Malbec

More hostage musical chairs! I'm sure this has been remarked upon already, but Jedallah's vague resemblance to Henry Cavill was really throwing me off this episode. Kinda cracks me up every time. Grant is the worst, he and Jennifer were clearly made for each other. I did think it was cool when Rebecca got to drop a classic "I give you my word".

And there's also not really a SHERRY Palmer figure, who in my opinion was also really important as a plot driver (and source of entertainment). Who in our current cast could yell a man to death? Edit: I think Rebecca is a solid character but she's in the "CTU" cast of characters more than the "White House/political" cast of characters; Donovan needs a devil-on-the-shoulder character like Sherry, Olivia Taylor, President Anil Kapoor's various family members, etc. Jimmy Smits is a solid actor but his character is in a fairly passive mode. Maybe they'll fix that soon.

Good for poor old Andy. Dude won the "facial expression of the hour" prize when he was told about the missile strike. I didn't know Oded Fehr was going to be on this show! Wild.

This was my trajectory with her as well. As the group thinned out I came to quickly realize that Tregaye was best in very, very small doses.

Oh yeah, there's a ton of actor overlap with Oz. The guy who played O'Halloran played a completely awful human being on Oz, Kirk Acevedo was Barba's other childhood friend (not Munoz) in "October Surprise," Sean Dugan played psycho corrupted Catholics on both shows (Timmy Kirk on Oz and a perp in the same episode with Eric Stoltz), and Harold Perrineau even showed up in a wheelchair for his SVU episode. Edit: And how could I forget! The great Lothaire Bluteau, who's shown up three times on SVU and once on CI, had a really tragic one-shot appearance on Oz. He appeared only in one episode but it was a hell of a memorable character.

Yeah, Fin is gold. Him and Rollins having to arrest Santa Claus in "Presumed Guilty" was hilarious. So were their exchanges at the strip club in "Criminal Hatred." ("Your undercover name was 'Detective Tutuola'?") I always thought Huang was underrated as a funny character. There's a part in the episode "Fallacy" when Tucker from IAB is ripping Stabler's ass, and then he turns to Huang and just sort of blusters that he's going to call Huang's bosses at the FBI. Huang doesn't even bother responding, just gives Tucker the most priceless "bitch, please" look. A subtle moment but it cracks my shit up.

That guy who got his dick cut off in "Control", once it turned out it was revenge for KEEPING WOMEN IN HIS RAPE DUNGEON. Gaaahhh what a sicko.

You really hit the nail on the head. For the most part, I could go with the individual plot developments they came up with for Amaro. IMO there were some great episodes focusing on him (I really liked "Undercover Blue," "Born Psychopath," and especially "Padre Sandunguero"), and Danny Pino always brought it when called upon. But then they just... never went anywhere with what they'd brought up, never seemed to have Amaro develop self-awareness, and seemed to always prefer to drop a new Drama Bomb on him rather than develop what they already had. It's really nonsensical. I also have to say, I think the point of no return was when they had him beat the crap out of that molester and get arrested. The shooting in "Amaro's One-Eighty" was not my favorite thing, but it was a believable morally gray situation and I actually do like that it seemed to have consequences. So why not take THOSE consequences and go with it if the writers wanted a super dramatic finale for Amaro, instead of having him go all Stabler lite on Wilkes? It was just so dumb, aggravating and needless.

The thing is, I did think Nick and Olivia played well off each other when he first showed up, before they took him down the nu!Stabler road. It wasn't the same as her relationship with Stabler, but it wasn't trying to be. Taken on its own terms, it worked. I am still just confounded that they couldn't think of anything better to do with Amaro than have him go wild and angry.

Crying!!!!

Agree with you all on the comments referring to Stabler. The thing that kills me is that I can honestly think of ways I like Amaro more than Stabler (and vice versa), but "I grew more in these last four years" was just a big old Whut? Out of all the things Olivia could have said, that really came out of nowhere. Otherwise, I thought it was a pretty average-to-weak episode. I'm glad Nick gets to go be with his kids and got to smear Johnny D all over the floor on his way out, I guess, but I think it does suck to lose him. And did no one see the conflict of interest with Noah's adoption coming? Lord.

I think you may be right, but I have to say it annoys me if the writers' solution is "kill him off" instead of "stop fucking up the writing." They were able to write Amaro as fairly different from Stabler when he first joined the show, so it CAN be done. I like Carisi as an addition, but if he's here to take Amaro's place because the writers decided they wanted to just start over... that's going to legit piss me off.

It was never said, but my impression of Bobbi is that she would have expected Kara to make exactly the same call if their positions had been reversed, if Kara had been the one undercover at SHIELD and Bobbi had been at the safe house. From that perspective, while it's kind of harsh, it does makes sense to me that she wouldn't consider it something to apologize for.

Well that wasn't as awful as the headline it was (I think) ripped from, which was that case where the whole family was in on the boy's kidnapping. Still pretty bad though. I foolishly thought they might subvert the fairly obvious "evil Middle Eastern guy" trope, but alas. I'm not fully on the Carisi train but the yoga class scene was hilarious.

I agree. This must be like the acting equivalent of #TheDress because I thought her performance was mostly excellent. (She did waver a little bit in some of Jiaying's "big emotion" scenes, but I thought she was otherwise charismatic and complex).

Agree with you all on Fitzsimmons. I actually thought it was pleasantly unexpected when Simmons didn't return his feelings and they had to try to carve out a relationship after that point. Plus my hopes of bisexual!Fitz have been... well not completely dashed, but dampened.

In fairness, the container for super secret deadly alien goo should not be easier to accidentally knock open than any of the doors in my house. WTH?

I don't find Ward that compelling, but I do like that the writers have taken a consistent line where any potential "redemption" is concerned. It's no one's fault but his that Kara is dead, but it doesn't seem like Ward will ever have the self-awareness to grasp that. The two of them probably could have been free and clear, especially if they'd concentrated on disappearing while Coulson/SHIELD dealt with the Inhumans' attack. I'm glad the writers have decided to go even darker with him after this not-redemption arc, and I hope that May is the one to finally put him out of his misery.

Well damn!!! That was a very satisfying finale. Bummed to lose both Jiaying and Raina (although I won't count Jiaying out, given her powers) as they were both wonderful complex antagonists. I used to complain about things centering on Skye, but I have zero complaints with it during this story arc. The parallel between Coulson/Cal and May/Jiaying, her surrogate parents and her real parents, has been wonderfully acted by everybody involved, and I do include Chloe in that. Special mention to Kyle McLaughlin -- as deranged as Cal is, the real sincerity and joy he takes in his daughter are really affecting. MORE UNDER SIEGE!MACK NEXT SEASON, PLEASE. Now make Henry Simmons a regular and let Mack do that on a regular basis and I will be guaranteed to enjoy myself as a viewer. I'm so happy they finally let him do something other than frown about aliens, and I enjoyed the parallel to the "real SHIELD" flashback episode. I took true glee in the "stand with Ward" moment. The showrunners could not have subverted that potential redemption arc any harder if they'd tried, and I love it.

Nice to see the show is still capable of producing really solid, personal-nonsense-free episodes. Cragen brought a breeze of sanity with him, it seems. I loved seeing him and Amaro double-cross the original detective. Andre Braugher was wonderful as always, and Carisi's buttkissing was amusing. It was a kick seeing Robert Sean Leonard play the prosecutor -- and I really like that he didn't play the guy as a 100% evil douchebag. It's more powerful to have a mistaken conviction come from someone who seems to genuinely think he was putting away a pedophile. In a way, he seemed like a looking-glass version of Barba, reflecting the relentless drive toward a conviction that normally we'd all be cheering on. (Or was he right all along??? The ambiguity at the end was some classic SVU.)

So did Mack really just quit?! Dafuq? If they really just rushed him off stage left like that, what a waste of a potentially great character. (Not that I've liked everything he's done this season, but there was room for some development.) Even if he's going to the spin-off show, that was sort of a crappy way to write him out. Can't approve of either Jiaying or Raina, but I admit I LOVE them as antagonists. For all that people criticize Marvel's film villains, they've created some great TV ones. I also think Gordon is a great wild card and I admire the actor's ability to convey real presence with his eyes obscured. God bless Kyle McLaughlin -- as much as I'm creeped out by Cal, his goodbye with Skye was legitimately touching.

I have terrible audio memory, but I think the music at the end was Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights?

It's been a while since I've seen the episode so I could be remembering wrong, but in "Damaged" didn't the female perp molest her younger sister (giving her an STI no less)?

Full-on psycho Barbara is an awesome Barbara, and this is coming from someone who was 100% down on her characterization last week. The whole Falcone-Gordon-Fish-Maroni-Penguin storyline was just a game of idiot ball basketball. Gordon's thing with Falcone was not only a stupid plan, it was a poorly executed stupid plan. And why oh why, after being manipulated for a whole season, does everyone involved not just tape Penguin's mouth shut with extreme prejudice? Let alone just kill him and be done with it. I'm bummed we lost Fish -- I know not everyone liked Jada's performance, but I personally appreciated that she always looked like she found the scenery utterly delicious. She was fun. That was so random!

I totally get the point you're making and I don't disagree. But I would point out that "The Incredible Hulk" establishes that Bruce's "great gift" was forced on him without his consent. He did test an experiment on himself -- but he believed that he was creating a formula to make soldiers immune to radiation. General Ross tampered with the formula, creating the Hulk. Joss Whedon either decided to retcon that or deliberately had Coulson lie/misunderstand in Avengers 1 when he described Banner as one of the many people who tried and failed to recreate Steve's gift. (Side note, I actually thought Coulson's description of Hulk as "that thing" and his apparent belief that Bruce knowingly tried to make himself a supersoldier made for an interesting potential anti-Hulk character beat, but I'm clearly assigning that moment more importance than anyone responsible for MCU storytelling!). While it isn't equivalent to forced sterilization for all the reasons you mention, overall, I really don't have a problem with the Bruce/Natasha relationship in theory. A connection between two people who were made weapons against their will has the potential for some really rich, interesting stuff. It's also not implausible to me that Natasha might latch onto that connection in the wake of everything she lost in CA:TWS. And, I thought Ruffalo and Johansson had really interesting chemistry in Avengers 1, so for me it did make sense for Whedon to try to build on that. Key words, though: "In theory," "potential," "try"... while there are things I like about the idea of Bruce/Natasha, the actual execution was really unsatisfying. It relied way too much on "telling" rather than "showing," which is a real crime when the actors have already shown they're capable of generating chemistry when the scene makes sense. Steve's speech pushing them together was just sort of painful. For all the talk of the storyline cheapening Natasha's character, actually, I thought it was Bruce whose characterization really suffered in the movie; he was subordinate to Tony during all of the "mad scientist" decisions and was a mostly passive participant in the romantic arc with Natasha. Even his final decision was an anti-climax. I also think it's an unforgiveable missed opportunity that they did not show OR tell what Scarlet Witch showed Bruce. In a way, the one redeeming feature of Bruce and Natasha's romance was that they traded the normal male/female roles -- she was the active fighter, the pursuer and the one who had an idealized view of what Bruce represented; and in the end, it was her that we saw dealing with the fallout of their quasi-relationship, albeit briefly. Although it's not my ideal storyline for either one of them, mind you.