SnarkEnthusiast

This weeks finale of Unbreakable was so odd. I get everyone displays grief differently and tears are by no means mandatory, but Heather had such a bizarre detached, monotone, almost nonchalant delivery of even the most harrowing parts of her story. She talked about trying to stop her father from shooting like it was a memory from a high school lacrosse game or something. But her niece had the exact same emotionless tone when describing watching her mother be murdered in front of her at age 11 (and in present day she's 15, if that), so there's definitely something off about that entire family. The poor kids. The strangest thing was that there was no telltale "warning signs from my childhood" segment. It was basically "my life was totally normal until the random half-sister I didn't know I had moved in" which feels like there's a massive chunk of back story missing. I guess she did mention the paranoia and end of days ranting, but wasn't that after the sister moved in? So we're supposed to believe this man was father of the year until children not eating vegetables set him off? I'm ashamed now to admit I laughed out loud at what I thought was Heather's hyperfocus on the vegetable issue and phrases like "his hatred of vegetables just kept rising" until it turned out that that was the final inciting argument with her sister and the issue enraged the father to such a degree that this man actually said "that's what you get for not eating your vegetables" to his horrified grandchildren after delivering the kill shot to their mother. If you didn't know it was from an actual case, it sounds like an SNL comedy sketch along the lines of Dear Sister. It's safe to say even as a veteran ID channel viewer, that's one of the most unusual triggers. Yes he was obviously unstable, but…you really murdered half your family over not eating vegetables? in reality, I'm hoping that it was actually precipitated by him catching wind of the divorce talk and he deflected by hyper fixating on his usual vegetable issue, because I refuse to process the horrible tragedy of a mother of young children being murdered over something so stupid. I mean pretty much every reason is stupid, but that one takes the cake for sure. It has to make you wonder what was going on in the sisters life that she would uproot her kids across country, arrive and see her estranged father ranting about the news and yelling at her for hours on end about vegetables and still think "yeah, this is still a preferable living situation and a better environment for my kids."

I guess since Amy/Jonah are settled now, Dina/Garrett Have to carry the angst and conflicts. This will be hard for them to come back from, especially because none of the birds recovered. Maybe now that Garrett feels so much additional guilt since she knows, maybe he will go out and find some and return them to her in the finale – that's the only way I could see fences mended well enough for them to have a shot as a couple again.

I once saw a post that said "It's 2019, time to stop falling for straight girls and fall for lesbian and bi women who just don't like you," and it spoke to me as a bisexual woman who has been trying unsuccessfully to date women for years LOL. I've never had a crush on a straight girl, they reject me for reasons totally unrelated to orientation. 😛 It's very weird that they're basically doing a role reversal of the Kat/Adena storyline when Kat's entire plot last year was about her having a Magical Gaydar that could seduce women on the spot and being flooded with vag pics on dating apps at 10am. Apparently her dating options have really dwindled since that lesbian bar closed. Also, I guess I should've realized it before now, but if you think about it's incredibly inappropriate and unprofessional to be making romantic advances towards your political campaign manager and saying things like "I know you thought this was a fundraiser, but it's a date! What do you mean you're not interested? You've obviously been flirting with me." Being a social media manager for a major publication, she should recognize that that shit would get her #MeToo-ed within 24 hours. But because Kat's young, hot, and queer, it's fine! Tia was also portrayed as cold and dickish basically for being straight, which was certainly… a choice. Patrick is indeed bisexual, and now that you guys mention it, I would actually be here for a Patrick/Jane hook up. Imagine the hate sex! Sure he's entitled obnoxious and thinks the world revolves around himself and his experiences, but all of those things could also describe Jane. I agree with the poster above who said that Patrick is the only one who doesn't baby Jane or exacerbate her unbearable Mary Sue-ness. Pinstripe is bland as hell. It would be interesting to see the "rivalry/conflict as a cover up for sexual tension" trope play out as simple resentment that had nothing to do with secretly being attracted to the person, but rather was just burning hatred that accidentally turned into sex. But, Patrick seems to be there as the token queer male character, so like Kat, we probably won't see him in any heterosexual liaisons. Why do they think anyone cares about Richard and Sutton in general, much less contrived suburban tensions? Sutton basically wants a sugar daddy and ego boost of banging her superior. I don't get why either of them are shocked that they're on different timelines to have kids with a 14 year age gap.

That outfit they put Tandy in for the client was...not what I expected. I guess they were going for the virginal vibe. Shudder. Not to forget the significance of actual human trafficking, but the whole showdown between the pimp's girlfriend and the girl was beyond cheesy. I actually laughed out loud when the girl paused and said "that's not true… I have HOPE!" Anyway I'm glad Tandy was able to save her and her action/battle montage was very cool, although I was kind of taken out of it by the fact that she had to do it all dressed like a 12-year-old on her way to church. Even though it was part of the villain monologue, I appreciate the show's continued acknowledgment of how race/class differences affect the way Ty and Tandy see the world as well as the choices they're able to make. Looks like the stage is set for Ty/Tandy as a ship. Putting these episodes where they have to rescue each other back-to-back seems to be a way to get them to realize they each have deeper feelings for each other by going through all these traumatic situations where the other's safety is at risk. There's still the awkward Evita factor (non-factor), but I'm predicting an impulsive kiss by the finale.

I have an appointment to get my eyebrows waxed so I can't write a long post now, but getting my hair ripped out by the root will be more pleasant than this pile of literal horseshit. Fuck this show. Even dumbass Jachael deserved better. And I thought the last fantasy was supposed to communicate Raf would eventually recover if Jane chose Jachael???

THIS is what gets under my skin most. Regardless of how you feel about Jane/Raf or Jane/Michael (and now Jachael), they're just using Jachael as a mouthpiece to mock and belittle those who enjoyed their original relationship and Michael's true characterization, because apparently you can't organically have Jane choose Raf without slandering and shitting on a huge chunk of the series...which should tell you something. And it's made worse and flat out embarrassing by having Jachael spout this cringey brand of regressive, emotionally constipated, borderline homophobic toxic masculinity. "I was kind and empathetic? What do you mean I wasn't embarrassed by my wife? What a cuck I was! What a weenie!" It's the antithesis of everything that made Michael wonderful and loving, which is the deliberate intention. And you're absolutely correct that Michael had to leave the force as a result of lingering health problems from the shooting, so Jachael's random claim that it's all Jane's fault and she guilted him into retirement is yet another lazy retcon to irrevocably damage Jane/Michael by creating friction that will ruin Jane's nostalgia and therefore cause her feelings to cool. And let's face it, this zombie ship is being kept afloat by pure nostalgia, because Jachael (and Jane and Jachael's attitude towards one another) fucking sucks.

As someone with [severe] CP (...and Ryan's age...and an incredibly late bloomer...) this cut very close to the bone. I thought he was a little on the self-pitying side for someone whose disability is mild enough not to require help with daily care. His mom made me so sad and she's like the inverse of Maya from Speechless - so broken and worn down and no one gives her a break. No amount of hot dudes going down on you is going to fix your family. The harsher side of special needs families - codependency, control issues, arrested development, compassion fatigue, loneliness, isolation - were on full display in ways that were really painful. I've snapped at my parents many times, but he was just a raging dickhead in the finale. Both Carey and especially Phil (Mom's bf) were manic pixie dream guys - from extensive personal experience, no one is going to dump their hot able-bodied SO for an awkward disabled virgin with no social connections (me!). People do stuff like that all the time (invite you to third wheel dates, take you drinking, sometimes even kiss you/give you lapdances for "fun") to make you feel included and you're so hungry for social interaction that you take it all seriously, but you're a novelty at the end of the day. Ryan probably thinks Carey is his bf now, but Carey will write it off as a drunken kiss or still be dating that other guy. Re: Phil, as @Blakeston said, mama needs love too, but the idea that some hunky neighbor who looks like he just waltzed off the set of a Gillette commercial would materialize out of thin air and become so infatuated with a low self-esteem hermit that he can barely keep it in his pants long enough to get through the door....yeah, no. Kim is a delight. She and Brian Jordan Alvarez were both on the web series The Wondrous Gay Life of Caleb Gallo, which I highly recommend! And wow, that scene with Brian Jordan Alvarez as the sex worker was phenomenally well done and very tasteful. Normally the "disabled person hires a sex worker" trope devolves into a sappy "brave and selfless sex worker provides suffering, touch-starved disabled person release" narrative, but you can absolutely tell that scene was told from a disabled man's perspective. I loved that it was more or less a "cool, thanks for showing me how sex works!" before turning the focus right back to daily life. No pity, no nonsense self-loathing, no big deal. Here's hoping for a season 2 to resolve that fucking depressing cliffhanger. Ryan needs to step up his acting game, because his mom acted circles around him in that last confrontation.

Exactly! I hate love triangles in general as a trope and it usually makes all three look bad, so at first it was refreshing to have Tandy be so supportive. But how are we supposed to want Ty & Evita together if they're not just not on screen together, but she's barely a character to begin with? I think they keep her around for the voodoo/local lore connection, but she doesn't have to date Ty to do that. Are they together in the comics? Maybe that's why. I've never seen a more passive love interest/ship as an obstacle to the main pairing - love rivals to the main character are usually jealous/bitter/anxious or at least sad when they realize they have an expiration date. Evita's not even there! She is indeed a stall tactic to give Ty/Tandy time for buildup, but she's a literal placeholder with no personality or connection to Ty beyond a few throwaway lines about worrying for each other. It made me laugh that she was in the hallucinations as Ty's long term girlfriend because I was like "she's never with him in reality!"

I was very surprised that Tandy and Tyrone weren't dating in any of the alternate universe hallucinations - their chemistry has been off the charts lately. Maybe this rescuing subplot will kick the romantic subtext into main text. Aubrey Joseph is very cute and has a great dynamic with Olivia, but he's a noticeably weak actor. His monotone, deadpan delivery in response to every situation and emotion gets a little distracting.

Is Mark Mckinney a writer/producer/banging a writer? Nothing Glenn ever does or says is funny, but the show acts like he's always knee-slappingly hilarious. I'll never understand why him and his stupid baby voice are allowed to take up so much oxygen every episode. So they're all allowed to be dicks to Amy because they're "family"? I wish they had saved Amy being promoted to manager for the series finale, because this new work dynamic sucks and is not a good look for any of the characters. Jonah was, yes, smug, meddling, and insufferable, but at least that's closer to his original characterization than slipping on banana peels and sweatily waiting for Amy's approval. Amy has never been blander, stiffer, or more boring. Cheyenne and Mateo continue to redefine terrible. Dina apparently had a personality transplant with Garrett, and one Garrett shit-stirring plot is too many, let alone two. Most skippable episode of the season for me. Everyone's characterization has really gone down the toilet. Apparently "Amy is manager" translates into "the cast acts like middle schoolers while Amy watches and stamps her foot."

So, this episode was basically about everyone in the older generation being horny? lol. In all seriousness, Ro/Xo was good. I get that part of Alba's character evolution is resolving her conflict between religion and female sexuality, but I'm not sure I buy her suddenly being a vibrator expert and chatting away about her masturbation strategies. My general frustration with the love triangle notwithstanding, I really don't understand what they're trying to do with Michael and his relationship with Jane. That somber "we're just different people now" scene seemed like it was closing the door on their reconciliation, which I thought was a weird choice to do after Jane's feelings had just been a huge plot point, but that was apparently a segue to them taking a spontaneous trip to Montana, where I'm sure Jane will be put off by JaMichael's cowboy skills and give him another lecture about how They've Changed? I'm with @tennisgurl that this Jason/Michael hybrid is just a lazy vehicle to assassinate Michael's character and torpedo audience nostalgia around Jane and Michael's marriage to justify her returning to Rafael in the end. At this point, I would've preferred Michael stay dead, rather than resurrect him to ruin him. Are we sure Jane isn't imagining him? It's bizarre that everyone else keeps talking about him (and how rude and inconvenient it is that he came back from the dead!), but apparently only Jane ever talks to him. Giving Petra Zany Adventures in Lesbianism this season is amusing and cute, but feels very disconnected from everything else happening. Zelda Williams looked hot as hell. Also having Petra/Jane breathlessly giggling with their faces two inches apart while the audience chanted "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" is just blatantly fucking with Jetra shippers now haha.

Man, Brett Dier has the worst luck with love triangles lol. The guy cannot win! He's really had time to perfect that vacant, wistful, pining look. So their idea of "aging up" Barry was to throw him in a huge blazer over his high school wardrobe? Isn't he already a doctor by now? At least they tried with Erica. Assuming Adam Goldberg was out of high school by the 90s, is Schooled just a collection of loose memories that didn't make the cut for The Goldbergs? Was CB his middle school teacher or something? I didn't realize CB was based off a real person. I guess Erica is the only made up character, right? Coach Mellor is such a sweet man. I love the actor's commitment to both his weird idiosyncrasies and his softer side. By the end, I thought there might've been a little spark between him and the other teacher.

Bisexuality seems to be Voldemort of TV - always spoken about and alluded to, but never named. Once the character in question starts dating the same gender, the writers tend to retcon their heterosexuality, which is especially easy to do with Kat since we're never seen her with a man and her entire series archetype is to be The Queer One. Biphobia is alive and well, so many fans would consider it a regression or betrayal to pair her with a man now or even bring up her attraction to men. The only notable exceptions I can think of are Lost Girl, where essentially every (female) character is openly and nonchalantly pansexual, and South of Nowhere, where a bisexual love triangle essentially drives the plot of the whole series (spoiler alert: the girl in the middle ultimately picks the other girl whose sexuality she awakened, although the actress ironically married the actor who played her boyfriend). I love Kat's would-be girlfriend and I hope they give them some time to develop feelings and be cute before Adena's return. Pretty bold of Kat to be floating the "I like you as more than a friend so please be my date" conversation knowing she has a boyfriend. Really not digging or understanding the sudden "Jacqueline is a washed up racehorse being led to the media glue factory" storyline that this season insists on revolving around. So she's been EIC of in-universe Cosmo/Teen Vogue for a decade, but is blown out of the water by some 23-year-old goober in a matter of months because he's able to wow the board with his knowledge of...what, exactly? Sure, Jan.

Sure, but I was actually surprised they're suddenly in love. Haven't we only seen Jocelyn once? We saw Nick Cannon more than her! Lol. Especially with someone as guarded as Rosa, I was a little bit disappointed her being in love was a throwaway detail and that we didn't get to watch her and Jocelyn's relationship develop prior to this big angsty moment.

"Yay, another Cheyenne and Mateo plot!" said no one ever. The Dina/Garrett stuff was great, but forcing the 15-year-old into it took away some comedy imo and was kind of creepy. By the end, the kid looked terrified of Dina and her dance moves lol. Jonah helping high Emma was hilarious and sweet. "No it's ok, this is totally how normal people walk." They should've gone straight to that instead wasting time with the ice slapstick and cringe comedy. Although, since when did Jonah become a stammering nervous wreck in every situation? He's been very out of character lately. He's an overqualified guy with a dorky sense of humor and a bit of an undeserved superiority complex, not a socially awkward shrinking violet begging for approval. Are the writers intentionally making Cheyenne and Mateo as bitchy and grating as possible to make Amy seem sympathetic/tolerable by comparison?

Probably because he barely had to show up on set at all. I don’t know if his filming schedule with Schooled conflicted with JTV, but he’s basically a glorified guest star at this point. which doesn’t make any sense because Michael should be in the throes of the most emotionally traumatic period of his life! His reunion with Jane will feel even cheaper (on top of the insult of returning from the dead only to be demoted to an empty plot device) if she continues to arbitrarily declare her feelings for him while he’s off screen. Well, that episode felt like the equivalent of swallowing several horse pills – hard pass. I echo everyone else’s sentiment that Mateo was being a massive insufferable brat. The problem with child actors under 10 is everything they do just grates, one because casting directors cast for cuteness and not acting skills but two because they’re young kids, they can’t really portray any nuanced or sustained emotion. Couple that with the fact that the kid playing Mateo is a pretty weak actor (like father like son!) and what you get is all of the hammy huffing and fake screeching we got. Forget Mateo being whiny - Jane and Rafael are also petty, unsympathetic, miserable, childish, self-absorbed people. They’re easily the most unlikable family unit on TV right now. And man, does Justin's acting ability really go down the toilet when he has to enter his old bullshit jealous love rival mode. This triangle is single-handedly going to ruin the entire series‘ reputation. I can’t believe we got a Rogelio/Esteban/Baby subplot that literally no one asked for but still no Rogelio/Michael reunion. The audacity! Also really not enjoying the obvious anvil dropping that Xo is going to die. Talk about going out with a whimper. I feel like the entire cancer plot line is a huge insult to her character because all it’s done is justify putting her on the sidelines to prepare her to become tragedy porn. And you know it will be the episode before the finale or something. Talk about a steaming narrative turd that would dampen the ending even further. Was was the point of Jane seeing Jorje’s junk? So Jorje’s penis gets an entire subplot, but not Rogelio/Michael? Cool. Petra is the saving grace of this show. Yael is wonderful at showcasing her vulnerability/flaws while imo having the best comedic chops on the show.

To introduce another love triangle with Kat on top this time (no pun intended) and campaign aide will be seduced by Kat's magical lesbian radar. Also it adds more angst if her new love interest has a boyfriend, because then you get the "I'm falling for a straight girl/does she like ladies or not" drama.

The Jane stuff was so cringe, I just had to fast forward through all of it. Yeah yeah, sexual empowerment and whatever, but I dislike the apparent overall implication that if you're vanilla you're a sheltered flower or it's something that needs to be addressed as a potential stumbling block in a relationship. Not everyone is into kinky stuff! The Alex stuff...yeesh. I get that they were trying to do a (very belated) riff on the Aziz Ansari situation, but it's incredibly unfortunate to give this to Alex, one of only two Black male characters who hardly ever gets featured, and when he does, it's morally ambiguous #MeToo stuff, ugh. I agree with @sashayshante that it was laughably detached for Jacqueline to just shrug and tell Alex he would probably be able to keep his job because she personally supported him and understood his side, whereas in reality, the twitter mob would have him ousted in three days or less. As implausible as it is that a twentysomething social media manager with zero political experience would be able to viably run for city Council in a place like Manhattan, I actually like Kat's storyline. Looks like they're going for the AOC homage. If Kat graduated college in 2012, that would make her 28/29, which I don't buy at all, especially in terms of her career trajectory. That was a really weird detail to throw in there. She's obviously going to hook up with campaign aide lady, which should be interesting to watch – too bad it will all be thrown by the wayside when Adena inevitably reappears. I support Sutton pursuing fashion design! And the less I know about her and Richard's sex life, the better.

I know everyone has said some variation of this post before but I will say it again, The Coven's living situation is so odd. It's so weird watching an entire family unit sit around for years doing nothing all day but tending to Briana's woopsie babies, not to mention restarting the entire cycle over again with Stella even though Briana got pregnant with her as a grown adult! And then continuing to babysit while she hops on a plane to go get laid by her flavor of the month. At this point, she probably specifically choose men out of state so she can justify going out of town every weekend. Maybe it's the money, but I don't understand Roxanne or especially Britney's motivation to devote your life to coddling a spoiled family member who not only fails to appreciate your sacrifices to essentially raise her children for her, not to mention gives zero fucks about any of your wants or needs, but flat out just doesn't seem to like you very much to begin with. Beyond being "the baby," I don't get Briana's appeal within her own family. And definitely not to the degree where she apparently gets to dictate what everyone in the apartment does daily and controls the long-term life trajectories of her mom and sister.

I think the running joke (?) with Cheyenne and Matteo is that they're vapid, terrible, catty people who feed off each other's total obliviousness...except it's not funny and even though they've both had sympathetic moments, they just come off as rude and petty most of the time. In real life, the age gap would also be strange - it's not really noticeable because Nichole Bloom is 30 (and looks it despite the clumsy attempt to age her down with neon eyeshadow and pigtails), but I doubt a 30+ year old, very superficial man would be eager to be BFFs with a 19 year old teen mom.

Yeah, and besides, they already sort of touched on a pregnancy scare plot when Jane had to take plan B when the condom broke with Ben last season. That's why I'm confused why the writers think that tying the egg freezing to Jane's relationships and stupid love triangle makes any sense. Both with Ben and Pinstripe, she'd been banging them, what, max 3 months before this came up and suddenly she has to decide if she sees a future with them or wants them to father her future children? She can't even decide who she wants to bang! The egg issue is just such a arbitrary ultimatum to force relationship drama ("If you don't let me help with your eggs you must wanna break up!1!!1!"), because in reality, no sex partner of a few weeks should influence your emotions about your own reproductive health - nor should they want to! It's totally unrelated to them.

It's just about control. They get off on their partner needing them for every single aspect of daily life, even bathing and peeing, because it makes them feel in charge and important. They're so threatened by the prospect of weight loss because these women having any independence diminishes their ego and makes them feel inferior.

I echo the apparent consensus that Petra's reunion with JR was the only uplifting part of the episode. Looks like I'll get my Jane/Petra endgame after all. 😉 To my own surprise, I was underwhelmed by Michael's reintegration into the plot, which felt somewhat bumpy and forced. I found it downright offputting that he immediately launched into wanting Jane back and pressuring her via text message. Reading her book specifically as a pretext to emotionally manipulate her into choosing him felt very self-serving. There was a bunch of reminders of pushy S1 Michael in this episode that I did not like at all. Also, it's not like he forgot all his Jason memories when he remembered Michael – did he never date anyone as Jason? He had four years to fuck around and settle down too. It's a little weird, even when it's your true love, to say "I know we've had four years of building totally separate lives but now that I remember you, please upend your entire life and get back together with me immediately." The whole Rafael thing is just painful because Justin cannot act his way out of a paper bag when it comes to the big emotional beats. He can cry on cue, but that's about it. I also profoundly disliked that they gave Rafael a similar montage with Jane in service of the dumbass love triangle. "I got my memories back too Jane!!!!" Fuck you, no you didn't! I get that the writers were trying to say that the Michael situation has triggered his inferiority complex from the love triangle days with respect to being Jane's second choice, but the cringe worthy attempt to draw a parallel between that and actual amnesia with a repeat cutaway montage was beyond painful and totally cheapens the emotional impact of Michael's revelation last episode. Rafael kicking Jane out was overdramatic as hell, but it did kind of make me laugh that she's finally having some consequences for being stupid enough to constantly give both of her love interests the play-by-play of where her feelings are that day and how she can't guarantee that she won't leave them for the other one. Jane and Raf are also allowing their juvenile bullshit to negatively impact Matteo – when he woke up and overheard them they should have reassured him and de-escalated the situation, not continue to weep as Mommy walks into the cold dark night with no explanation. Talk about childhood trauma fuel. Just idiotic. tl;dr I'm really not looking forward to this season devolving into a pissing contest between Michael and Rafael because it's embarrassing and a major character regression for everyone involved, including Jane. I agree with @Nanrad - polyamory or bust! If they can't both have her, neither one should! I'm really, desperately hoping that tonight's health scare wasn't the foreshadowing nail in the coffin for Xo, because killing her off just for the sake of book ending the series with an impactful death or whatever would be incredibly cheap, especially in a series that revolves around maternal love and bonds between women. I can't even think about it. And the Alba plot...meh? I'm glad that she's getting her own time to shine and that the writers clearly aren't afraid to showcase older women having feelings and romantic plots, but every episode feels like a reiteration of the same thing. How long has she been pining over Jorje? At this point, he is either oblivious or a douche. Or both!

This was....ok. I liked that Patrick ate crow for writing off Jacqueline. Jane's gonna Jane. Oliver's storyline is a blatant ripoff of Karamo from Queer Eye (he unknowingly got his best friend pregnant when they were 14, after seeing him on The Real World she introduced him to their son at age 10, since she was struggling financially he offered to adopt him and his little brother).

That haunts me too, especially since she would've been way too young to give a statement or identify him. I fast forwarded through that part because even the reenactment of the crying baby actress was too hard for me to stomach, but I think the police believe he was worried her cries would alert someone that something was wrong. Or he was just irritated by her crying. It's not like he had logic or a conscience. Especially because he had just acted out a violent sexual fantasy, his adrenaline must've been pumping. It's either panic or a power trip. They just want control and the ego rush of everyone else being disposable/at their mercy.