Partly

I loved the idea of the ABC show since it was (sort of) a continuation of Magnum. I'm disappointed that it didn't get a showing -- although, I liked the idea of Leverage a lot more than the actual show, so there's that. I'm willing to give this new reboot a chance (if it gets picked up). The concept is a sound one, even if it has a lot to live up to. Magnum broke a lot of ground in the 80s, being one of the first fictional works that showed Vietnam vets in a positive light. It will be interesting to see if they keep the voice-overs, Magnum's "little voice", the (still unique) self-depreciating humor surrounding the main character, and all those little touches that made the show so good. As for other Lenkow shows, I didn't watch Haiwii 5-0 past the first season, however, I do enjoy the MacGyver reboot. I also liked CSI:NY and 24, and Lenkov worked on both of those. A lot will depend on the actors. Tom Selleck really grew into the role and had that boyish charm that worked with the humor and, yet, he could pull off the seriousness that colored a lot of the episodes. Guggenheim wrote the movie Miracle and episodes for Parenthood, so there is some skill there.

I think it's more the idea that she was interested rather than looking for a "move in and settle down" relationship. I think a long-distance, meet-up-in-foreign-lands, flirt-over-the-phone, leave-cute-packages relationship would be fun to watch and fit her character. she lost someone that she obviously loved deeply, something light and fun will probably go a lot further to healing her than anything else.

But this is true of the original BAU as well. And, quite frankly, true of every amateur detective, private eye and TV lawyer that ever were written. In fact, unless there is an overreaching character or story arc that needs to have some incompetency with or failure of the IRT in order to play out, such a storyline would be pointless. There needs to be a underlying reason in order to have the IRT go with they're not needed. It's just the underlying conceit of the show -- in fact, it's the underlying conceit of every TV show. The main characters have to be the heroes.

My unpopular opinion: I think the whole "Dean and Sam were fated since the beginning of time to be the vessels for Michael and Lucifer" is one giant angel retcon. I don't think that Heaven or Hell cared a whit about the Winchesters until after Sam survived Azezel's tests and Dean broke the first seal in Hell. That's when they popped up on everyone's radar and suddenly the angels and demons were willing to move heaven and hell to make sure the Winchesters became the chosen ones and, in fact, they made sure that the Winchesters were always the chosen ones. The angels (and Lucifer) forced their mythology onto Dean and Sam -- manipulating people, circumstances, and history as needed. It wasn't even a conscious choice, once they saw the Winchesters as the chosen, they became the chosen. It was right. It was destined. Now I realize this is just my own private head-cannon, but I like it.

And this where I view the story differently: I don't see the whole arc being about Dean leading up to being a vessel and then the writers dumping the story line -- I see the story line as Dean's fight against the "fate" of being a vessel. To me, that is the story line that has all the emotional and character arcs in it: From Dean's first saying no to the third act arc of his losing faith and being ready to say yes, to his rediscovering his courage and going back to saying no. In my mind, Dean was never supposed to say yes. He is always about free will and not succumbing to all the pressure being put on him to just give up. I know that there are a lot of fans who see Dean's denial as a cheat of some sort, but I see it as a fulfillment of his character. In my view of the character, it would have been a cheat to have him become Michael's vessel.

But he was willing to die to save Sam (and in turn, save the entire world). Isn't that doing something? The willingness to take the bullet, to stand true to who you are and what you believe despite the extremely low chance of winning and the extremely high chance of dying IS an action. An action that, in real life, has changed the world many times. I love the fact that the show allows both Dean and Sam to be heroic in more than one way. My unpopular opinion.

One of the things that I really loved about this episode was that Lily's backstory mirrored almost every hunter's backstory ever: Normal person encounters the Supernatural being who terrorizes them/kills their loved one(s), driving that person to become a hunter in order to get revenge or protect others. In many ways, angels are just another supernatural menace to humans in the Supernatural universe. It really explains the fear angels have of Nephilim -- after all, a Nephilim would be a being whose power would rival that of angels, but whose allegiance could be to humans. In many ways, angels are at the top of the supernatural food chain; a Nephilim would change all that. For that matter, so did human/demon Jesse Turner. Cas said he could vanquish all the angels in Heaven with a single word. While that much power could be used against humanity, I think the average angel is motivated by self-interest much more than concern for humanity. I also thought it was interesting how often it was stressed that Lily wasn't a threat to humans. Although most hunters are driven by revenge, protecting humans from the supernatural is the number one job of hunters. Hunters just don't kill humans -- not matter how evil they may be. The hunters didn't kill Bucky even after they found out what he did to Asa. Look at how horrified everyone was when Dean, under the influence of the MoC, killed Randy and the lowlifes that had taken Claire -- the thought that he may not have killed them in self-defense was horrifying, no matter how richly they may have deserved to die. After all, if they would have been supernatural creatures, there would have been no question that Dean should have killed them. But hunters don't kill people. Which means that once the actions of the BMoLs comes to light, there's no way anyone will work with them. While the killing of all supernatural creatures, no matter what could possibly (perhaps) justified, there's no way American hunters are going to stand by and let them kill humans.

Except... the girl wasn't a Nephilim, she was human. As Lily said, "I had my daughter long before I set eyes on an angel". Ishim killed the daughter to punish/torture the mother.

Bob Lee is a sniper, he long ago came to terms with killing people, Memphis has not. She may never see that as an option. Bob Lee is working from a war footing, he's always had a chain of command where, in the end, killing people was viable. Right now, he's on war footing again and killing people is still viable. Memphis is still law enforcement and killing isn't ever a good choice. Their basic philosophies are at odds -- thus makes for great storytelling on many levels.

I find it interesting that Bob Lee's "death" isn't a continuing ploy. His wife and daughter and Nadine knew at the end of episode where he first set it up. The end of this episode all the bad guys know and so does Bob Lee's sister-in-law. From the looks of the preview, even more people are going to know Bob Lee isn't dead. Of course, everyone who knows seems to have a vested interest in keeping that information secret, so Bob Lee should be able to buy things without getting the cops called on him all the time. I really think that having Isaac kill the mother was a serious mistake. Meachum said that if Isaac wouldn't do it they could always send in Payne -- which seems like it would have been infinitely better. Isaac strangles her and buries her body (and his DNA) in a shallow grave? Yeah, no way that's not going to be an issue later. Payne definitely the guy you want on clean-up duty -- Memphis would have been a suicide if not for Bob Lee. And once again we see that while Bob Lee is the best sniper ever but although he may be damn good at hand-to-hand, he's still outmatched by a lot of the people after him. I seem to be in the minority, in that I really was looking forward to the the flashbacks in this episode. And I am really hoping that we get some more of them. Not so much for Bob Lee, but for Isaac and for the rest of the conspiracy. They did a great job of working the flashbacks into the episode while keeping the current storyline going, so they can do it. There's quite a few balls in the air right now and I'm excited to see how they handle them all.

I like Flynn. I enjoy his brand of crazy -- even though I'm with Ezekiel in being happy to see him be wrong (if that won't mean the end of the world). I enjoy the show without him, but that's only because I also really like the other characters just as much as I do Flynn. It's a pleasure to watch a show where I like all the characters. It doesn't matter who they feature, I love to watch them all.

I love the fact that when Bob wins, everyone wins!

I'm really liking the show, it's really jelling in these last two episodes. I love his wife. She's strong, passionate, knows her husband and she trusts in him. She knows who he is and doesn't shy away from that. That's incredibly rare on television -- well, in any fiction, to be honest. She's very loyal to Bob Lee, but she doesn't put her loyalty to him over the immediate safety of her family. I also like the fact that she doesn't understand the importance of Musa Qala. I also love Memphis. She's cool under pressure but not overly confident. She's sticks with the FBI until the preponderance of the evidence says not to -- or at least until she meets Bob Lee in person and it's gets harder to ignore all the little bits that don't add up. And she's going to have to watch her back because Isaac certainly knows that Bob Lee isn't dead, he if he suspects that she It's rare for a show to have two female characters I like. I think it would completely undermine Bob Lee's character if he would hook up with Memphis, he clearly loves his wife and his little girl. I'm really hoping this show is above such a cheap trope. I also love that Bob Lee is good -- very good -- at what he's doing but that he's not perfect. It was the guy at the VA who thought of changing the ID number on Bob Lee's record. Plus, while it's clear that he has a lot of personal trust with the people he goes to for help, they don't all just turn a blind eye to what is going on. It took a lot for the VA guy to help him and then you could see that it was a hard decision. I'm really looking forward to the next episode. I'm hoping that it will give insight into Isaac's motives for picking Bob Lee as the fall guy. Isaac was setting Bob Lee up to die and that isn't an easy thing to do to someone you know, harder even when that person saved your life. There has to be a personal reason for doing that. Especially considering how dangerous Bob Lee is.

Ah, I misunderstood what you were going for. I absolutely agree with this. The trick is that she has to both grieve for the children she lost and rejoice that she got them back at the same time. That's got to be hard. The boys want to deal with the happiness of having her back but Mary is decades behind on the whole grieving process, and that's a big disconnect. They are thrilled and ecstatic and want to move forward, while she's sad and still needs to deal with the past . I'm really pleased that the show is making an effort to acknowledge that.

Because everyone loves talking about sensitive issues with their mother? And in many ways, Mary is a stranger. Worse, she's a stranger that carries with her all the emotional hurt of growing up motherless and the unrealistic expectation that everything will be right if only Mary can be their Mom again. Wouldn't the emotional weight of wanting to be loved by your mother make sharing true feelings that much harder? It would be psychologically and emotionally wrong to have Mary be unaffected by what has happened; for her to be able to just walk into this life and deal. Even beyond that, it would be poor writing to have her just be a prop to soothe Dean and Sam and make everything better. I want Mary to be an actual, complex character. Right now I see great possibilities for all the characters. As much as I want to see Dean happy, I don't want someone to come in and make him happy, he needs to work through this, face the emotions and deal with them. The same goes for Sam. And for Mary. This whole story arc has me thinking about the adage "Put your oxygen mask on first" (From flying when the flight attendant instructs you to put your oxygen mask on first, before helping others.) You have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. That's what Mary is doing right now. And since it's the one thing that Dean never does, it's easy to hate Mary for doing it.