Summary: Albert arrives at the LAPD to investigate Moss's murder and immediately tells them to round up the Chechens. Cristobal's wife arrives in LA and attacks the Chechen compound. Batir is facetiming home from above and watches the Bolivians and cops attack and destroy the compound at once. Barry is upset about Sally and gets advice from Hank and Cristobal. After he leaves, Cristobal's wife reclaims him and Hank hides. She realizes Cristobal was cheating on her. Sally's show gets cancelled and she is torn up. Barry visits and sees her break down. He offers to terrorize the show manager and a frightened Sally sends him away, When Barry leaves, the vengeful mother and son are in a nearby car. The mother accidentally shoots her son. Fuches meets with Taylor's sister and sets her up to go after Barry too. Gene apologizes to everyone he can but still struggles to overcome his past.
The Good: There's a lot to enjoy about this episode. Sally's show being cancelled caught me totally off guard and is a great way to push this character down a peg. It seemed like she had done everything right, but naturally "the algorithm" decided her fate and took it all away from her, which is a funny and depressing take on society, especially with how much algorithms are used on platforms like YouTube. It's an interesting critique on the concept, and also a critique on the people in power who are submissive to these devices. It's easy to feel for Sally as she tries to process her own failure. Barry's story intersects with Sally's by the end and it is well told. I got a good laugh out of Barry visiting Hank and Cristobal for advice, and Hank's passive aggressive words for Barry are really funny. It's sensible that Barry would look for help to get Sally back, and I smiled at how he interprets Hank's words. His ridiculous collage is funnier than it should be, and that final scene where he tries to connect with sally is both hilarious and sad. Barry doesn't even realize that what he's saying is wrong when he offers to drive the person who cancelled Sally's show insane, and that's a perfect example of his disillusionment with the social world. He thinks he's being reasonable, but in reality he's scaring Sally with how calmly he is offering to do these psychotic things. But the episode still keeps things light with some of Barry's suggestions like replacing her dog with a slightly different dog to make her think she's going insane. The scene is both funny and impactful, and is the quality content that I've come to expect from this show. The incompetence of the Chechens is still extremely funny to watch. The entire sequence where Batir facetimed the Bolivians and the cops destroying the operation was a blast and it really made me laugh. I was expecting Batir to be an intimidating character, but I appreciate that he's every bit as clueless as every other character in this show. There were so many good jokes in this sequence. The entire secret operation being visible from a nearby parking garage, Batir trying his best to impress his bosses, Akhmal getting shot again (his delivery of "ah f*ck you" is pure gold), and the cops running away from a single suicide bomber all made me laugh hard. The sequence was perfect. Gene's apology tour was a good use of the character. You can tell that he genuinely does want to turn a new leaf and leave his old life behind, but the episode does a good job of confronting us, and him, with the possibility that even these apologies are motivated by selfish reasons. It's a sad truth that was conveyed effectively. Albert's return was a surprise, and I'm curious to see where this goes. It's great to see a competent character for once, and Albert immediately stands out as a threat for being nowhere near as comically inept as the rest of the LAPD. The Bad: Again there is way too much going on in this show for any of it to be truly impactful. With each character having their own individual storyline, there is too much here for a 30 minute episodes. Scenes feel incredibly short, and you have to go through far too many scenes before returning to a character. By spreading things out so thin, it becomes difficult to invest in the characters and storylines. We are jarringly thrown from storyline to storyline in an effort to keep up with the plot, and it makes the show much less interesting to watch. A lot of this season's good ideas are being wasted because everything feels so rushed. The character of Barry is suffering a lot because he feels like an afterthought in his own show. In previous seasons, Barry was very clearly the centerpiece of the entire story. But now with every other main cast member having their own story, Barry has become no different from any other character and he has been shifted to the background. I want to be invested in his story, especially with how much I enjoyed seasons 1 and 2, but Barry has been so marginalized that his story no longer feels fluent. I'm not sure how I feel about the Bolivian threat resuming once again. The story was flat and ended prematurely last time, so it feels strange to bring it back with Elena instead of Fernando. It's repetitive, and I can't help but question the decision to make this plot so needlessly dense. I enjoy Hank and Cristobal, but they aren't enough to make me interested in this. I'm not sure what to make of Kyle getting shot at the end. It's such a random scene that is so bleak and depressing, despite also feeling like black comedy. I'm not sure what I was supposed to feel or how I even felt about it, so the scene felt like a flat way to end the episode. The Unknown: What will Albert's role be in the series? Will he meet Barry? Is he going to die? How wilL Sally move on from Joplin's cancellation? What's next for her? How will Elena's arrival change things? Will she go after Hank now? What is Hank going to do now that he knows about her? Will Kyle survive getting shot? Who else is Fuches going to contact? Best Moment: The sequence at the Chechens plant store really made me laugh. Character of the Episode: Sally. Conclusion: This is entertaining stuff, but this season still feels like it has too much going on to really stand out. I have a good time with these episodes, but the story is not grabbing me the way that it used to in the first two seasons. Score: 65
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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