seasons. Character of the Episode: Control. Conclusion: Aside from some big problems regarding the follow-up on Shaw's death, this was another awesome hour of television. Control's story is written fantastically, and what little we did see of the crew reacting to last episode's events was just as good. Score: 73 Summary: Rachel is weirded out by the way Phoebe runs and tries to avoid running with her. Chandler cleans the apartment and desperately tries to put everything back to avoid Monica's wrath. Joey gets a hot new roommate Janine and finds it difficult not to flirt with her.
The Good: Joey, Ross and Chandler are all really funny here. They get a number of great lines, and their conversations with each other are a highlight. The chemistry between the main characetrs is really carrying the show now. Rachel and Monica are good for the odd joke. The Bad: The three plot lines are very stupid. Phoebe's odd running is a stupid joke, and what's worse is the justification she gives for running like that. Anybody would tire out rapidly wasting that much energy, so it's horribly inefficient. Furthermore, Phoebe continues her streak of being unlikable by being fairly rude to Rachel. Chandler being so afraid of Monica certainly doesn't say good things about their relationship, as does the fact that he doesn't seem to know that Monica won't like it when he cleans the apartment. The episode is chock full with overacting (mostly from Joey) which takes away from the comedy. Best Moment: I'll go with the scene when Monica arrives at the apartment and Chandler tries to keep her out. There were some brilliant lines in that scene, and Ross curiously asking about what Chandler had was awesome. Character of the Episode: Chandler. Conclusion: This episode had consistent jokes and was funny, but the stories were really poor once again. I've noticed that the show is relying more and more on the chemistry between all six of the actors to create comedy than it used to. Thankfully the chemistry between the actors is strong enough to prevent the show from hitting mediocrity, but the cracks are definitely showing in the writing and the show isn't anywhere near as great as it used to be. Score: 56 Summary: The crew notices the financial crash and are forced to directly infiltrate the stock exchange to reverse it. Shaw is sent to get the code to open the door while Reese, Finch, Root and Fusco get into the stock exchange, however they realize it is a trap set by Samaritan. Martine and over 20 Samaritan operatives are down there with them. The four get trapped in a room and The Machine starts running simulations to come up with a strategy to get them out alive. Several simulations are scrapped due to either Root or Finch dying which is undesirable to The Machine. Eventually The Machine sends everyone together to increase odds of survival. They fix the financial crisis and fight to get to the elevator alive, but they are trapped. Shaw arrives in the nick of time to save them and they get to the elevator. They aren't able to leave and Shaw sacrifices herself to get the others to safety.
The Good: I think creativity is such an important element in TV shows. Without creativity, TV shows run the risk of feeling familiar, dull, or even boring. Some of the worst episodes of this show suffer from being unoriginal and they desperately require some inspired storytelling to become memorable. My favourite episodes from shows like "Lost", "The Leftovers" and "Friends" are ones that aren't afraid to do something different. How does this all tie in to "If-Then-Else"? Well I have to say, this must be one of the most creative pieces of television I have ever seen. The unique concept of seeing a story from The Machine's point of view was an incredible idea and the execution was nearly flawless. Add in the necessary emotional beats and character development, and we have the best episode of the series so far. This concept was so wonderful to watch and it was executed perfectly. The soundtrack, visual effects, editing and cinematography were on a whole new level compared to what we usually get from the show. There was clearly extra effort put into making this episode and it paid off in a big way. This episode was brilliantly able to bring The Machine to life by giving us a look at how it really works. It was so unique actually getting to spend a lengthy period of time watching how The Machine functions as it attempts to get the crew out of the stock exchange alive. The actual storyline of the episode is quite simple. The main crew has to save the world by infiltrating a location and escaping alive. That's all there is to it, and I think it's brilliant. The simple plot allows for more focus on The Machine in this episode, which I think is more than complex enough to carry this episode. The simple plot has another big strength because it allows the episode to have a very clear focus on life and death. There is no funny business in this episode; the lives of the main characters are in genuine danger and that ramps up the tension by a lot. Then we get to the meat of this episode, the simulations. Most of this episode consists of The Machine running through various escape simulations in an attempt to get the crew out safely. It's so enjoyable to watch this and there are lots of really clever bits of storytelling that aid the story. At first, the simulation reveal is a bit of a surprise. When Finch died, I was shocked and I couldn't believe that a character would die so suddenly. Then the clock suddenly reset and I was pleasantly surprised when I realized what was going on. We were simply watching projections of what was happening, and the tension came from the fact that The Machine had to work quickly and whatever deaths occur in the final strategy would be permanent. The focus on The Machine is seconded by the flashbacks. These flashbacks gave us a good look at what motivates The Machine in making these decisions as it learns about choosing between strategies and making some of the necessary sacrifices. Furthermore, we got some outstanding dialogue from Finch as he goes over the mechanics of chess while teaching The Machine how to function and how to have morals. I really loved the lessons he taught, especially since they were all touched upon in the present. Speaking of the deaths, they actually added a nice amount of emotion to the episode. Character work is so important to TV shows, and it's added in this episode by showing us some theoretical deaths along with the interactions between characters. We get to see things like Reese's brave and badass response to his own death, as well as a better look at Root's character when she is faced with certain death. While it isn't particularly powerful, it's pretty strong stuff, and it is the perfect icing on the cake for the episode. The most emotion hits us at the very end of the episode with Shaw's death. The episode had built up major consequences for a long time, and it seemed certain that somebody was doomed to die. In this case, Shaw was the unlucky one and her death is heartbreaking to watch. After a season and a half of seeing all of these characters working together and developing relationships, it's devastating to see the group torn apart, and losing Shaw has a real weight to it, equal to (if not more than) Carter's death, which was another pivotal moment of the show. Root's screams in particular were hard to watch and Amy Acker really nailed what I would expect Root's reaction would be. The episode nailed the little details, and there was so much to love here. The brief side story with Shaw trying to convince a man to stop his attempt to detonate a bomb was awesome. I loved how Shaw started off aggressive and it led to failure, so the Machine tried various different attempts in order to create a situation where Shaw successfully understands the human heart and is able to talk the man down from suicide. It's a wonderful little detail. I also loved the recurring destruction of the painting throughout all of the simulations. It's a fine little joke for the moment, but it really pays off at the end as The Machine makes a shockingly human call by saving the painting to spare Finch some emotional pain. It was a lovely little moment showing the humanity of The Machine. The simplified simulation was probably the funniest thing I've seen on this show. The self-aware humour was so great, and it had me laughing/smiling for a good while afterwards too. Brilliant. Another standout comedy moment was Fusco randomly kissing Root because "it's a simulation". It was a lovably random moment that injected some personality into The Machine. Apparently The Machine is a Fusco x Root shipper, and I think that's hilarious. The Bad: Shaw suddenly showing up at the end was too convenient and sudden for my liking. I wish it was built up a little more because it was way too much of a deus ex machina. There were a few moments that looks very poor, likely because the rest of the episode had such wonderful effects. The standout was Root and Shaw shooting together. The shot was pretty long so it was very easy to notice that the gun shooting was very fake and none of the shots had any recoil. It looked especially poor. The Unknown: I presume Shaw is dead, but maybe she lived. After all, we didn't actually see her die since the show cut to black before the final gunshot. Best Moment: Shaw's death was very emotional. Character of the Episode: I have to give it to The Machine, who was as much of a character as anyone else in this episode. Conclusion: This was an awesome episode. The budget had been kicked up to level we hadn't seen before on this show, and that helped create the ideal atmosphere for an epic episode. Thankfully the writing was impeccable too and that led to this being a resounding success. High risk yields high reward, and that's exactly what happened here. This was a creative and risky episode to make, but the production crew nailed the execution, making what I believe is the best episode of the series so far. This season has taken off in quality in a big way. Score: 85 Summary: Flashbacks show Greer's past as a spy. In the present, the crew gets back to doing POI missions but notice that Samaritan is taking care of irrelevant numbers for them. Root meets with Lambert who sends a message that Samaritan wants to speak with the Machine. The Machine refuses so Samaritan continues reducing the crime rate. The next day, Samaritan causes total chaos and the crime rate skyrockets. The Machine agrees to a meeting. Root meets with Samaritan's avatar and they reach an impasse. Samaritan decides to go to war. Shaw goes out into the city to help with the increased crime rate.
The Good: This is how you do a set-up episode. For most shows, an episode which sets up a storyline fails to reach greatness, and is often overshadowed by the big climax. But "Person of Interest" has found a way to make set-up episodes hit a new high with expert use of its signature strengths like wonderful little character moments, a frenetic pace and philosophical discussions to name a few. This episode used all of the show's strongest tools to become something really special and feel like a climax of its own even though it is certainly just preparing for something bigger. The set-up was so enthralling to watch here. I absolutely loved the whole cold war that went on throughout the episode with Samaritan literally toying with humanity by proving a point to the Machine. It was the most Samaritan has ever felt like an actual character, and it impressively made me feel the tension and danger that I was expecting from a world living at the mercy of an AI overlord. Samaritan's methods were very cool to watch. I liked seeing it save the POIs on the first day, and cooler than that was how Samaritan completely threw the world into chaos the next day with some simple information leaks and nothing more. The not-so-subtle messages from Samaritan led into the huge climax of the episode where the two main deities of the series interacted one-on-one for the first time ever. There's no denying that this moment was huge for the show, and for the most part (see: The Bad), it delivered the goods. The scene was shot very well and I thought that it had a lovely atmosphere which unsettled me. The content of discussion was great and I loved the idea of two machines having a verbal spat about differing views that were programmed into them. I also really like the idea that both Samaritan and The Machine's motives were clearly stated for us to understand. Knowing what these two gods want to accomplish helps us understand their conflict much better and adds stakes to any Machine vs Samaritan drama that would follow. As for the rest of the episode, it was fantastic. The opening scenes of the episode were really good. It's a very strong use of the show's characters to create a fun intro that gets me excited to see more while also making me laugh. The interactions were strong, and while some things were cheesy, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Somehow this show has found a way to make cheesiness a staple of what it is without it being a bad thing. That's a remarkable feat, and I'm honestly pretty surprised that I enjoy it as much as I do. Had I watched the cheesier parts of this episode before I watched the show, I would have scoffed and dismissed this show as stupid. But the show won me over, and now the stupidly cheesy scenes are a joy to watch, and the episode was practically filled with them (the opening scene, Reese and Fusco, the church scene, etc.). The three-way philosophical discussion in this episode was superb. It reminded me of the ending section of "A House Divided" with the way that Finch, Root and Shaw all gave their opinions on the usefulness of an AI ruling the world. It was really nice to see the characters acknowledging this as a possibility, and all three of them were consistent with their known beliefs and morals when arguing their points. The dialogue on this show is hit or miss, but thankfully the writers always bring their A-game for big scenes like this. The flashbacks were a ton of fun too. I enjoyed the spy-thriller story that was given for Greer and it made for a really fun background story to the episode. Greer was given a nice backstory to let us know why he believes that putting a machine in control is way better than untrustworthy humans. I thoroughly enjoyed these brief scenes and I would love to see more like this, perhaps showing how Greer became the head of Decima. The Bad: Unfortunately the big meeting fell a bit flat because of the acting (and likely the directing too). For a scene with two AIs speaking, the interactions felt far too human for my liking. The kid actor was poor and Amy Acker is horribly out of her natural environment playing a robotic character since she has too much natural charisma for that. The two beings felt too emotional and human, and I feel like there was a much better way to have this conversation take place. Furthermore, I'm not sure that I like Samaritan's motives. Samaritan is a machine that was programmed not to have morals, so it feels very odd that it is naturally so pessimistic towards humans. I would be able to buy into this if I see Samaritan experiencing human nature, and turning against them because of it. But we don't have any scenes of Samaritan forming these beliefs, so its motives feel awkward and out of place. Greer's decreased role this season is a bit disappointing. With Samaritan becoming a fully fleshed out character, and Martine being its prime operator, where does that leave Greer? He hasn't had anything interesting to do since the end of season 3 and I don't find myself as engaged in him as a villain as I was before. He isn't even the brains behind the operation since Samaritan is making all of the decisions now. He just doesn't have anything to do anymore. Hopefully the show can correct this like it did with Elias. The Unknown: What are Samaritan's next plans? How does it plan to attack the Machine? What is the strength that Greer wants Samaritan to unleash? Was it the stock market crash? What will be accomplished from this, other than financial ruin? Did Root make it out of the meeting okay? Will she be fine? How about Shaw? Where has she gone? Will she be able to stay out of sight? Best Moment: The three-way discussion between Finch, Shaw and Root was an outstanding moment. Shaw is much more open about Samaritan ruling than Finch, which makes sense since she is an operative and hasn't really gotten a taste of leadership herself. But Finch, someone who has experienced more about leadership and philosophy than both Root and Shaw persists in his belief that Samaritan is definitely a bad thing for humanity. Character of the Episode: Root. Conclusion: This was an outstanding set-up episode. There was enough story to make this episode stand alone, and the fact that it seemingly sets up bigger things is the icing on the cake. Had the meeting between gods been a little better, I likely would have gone closer to (or maybe even over) an 80 for the craftsmanship and emotion that went into this episode. However, that shouldn't detract from the fact that this is still a seminal episode that does countless things right. The first part to this season was quite strong. Like all of the other seasons, this one is a slow out of the gates and it stumbled badly at a few points. Like all previous seasons, there were quite a few classic POI episodes, and most of those are only able to be good at best. But these last two episodes repaid my continued faith in the show and they suggest some really epic storylines to carry us to the season finale, and I cannot wait to see more. While not as strong as season 3's first half, this half-season was fairly entertaining. Score: 77 |
Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
February 2024
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