weathered1

For what it's worth, Jennifer Gareis, Sharon Case's longtime close friend, posted multiple fire emojis on a Halloween video of CH and MG that Courtney posted on her Instagram page. I kinda doubt she would have done that if anyone involved in, or otherwise connected to, the situation were harboring any negative feelings about it. As far as I'm concerned, kudos to CH and MG for not letting whatever's going on impact their onscreen chemistry. Back to lurk mode I go . . .

Well, it turns out my theory was apparently more fanfic than anything else. At least I noted that I was likely wildly off-base, so at least I got one thing right. lol Nick Offerman is a treasure, and this episode made me wish that his role in this show had been more significant. The Emma and Noah content was quite sad, and I think it portends her moving on by entering Pasaje and going . . . wherever. Or whenever, as the case may be. I'm just hoping that this show doesn't wind up like similar series where they set everything up to have major reveals and substantive answers, only for the end to be lackluster, at best.

First, I don't think I've ever seen Luis Gerardo Méndez in anything before, but he is wonderful. Second, this wasn't my favorite episode, but it did spawn some new theories: I'm now thinking that Emma's tooth symbolizes how her dissatisfaction with her life, along with her grief for her daughter (about which she doesn't speak), are slowly killing her, which will be what prompts her to time travel (leaving Noah, who is more content with his life, behind). I can envision a scenario in which Emma enters Pasaje and encounters Sam and Violet, who exclaims, "Mom?!" She then tells Emma that her mother (Emma herself) died due to extreme cognitive decline; so basically, what happened to Alex will happen to Emma. Emma then makes the choice to time travel anyway, knowing that it will eventually kill her at a fairly young age. However, she decides that being able to have Violet and having some years to make memories with her is worth it, since she was robbed of that with her first daughter. The beautiful and terribly sad irony about that is that she'd go back in time in order to have Violet and make memories, all the while knowing that those very memories will ultimately be ripped away from her. In this scenario, then, if Alex really is Sam, then he would have planted the phone for Emma to find knowing that it would be imperative for her to do so, so that she'd go on her quest for answers, and go back in time in order to have Violet, who would go on to be the one love Sam/Alex had. There are some holes in that theory, and it's entirely possible that I'm *wildly* off-base, but that's what I'm thinking as of right this moment.

Oh, I must have somehow missed that post. The more I think about it, the more I think this is the way they're going. Perhaps the time traveling (or whatever) takes a physical as well as a mental toll, hence her tooth. Given Noah's line about how seeing their daughter was a memory that Emma doesn't have, I wonder if there are other memories she doesn't have, or at least, doesn't have anymore.

^I wonder if they're going somewhere with that. This episode focused a lot on Violet losing her mom and Emma losing her daughter. It seemed significant that Noah said that he'd been able to see their daughter, so he has that memory but Emma doesn't. I did start to wonder if the show is going somewhere mind-bendy with that. Violet's mother's book included a statement about "meet me there," so I wonder if Emma becomes a time traveler or a parallel universe traveler, or whatever Alex is. There also has to be some kind of significance to her tooth problems, but I'm not sure what that's supposed to signify.

During the stream of consciousness thoughts (or whatever that was) that Alex was having at the beginning of the episode, he did confirm that his name was made up, with the verbiage being something like, "How the hell did you come up with that?" Given the effect everything has had on Alex in terms of his mind and memory, I wonder if he doesn't even remember that he's Sam (if that's the way they're going).

That is a really good theory. Didn't Baltasar say that no one knew where Alex came from - one day, he just sort of appeared? Then when Baltasar asked him where he got the skateboard, Alex said he'd had it since he was a kid, I believe. Baltasar dismissed that as just another lie, but maybe he was actually telling the truth.

The particular bit re: Cait and Camryn was in response to what I believe was the official Y&R twitter account trying to get some love for Chance after he was shot. Both of them replied to that tweet in a less than warm and fuzzy way. The other stuff to which I was referring was, at least at one point, on Twitter as well. I don't know if it still is or not, but it irrevocably changed my view of the guy.

Yeah. I don't usually post here (though I often lurk), but I had to chime in because I've seen some of the things he's posted and liked on social media, and he seems like a really nasty piece of work. I know that recently Cait and Camryn have made it pretty clear that they don't think highly of him, and I can't imagine that they're the only ones who feel that way.

This brings up another point. If all it took to end the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad threat to Ziva, Tally, et. al., was for Ziva to work with Gibbs and the team . . . why didn't she just do that in the first place? I realize that Cote leaving precluded that at the time, but surely they could've come up with something better than what we've been watching.

I wasn't ever a huge Ziva fan, but these episodes have made me actively dislike her. (And the deification of Ziva David by almost everyone was over the top and irritating in the extreme.) She's oh so upset (and blathering endlessly on about the fact) that Gibbs never looked for her, yet had he done so, those wanting Ziva dead might've taken notice, figured out that something was amiss, and, say, gone after her daughter just to flush her out. In other words, it seems to me that for Ziva's cover and plan (which was stupid, by the way) to work, every single one of her nearest and dearest had to be pretty certain that she was dead. Had that not been the case, it would've far too easy for said cover to be blown and her loved ones to be placed in great danger. Again. Some more. Then, too, she even said herself that a body wasn't found, so . . . how exactly was it that the bad guys were so sure that she was dead; so certain, in fact, that all of the threats they posed to her daughter were instantaneously gone? Why wouldn't the bad guys have gone after Tally and Tony anyway just because they wanted Ziva to pay and/or on the off chance that she really was still among the living and/or just because they're, you know, bad guys? For that matter, there was this gigantic threat that required Ziva to play dead for years, yet she never thought it would be a good idea to give Tony a heads up that super duper evil bad guys might go after their daughter at some point? In my view, this was just an exceedingly dumb, chock-full-o'-holes storyline that made many of the characters look pretty bad. The one bright spot was Ducky; but then, given the way this show has gone downhill, he's usually the lone bright spot, imo.

So, after all of this time and my super-long ranty post . . . I'm still upset. I don't know that I blame KB, per se, but her comments and reactions - from what I've seen and heard about, they've been pretty nonchalant and even kind of glib - make me veer a little bit in that direction. Many have said that RT and KB have long resented how popular Logan and the relationship became, and I think their comments since this all unfolded basically support that hypothesis. They want a cold, detached, fueled-by-constant-tragedy-and-pain Veronica, and their way of getting that was to deliver still another trauma by way of removing a feature from the show of which neither seemed to be a huge fan. That KB sees Veronica as a positive role model is kind of troubling. Granted, that's at least partly some spin because this is her character, she's promoting the show (and perhaps a future incarnation of it). The idea, though, that a strong, interesting female character is one who has to always be in pain and has to shed emotional ties, be closed off and nothing but sharp edges, and generally treats everyone around her terribly is awful and untrue. And there's some misogyny in the mix, too. To me, what would have played into Veronica dealing with personal issues, being forced to take a long hard look in the mirror at who she's become, etc., would have been to let the marriage stand because the bomb that was all set to explode said marriage? Was the relationship itself. As written, the two weren't compatible anymore because the characterization of each had gone in such radically different directions, which means that, as I see it, the marriage wouldn't have - indeed couldn't have - lasted. What's interesting about that, at least to me, is that when I decide to start shipping a pairing, I always want it to go the distance. In this case, though, I wouldn't have minded seeing LoVe come to an end because the relationship wasn't serving either of them particularly well. To that end, there were only a few ways it could have gone: Veronica would begin to chafe at the relationship and commitment which sort of fly in the face of the brittle loner RT and KB want her to be, so she likely would've eventually acted out and hurt Logan in such a way that the marriage became untenable. Other options could've been that Logan began to resent Veronica's endless campaign to bring back his inner "bad boy" and either he would realize that they were hanging on to a relationship that had run its course/perceptions of one another that weren't true anymore and he would've ended it, or he'd finally be pushed too far, his former impulsivity and anger issues would begin to rise to the fore, and he'd act out in such a way that Veronica would be hurt (emotionally), and the marriage would become untenable. The aftermath of any of those options could've, say, fueled Veronica's need to travel and work in distant locales, all the while checking in with family and friends, going home between cases, etc. During those times, she could perhaps be confronted with the reality of Logan moving on in his quest to have a happy, stable life, which could result in that aforementioned long, hard look in the mirror Veronica would need to take to finally start to work on herself so that she could stop operating as the sum total of her defense mechanisms. (Perhaps down the road, they could've reunited or both could have come to terms with the fact that going their separate ways was the right call.) All of that is to say that the ending was wholly unnecessary because if they really wanted more trauma and angst to serve as a driver for Veronica, the foundation had already been set for that, and exploring that would have let them have the Veronica they wanted (at least for a while) while also not alienating such a huge portion of the fanbase and cutting off so many interesting, complex, and yes, adult storylines in Neptune. That the ending that was chosen was just the capper to a season that was filled with shoddy writing in terms of characterizations, plot holes, and just a general lack of the cleverness, wit, and solid plotting that used to be hallmarks of this show makes me both sad and angry because it really didn't have to be this way.

I see what you're saying. He's clearly operating with a surplus of ego, but his comments have just been so pointed and patronizing to fans and so deliberately insulting to the LoVe fandom in particular that it seems to me that he's been outright expressing resentment of this portion of the viewership. I don't think he cares if he loses us especially since then he wouldn't have to deal with our so-called insistence on viewing "high school drama". I also think he believes that most viewers will be so drawn to his incredible, amazing writing (that's not at all hacky, misogynistic, and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of both relationships and the human condition in general) and the adventures of downtrodden, cold as ice, loner Veronica that his new version of the show doesn't need us. (I think he's wrong.) I have been kind of idly wondering about what impact (if any) this backlash will have. RT has said that Logan is well and truly and most sincerely dead, but he also - whether intentionally or not - did leave himself wiggle room to get out of that (and to actually do so pretty easily). I don't know if Hulu would particularly care, but let's just say that they dictate that a season 5 could partly revolve around his and KB's vision, but he would also have to undo the enormous mistake he made. Would he and/or KB just refuse those terms and, thus, VM is done forever? Would he acquiesce - having ostensibly (but not really) learned the lesson that viewers are sick and tired of showrunners treating us so shabbily and making such awful choices? If he did say that he'd undo the damage, would it then turn into a situation of be careful what you wish for in which he gleefully contrives of as many ways as possible of breaking the pairing up, ruining Logan, etc., just to punish the fans for "forcing" him to go against his wondrous vision? Again, I don't know if Hulu would care at all and/or if this backlash is just falling on deaf ears, but it's something to ponder. Or maybe my mind just can't fully wrap around the idea that RT did something so impossibly stupid and deliberately ruined the entire show for so many of us.

It's taken me a while to try to process this. I wasn't originally much of a Logan fan because they went a wee bit too far with the "obligatory psychotic jackass" thing (at least for me). Over time, I found myself really enjoying the character because, while Dohring isn't the world's best actor, he does have a certain charisma (maybe even a magnetism) that makes him so interesting to watch, and he really did manage to do a lot to redeem the character over the years. (The Scientology thing aside, seeing him so visibly crushed by this even while he's doing his level best to reassure the fans is so sad to me.) I also found myself drawn in by the chemistry. The relationship was problematic for various reasons, but I still bought that these two people would be drawn to each other and, in many ways, bring out one another's best and worst qualities. Perhaps RT and others (like KB) didn't anticipate the pairing's popularity and were even resentful of it, but the fact remains that the foundation was there, the chemistry was there, and it was built up over the seasons, books, and movie into something pretty great (imo). So this "shocking twist" is many things - hackery of the lowest order (and truly ham-fisted writing that required Veronica having to forget how to use her brain), embarrassing, short-sighted, an inconceivable waste of boundless potential, and proof positive that RT is creatively bankrupt - but good writing it was not. The more I hear/read from RT, the more I've come to thoroughly dislike both him and his so-called vision for this show. He somehow demonstrates an utter misunderstanding of everything that has set this show apart, made it special, and inspired such loyalty in a very large percentage of its fanbase. That he also blatantly used said large percentage of the fanbase only to turn around and patronize us, slap us in the face, and blatantly insult us (by intimating that we're only interested in "high school drama") is so far beyond the pale that I'm actually gobsmacked at the things he's said. This isn't an organic way to spur Veronica on to new adventures and experiences. This seems very much like a way for RT to punish the fans for not liking what he wanted us to like, for liking too much something he (and KB) didn't enjoy, and even JD for perhaps doing too good of a job with the character. Why he - and other showrunners who chafe at viewers being drawn to situations/characters/relationships on which they didn't intend to focus - couldn't have just been grateful that something unexpected happened that managed to capture the attention of so many of the viewers and become wildly popular, I'll never understand. So his great vision for VM involves pretty extreme arrested development for his leading lady who is evidently reveling in not being able to move forward and heal, and in so doing, has become so hard and embittered and bitchy to everyone. He wants her to cut ties with everything and everyone that gave her dimension and layers and vulnerability. He wants to excise everything that made her special and turn her into yet another generic PI who is dark, angry, untrusting, and cold (but not cold enough that she'll turn down hookups with random guys evidently). That sounds . . . ridiculously unappealing to me. At the end of the day, viewers know all too well how it feels to be disappointed, but this takes things to another level. RT couldn't have delivered a bigger FU to so many of us in the fandom, while also confirming that he's a hack - there were so many ways to scale back the relationship focus if he so chose - many of which have been brilliantly detailed in this thread. I'd even go so far as to say that Logan had outgrown Veronica, and him extricating himself from the relationship and perhaps moving on would've been one avenue to explore, as would his job forcing him to be quite literally unavailable much of the time, etc. etc.. There were many good options here, and far better ones, than the one RT chose, but he wanted to burn the relationship and its fandom to the ground, which is exactly what he did. If there is another season, I sincerely hope that the viewers who stick around enjoy it. For me, though, VM has been ruined and I'm officially done with it.

According to the actors on social media, it premieres on June 30.

It was particularly and unnecessarily borderline cruel to get everyone's (from the fans, to the showrunner, producers, and actors) hopes up, only to turn right around and basically say, "Psych!" It looks to me like they just wanted the higher ratings and social media engagement surrounding both the finale and the announcement that they could maybe, possibly be rethinking the cancellation. Given how quickly the decision came down about how it's really not coming back, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they never had any intention of reversing the cancellation. It's interesting to me that they did promote it quite well leading up to the premiere, but after that, the promotion noticeably decreased even as they were messing with the order in which the episodes aired. I think the latter hurt the show more than anything - that lack of consistency in the characters' behavior, etc., probably turned a lot of viewers off. It's really a shame that this happened because everything had really gelled by the end of the run, and the cast worked so well together. I haven't heard much - if any - optimism about the likelihood of the show actually being picked up by another network or streaming service, and that saddens me because the show, cast, et. al., deserved better than this.

I never cared for Kate (and I really don't like the actress in this role), and I just didn't buy the exclamations of twu wuv or how we're evidently supposed to feel so terribly sad for them that their jobs are keeping them apart. That whole scene - complete with the ham-handed writing - just left me cold. The bottom line (for me) is that, if they feel they must show more of Eric's personal life, it shouldn't be so difficult to find a good love interest and develop a complicated (but not forced and awkward) relationship and to keep it on the backburner so that it doesn't overwhelm the actual point of the show. In terms of Cynthia and her brother, that story veered far too close to meh territory for me. I think the actors work well together and I do like Cynthia and it was good that she actually got a story, but more could've been done to build it up, to flesh out the brother's character, etc. All in all, there were some missteps this season, but I do hope that the show lives on.

Oh, this show. I can almost feel myself losing brain cells as I watch it. So, this thinly veiled plan of Erica's to catch Tal hinges on the "fact" that she needs him to break her out of her cell, yet in this episode (and the last one, to name just two), she moseyed off on her own without any problem whatsoever. Tonight, she was only "caught" by Keaton simply because she stood in the same place for several minutes and alerted him to her general location. The show is just never going to tire of the shots of Shepherd's Shackled Shuffle of Shame; nor, it seems, will it let go of the shots of the team, as a whole, gracing her with their looks of disdain/hatred/suspicion every time she enters or exits a scene. Speaking of stupid things, no one wonders where that cell phone Erica stole went? I can't believe that there would just be a drawer full of burner phones because surely there would need to be records kept for those, and if it's someone's (Kate's?) personal phone, that person never said, "Hey, where'd my phone go?"? Also, how fortuitous that her cell has . . . wait for it . . . good cell reception. In terms of that cell, it's not searched as a matter of course whenever she's not in it? This super spy has repeatedly demonstrated that she can and will steal anything and everything that's not nailed down and use it to her advantage, yet they don't stroll into that cell routinely solely to see if they can find a treasure trove of stolen goods? I see that the oft-mentioned ex-husband actually took off his invisibility cloak. Sadly, it seems like he's kind of a crappy dad if it took him that long to figure out that "my daughter!!" was feeding him really bad lies and going on those treks of hers whenever she wanted. You'd think that the only not-imprisoned parent of the offspring of The Most Hated Woman in America would keep better tabs on said spawn since it would be pretty easy for someone to do something to Hannah as a way to make The Most Hated Woman in America pay for betraying her country. (Reason 9372-b why it remains insanely stupid that Erica never told anyone to protect "my daughter!!".) "My daughter!!" - the same one who was so traumatized and terrified by "the police" picking her up when she lied about her whereabouts three years ago - evidently didn't learn her lesson. Finally, my initial opinion of Pettigrew was basically that she was okay. That lofty view has subsequently gone downhill. Tonight, it was like someone fed her her line(s) just before she was due to speak, so she spit out the line quickly and without any inflection before she had a chance to forget it. I know other things happened in this episode, but . . . I just can't seem to care.

I haven't chimed in on this forum before, but I felt compelled to after reading Carina's self-serving, short-sighted, even somewhat offensive interview(s). To be totally honest, I've always thought that she's a pretty nasty piece of work, and the more that she says about this show and about Maria (and Michael/Alex in comparison), the more that feeling is solidified. The one and only thing about which she seems to care is attention - not even necessarily for the show, but for herself. She saw that some gay relationships on other shows were popular and getting buzz, so she decided to be "edgy" and "different" and "progressive" and try her hand at it so that people could tell her how great she is. The problem is that Michael and Heather happen to have pretty great chemistry (some, including myself, think it's superior chemistry), and I think she recognized that, hence why she "accidentally sidelined" Heather for a vast majority of the season. Plus, her words about Maria and M&M show that she doesn't care at all about that portion of the fandom (and she likely thinks the already vile ship wars are funny). Peculiar stance for the person in charge of a show that isn't exactly a ratings juggernaut to take. I also have to say that I feel terrible for Heather. She does really well with the material she's given, she has great chemistry with Michael, there are fans who are responding well to this incarnation of M&M . . . yet she has to deal with a showrunner who treats her like an afterthought or even a burden (in terms of being an obstacle to the story she really wants to tell), essentially states outright that M&M isn't anything important and will soon be over, and Vlamis goes on and on about his clear preference for pairings. Everything about this situation is really gross to me and has some subtext and undertones that are truly awful.

The episode was such a slog to get through, and given the subject matter, it really shouldn't have been. I think the root of the problem (well, one of the problems) is that the writing is so uninspired, so lazy, so lackluster, and so utterly lacking in creativity and energy. It's like these people were forced to write the episodes but didn't really want to, so they made everything as bland, predictable, clunky, and unimaginative as humanly possible. There was also the ridiculousness of the prolonged scene where all of the CIA analysts, one at a time, turned their computers off or otherwise hid sensitive information as they made eye contact with Erica. At least they also had to announce that not only is she The Most Hated Woman in America, she's also The Most Hated Woman in the CIA. So melodramatic. My eyes rolled so often that I started to get a headache. Additionally, everything about the Pettigrew/hostage negotiation scene was truly awful, from the way she held her gun (and looked like she'd never done so before), to the absurd things she said and the way she delivered her lines. Everything about it was cringeworthy. At least they went back - again, some more - to their old tried and true scenes of Erica knowing all and seeing all and later doing her best MacGyver impression (again) when Keaton was evidently confident in the ability of a particularly flimsy looking pair of handcuffs to totally thwart Super Spy Shepherd. It's like they gave up on the show before it even started and are now just letting it limp ignominiously to the finish line.

I saw that, too, and it drove me nuts! I couldn't even pay much attention to what was being said in those scenes because the way she moved was so distracting. (Now, if that's due to some kind of medical/physical condition, I don't want to seem like I'm mocking her for that, obviously, but if it's some odd affectation or a sign that she just can't relax and move naturally when she's on-camera, then that's a different story.) I agree completely with the prevailing sentiment - the show is really giving the impression that it's going to focus on the relationship, and that's just not something I want to see. The official Instagram page has also been focusing on her quite a bit as of late, which is yet another (bad) sign of what we'll be seeing. One of the things that I've long appreciated about this show is the focus on the professional with just drips and drabs of personal info thrown in every so often, and I really think that worked well, especially given everything their jobs entail. If this marks a decision to swerve away from that in order to feature how those jobs conflict with their personal lives, then I'm not happy about that. (I'm even less enthused about that considering that I don't really care for Kate, but I digress.)

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that this episode should've been shown long before now. In fact, I think the show would've been better served to have had the promos focus on the question of why a respected CIA agent would become a traitor. The first episode should've focused on her being "the most hated woman in America," the team grudgingly working with her, her being remote and somewhat cold but still offering her expertise, and only breaking down and wailing about "my daughter!!" at the very end of the episode. That would've led quite well into this being the second episode. That still wouldn't have been chock full o' surprises, but it at least may have kept people intrigued enough to stick around. Also, the more we talk about Laine still being amongst the living, the more certain I become that she is. I think there's a reason we keep seeing her in flashbacks and that this episode featured a prolonged closeup on her portrait at the CIA ceremony. I bet she's still alive and kicking, and the only question is is she a good guy or yet another mole/double agent.

Here I was hoping (but not expecting) this episode to be better, yet all it did was bring one of its biggest issues into stark relief: why on earth aren't they giving Raza Jaffrey more to do? The fatal flaw of the episode is, of course, the fact that we already knew pretty much all of the major points. In fact, we've known that information since before the show even began courtesy of so much being spoiled in the promos! Erica ostensibly accepting Tal's offer three years after the fact is certainly part of a wholly transparent plan to get Tal once and for all, which brings to mind yet another question: why, over the course of the past three years, hasn't Super Evil, Murderous Terrorist Tal tried to take Erica out? He doesn't have a problem placing his operatives wherever he needs them, and he's apparently quite skilled at planting almost ubiquitous moles wherever he likes, yet in all that time, he didn't do a thing to permanently silence the one person/agent who knows the most about him? Really? Barring that, he didn't kill "my daughter!!" thereby robbing Erica of her last reason to live, so that she'd kill herself, thereby solving his problem for him? Speaking of "my daughter!!", it now makes even less sense that Erica never told anyone about why she did what she did since Tal demonstrated how easily he could get to said "my daughter!!" whenever he wanted. It also makes even less sense that no one ever put two and two together and figured out why Erica all of a sudden turned "traitor" when she hadn't ever done anything like that before (or since). On another note, I've been wondering for a while if the show would break out a certain trope that we've all seen before: namely, since we were only told how the dearly departed fiancee died, will the show try to shock! and surprise! us by revealing that the CIA faked her death (and maybe others), and she (and possibly others) have been in a witness protection-esque program for the past few years? I wouldn't put it past this show, mostly because keeping Erica responsible for the deaths of those people gives the show pretty much nowhere to go. Speaking of not going anywhere, Erica didn't initially accept Tal's offer, yet still seemed to follow every single step of the outline he presented to her about what would happen and what she would do? She didn't make use of her super duper super spy skills to spirit away "my daughter!!" and go someplace where it would be difficult to find her/them? She just stayed put and waited for them to catch her? It almost makes me wonder if this is all part of a long con/deep cover CIA mission to ultimately get Tal (though that doesn't make a lot of sense given the fact that they seemingly didn't do anything to that end for three years). Finally, there was one throwaway mention of the husband, but he wasn't shown at all. I seem to recall that Erica mentioned that he divorced her during the trial or shortly thereafter, so why wasn't he in the home? Why was she the only one instructing "my daughter!!" to do her homework? Since they cast an actor who's actually been in some things, this makes me wonder if, as the season draws to a close, they'll bring him more to the fore and reveal that he's also a spy and/or a bad guy. Ultimately, this episode did make it seem to be pretty much a certainty that the writers didn't go into this with some kind of comprehensive, logical plan. They keep writing themselves into corners and look to be making things up as they go along, and I still can't fathom why that seems to be the case.

I do like the idea broached in the previews for the next episode that, much as most suspected, the whole "I did it for my daughter!!!!" story was either a lie or an incomplete version of the truth. That said, again, it's kind of a dead end premise-wise because if she was flipped (and maybe then flipped again? Who knows.), she still ultimately did what she was accused of doing, which leads right back to one of the main problems with the entire foundation of the show. Other than that, this episode almost had a slightly different tone to me, in that it seemed more like it was trying to draw in new viewers by catching people up more than the other episodes have done, going out of their way to have characters' names mentioned, giving said characters new-ish beats to play - Daniel getting to be briefly snarky, Keaton showing more warmth and humanity, and the whole whatever that was supposed to be with Bragg and Pettigrew. Speaking of the latter, I fully agree with Happy Harpy - I don't know what they are trying to do with that dynamic, but it's not working; it's so stilted and awkward and forced, and there's no there there. Still, as someone who liked Mills (and McG) on The Brave, I was glad to see him have slightly more to do, but I do hope they drop this thing with Pettigrew before it goes anywhere. I also agree that enough is enough re: the dearly departed fiancee. We're beaten over the head every single week with mentions of "my daughter!!" and "my fiancee!" and it's just too much. I had a real issue with the scene where everyone self-righteously scolded Erica for wanting to potentially sacrifice the possibly evil or possibly just naive/stupid/venal guy in order to capture the murderous terrorist. Are these people a bunch of kindergartners? Sure, the idea of sacrificing someone's life isn't a pleasant one, but it's not as if guy didn't assume a certain risk by, say, stealing info from the NSA. Also, in terms of how many people Tal has killed and wants to kill in the future? The whole conversation was (or should have been) a non-starter, but the writers sure dug in their heels and made the entire group seem like a boring, ridiculous combination of petulant Pollyannas. That said, I am glad that Keaton called out Erica's blatant hypocrisy. However, she does know better than any of them that saving one life and therefore letting Tal roam free can have immediate, deadly consequences. This episode had a lot of problems (and there was even a scene where I thought JCarp uncharacteristically didn't do all that well [it might have been the scene where she was telling Keaton that the op was a complete failure and then she raised her fist in a really awkward manner]), but I suppose that I'm hopeful that next week will shake things up for the better. Do I actually think that will happen? Most likely not, but . . . hope springs eternal, I guess.

I only characterized it that way since so much time had been spent describing her behavior as being the product of a mental disorder/illness before they finally found the root cause. Of course, there is a marked difference between the two things, and your overall point regarding her recovery is well taken.