ML89

First, Riley, no one in Miami is dressing like your daughter when it’s cold. They’d be in a hoodie, shorts and flip flops, or at least they are in my part of Florida. They wouldn’t be wearing that drab outfit, no wonder she didn’t want to wear it. But the main offender was the whole prosecutor’s office, which needs to be fired. Baxter’s multiple conflicts of interest, Maroun’s eye rolling moralizing (I was thinking she’d find out the guy wasn’t a SEAL or something), and then Nolan’s performance. I was hoping they’d let Maroun cross that awful dad, since she obviously triggered him, but that’s a Cutter move and Nolan doesn’t have the go for the jugular instinct. Instead Nolan just folds like a cheap suit and now those two girls get terrible lives. I missed Olivet or Skoda and what the hell was that other therapist doing, telling them how it all went down? This ep was a mess.

I’m interested to see the Galaxy Quest tribute (that’s what it has to be, right?) and happy that we get Scotty again.

I know they must be contractually obligated, but "you can follow along in the scorebox" and you'd be out before the first hour is over.

What’s this new Say Yes to the Dress with Tan France on after the “regular” one?

Dear NBC Director, do NOT do a facial closeup at the start of the program then switch late to a long shot because it took you forever to switch. You got better at switching by the end of the last group but it was still annoying as all get out. Amber looked like a bundle of "get me out of here" in all the backstage shots so I wasn't surprised. But I was glad she rallied. And I will stand by my opinion that with all the Janet Jackson songs she could have chosen, that was NOT IT. She could have skated to "Control" and rocked the house. Or "What Have You Done for Me Lately." Alyssa just charms me and she somehow sells that dreary SP song. As for her free, I love MacArthur Park as a song and it's gotten better over the year but that ending still isn't right. She should have taken the "there will be another dream for me" interlude and sold the hell out of it and made it a highlight. They keep selling it as fun disco when they could have played into her comeback ::steps down from song choice soap box:: I hope she does well in the free. I still don't understand what she's done to her front teeth though. Or how that SP dress stays on. Every time Isabeau takes off, I think she's going to pitch forward on her face. I can't believe her coaches haven't stopped her from that. That said, love the outfit and the program. What was with all the blonde? Tara was really blonde and Kaori Sakamoto with her new blonde looks. I think I've missed a trend.

I was expecting this starting about a hour after the event was reported. Cop side was quite well done - the drones and the cameras, Detective Yee calling the shots, very effective. But the law side…Nolan was a disaster. Finally, he gets all the pieces handed to him, so he is not going to back down. You’d think, after all these eps of everyone’s personal drama, Nolan’s dad would have figured into this somehow. Riley mentions Shaw waiting in the ER for 11 hours and Brady says “that’s the game” - perfect ER vet response. But I hated that non-ending.

I love origami but the crane fold always did me in, because I was looking at a book and that part where you make a pocket fold does not really translate to drawings of how to do it. Seeing it "live," yeah, I could have rocked that one. I still don't get what was up with the nails on that ninja challenge, and them just bouncing off the target. I wouldn't have stayed around for more than 20 attempts, though. If I hadn't gotten it in 5, out. Happy for Scott and Lori (because older team - and he still loses to Jonathan in the obnoxious guy sweepstakes) and the gamer guys - are they carrying one backpack and switching? I got involved in watching what everyone was carrying around this time. Maybe because yeah, 90 minutes was a bit long for this one. Also how did Vegas Guy in black get away with black when everyone else has both team members in their color, I wonder? Do they penalize?

I wondered why we never saw the guy again

To quote Homer Simpson, d'oh. Thanks for the information - I had forgotten that, obviously. Still, it seems crazy that the show that used to give us almost no information about its crew is now routinely building eps around everyone's personal lives, and this time, it was dueling trauma. Yes, please. Unless we're building up to everyone quitting en masse at the end of the season. For someone whose default personality seems to be "oh, not this again," Nolan is now into it with Shaw, Maroun, and Baxter. Didn't he also cross Riley and Brady? I mean, McCoy, Cutter or Stone crosswise with people, sure. But Nolan really seems like a getalong kind of guy. Yes. It's bad enough that the criminals are dumb - I am always baffled by these people coming home with bloody shoes and just leaving them in the house. I mean, get to the door, put it all in a garbage bag, get some new shoes on, and go ditch the evidence in a garbage dumpster blocks from your house. But Price and Maroun seem to spend most of their time onscreen losing motions, getting caught flatfooted by court testimony and being upset that they don't have a winning case.

I was wondering - was that the brother who was arguing with him about their dad? I have to say I was on Shaw’s side and that whole crowd should have shut up about 10 years for that miserable circumstantial case. Also, okay, so, the actor had the stalker in, his assistant in, the boy band guy in - spoilers for an old movie I’m glad Baxter finally told them to make a deal. And yay for Detective Shi Undercover. I wish Nolan had told the ex-wife that his “Personal Drama” was outweighed by another cast member’s.

Okay, of people who lived anyway - I think worst is Borgia, then Claire, then Green and Logan - I'll put poor Ed third because going out about to be convicted of murder...wow. I thought it was a lousy way to write him out but I did like Lupo and Bernard in this one. I did love Ed's apartment. My headcanon is that Logan, Curtis and Green were at Anita's party in the original finale, we just didn't see them on camera. I will not be taking questions at this time.

The fox was absolutely adorable. Anyone else hear someone saying that the new toy set was lead? Tristan used to annoy me but he's beginning to find his way and I'm liking the new version. Several posters had mentioned the ship way back so I was waiting for that anvil, now you've got me with the Singapore anvil. I also agree on the phone call - not only that they had it at all but they held on while Tristan ran to get Mrs Hall. Too much watching MASH where it's always hard to get a phone call at all, and that's ten years later without the whole world at war.

I liked Cutter and Rubirosa and Ben and Claire the best, I think, although Serena was about the only one I really couldn't stand before this team. I think either Price or Maroun might be better if they were paired with someone else - together they are terrible. I so agree on how grim the show seems. I find myself happy when we get to the "find the body" without having actually seen the person murdered, which they thankfully seem to be backing off on a bit. There's no snap to the writing, and everything seems just washed out in the cinematography, although I know that's a side effect of shooting digital. This one, I really wanted to slap Price sideways. Seriously, the pastor could have not murdered the lawyer. This isn't your "got caught in a bar fight" or whatever it was, this guy bludgeoned someone he knew to death. Pastor had it coming, to badly paraphrase Chicago. I felt sorry for the girlfriend although her "I can't drive" - you could move to NYC, I'm told that many people there can't drive. You've already got a support system. Instead, you're going to marry a guy off to jail for years who's already demonstrated that he's got a hair trigger, and will be backed up by the whole community against you.

Maybe I need new glasses but I didn’t know they were strawberries until someone said it because they were too round - they looked like tomatoes on my non 4K TV.

The low point in this one was when they specifically hit us over the head with Alice Munro references. What were Shaw and Riley even doing there on the day of opening statements? A friend wrote an “Aftermath” fic and realized by the title cards and the ones in the ep before, Claire is alive and in court the day after she’s dead. (I won’t mention the absolute ridiculousness of the guy being executed within less than a year of his trial). This was such a mess of an episode, for all the reasons mentioned so far. I’m looking at the poster for this movie and thinking “Riley is taking his daughter to that movie? RILEY?” The victim isn’t coming to her mom’s premiere? No one recognizes an influencer-model? $20 million bond - is the mom Spielberg? For some reason, Brady interrogating the mom made me remember why I couldn’t stand Tierney on ER. I guess we see now why Maroun wasn’t saying much the last few weeks, they must pay Halevi by the word and were cutting costs. I’m at the point that the whole Order side could take a hike and take Brady too, and the show would be better. I’d rather watch Shaw and Riley as private detectives on their own. Stephen Cannell could have written them a fun show.