Ottis

This was the first SNL I have ever fast forwarded at some point through every single skit. Didn’t care about Kevin Hart’s kids. The NBA skit was painful. So was the Christmas bear skit. And the guy with a boat. The guy who had to go to bathroom should have been funny but came across as too angry. I did see the end of the superhero skit... not sure what the point was, even black heroes get pulled over, and they do cocaine? Action Jack was OK.

Only Alex and Luke were interesting. They worked together on a business, and didn’t blink at the weirdness of it. I wish we had seen more about the business as it grew. Phil acts more like a car salesman than a real estate agent. I’m way over Claire, her dad and the closet business. And Pam.

Me, either. But then I held the last 6 episodes on DVR for months before I decided to watch them this week, because I had lost the thread of what this show was about after season three. The initial mystery of the clones held my interest for most of the first three seasons. The ever changing alliances and villains lost me. And then Tatiana and her amazing ability to be different people kept me linked even as I stopped watching. I have no idea why Allison came back different. Were they trying to show us how uptight Allison might become happier? PT came into the picture too late, in too vague a way, for him to feel even slightly realistic. IMO the show would have been better off with the initial villains, vs. bringing in a new one to lead them all. And I'm heartless, so all the clone time always left me meh. What I did like was how they each processed finally being free, and not being property. If that's what happened.

I struggle with the villain. Westmoreland came out of nowhere several years into the show. I have never been able to muster up much feeling about him. I would have liked it better if a bad guy from the first season was the Big Bad later.

Frank actually says he’s scared at the end, doesn’t he? I just wish it was clear what he had accomplished. Of course, now he can pursue his own war against injustice, so he still has something to fight. I hope he is smarter going about it than what we saw this season.

I liked the set up for The Punisher. I didn’t like what they did with Frank. I don’t understand what Frank was doing. We were told those who killed his family were dead. But he asked Russo if he knew that Frank's family would be killed. Russo did but refused to participate. So are those who killed his family still alive? Who killed his family? And why kill them and not Frank? Meanwhile, Micro brought Kandahar into the open and Orange was... what, killing those who were involved? Curtis should have been a pretty easy target, but that didn’t happen. And Gunner was found thanks to Frank. So was Orange erasing his tracks or not? And what was Frank's goal here ... Curtis was alive, Gunner was alive, Russo was alive... what evidence did Frank have that Orange was killing the team? Frank didn’t seem to have any tactician skill, or any planning abilities. He had experience in warfare, and an inhuman ability to take punishment. That seems ... disappointing for a super hero. He also seemed unstable and prone to emotion. Not assets. So in the end, there were elements of a good story, but they didn’t fit together for me. It was very haphazard and brutal and that’s about it. It was better in DD, as an examination of how those two had different approaches to making the world a better place. In Punisher, it wasn't clear to me what Frank's agenda was given the evidence he (and we) had. So when he killed someone, got revenge I guess?, it was tough to have much catharsis.

BTW, didn't we already know this? The viewers? I thought we did. When he said he did it, I thought, yes, we know. The further I go into this series and these threads, the fewer posts there are. Is that a statement about how people feel about this series?

The guy playing Orange was terrible. Like Josh Gad as a bad guy. His speech with Russo was silly. Too over the top. And I still don’t know who killed Frank’s family. Boy, they love to say “Look at me” on this show.

This should not be a surprise. It's been true for years now, since end of season three. It's why I stopped watching a few episodes into season four, and now I just catch up on the finales. I'm not missing anything.

Funny is definitely YMMV, because I was bored to tears and this episode felt particularly like "let's crank SOMETHING out because holidays" to me. Franco was meh. This skit felt like they were trying to say something, but it went too weird to make a clear point (kidnapping, etc.). If it had stuck to something along the lines of how inconsistent sexual harassment claims can be, in a more realistic way, it would have been better. Gretchen was sort of similar. In both skits, the women around them didn't come off well, which was surprising for this show.

Finally - some punishing. While violent, no art to it. Bad guys blunder onto home territory of Frank, and lose. OK, I guess. This ep I think confirmed for me my issue with the entire series - the pacing is terrible. Far, far too much time spent treading water, while The Punisher sits in his lair and is sad. And then, when he finally decides to take matters into his own hands, it's all very mechanical and blunt, no emotion and very little catharsis for Frank or viewers. Even then, I kept thinking that the guys he was killing were guys like him, they just happened to be hired by Billy. They weren't vigilantes specifically hunting Frank for personal reasons, or wanting revenge on Frank. And as far as we know, they haven't done anything specifically heinous to deserve death. So the fact he kills them with no compunction is a bit awkward for me. Billy, yes. Random dudes who work for Anvil, not so much. At least we are rid of Lewis.

Bernthal was good if The Punisher is supposed to be an animal driven by the need to escape, with an inability to plan. He sounds like Rocky half the time. I actually was laughing at all his loud grunting as he ran around. He’s not a hero, he’s a head case. At least in this show. Had to try to watch this episode four times before I could finish it. It wasn’t interesting to see pieces of what happens out of order. And I still don’t know why Lewis is on this show and why we should care about him. I guess he is the PTSD public service announcement.

To be fair, he and Gunner were resisting so even good soldiers might have been shooting to kill. I’m just saying the show didn’t make it clear that Frank knew who those soldier-like men were. We’re having to assume what he might have assumed.

Wow, ALL the episode comments are about how the radio show should have been Trish Talk? If that's not a sign of how bad this show has been, I don't know what is. Frank is a dummy. At times a blowhard. He wasn't even smart enough to play along with Lewis to save Curtis. His little fit worked only because the writers decided it would. There was no logic to it. This show has been as disappointing as Iron Fist. I think Madani noticed something in Billy's comment about Sam having a gun and being killed by a guy with a knife.

So basically, Frank is kind of a fearless dumb ass. Or maybe an idiot savante. He does what he does without thinking much about it, or really without much preparation. He just knows stuff and he isn't afraid. And he reacts a lot. My sympathies are with Micro, who has to watch his family go on thinking he's dead. And at some point, as in this ep, showing signs of moving on beyond Micro. He is handling that way better than I would. I've now watched 8 episodes of this show and Frank is not impressing me. Nor is the show, really. If Madani became a female Punisher I'd like it more.

I agree. I'm not a fan of the zombie-genre either but I loved TWD from the beginning. I always thought it was about CHARACTERS and I really enjoyed most of the characters. Sunday night was one of the lowest points in TWD history, in my opinion. When the camera zoomed in on Eugene's vomit and STAYED there, I thought 'that's for the teenage boys'. Screw characters AND zombie gore. Lost sucked the moment it decided that "characters" mattered. What made TWD different was its setting and mythology. When the world ends, how does humanity react? And can we get the world back? That made the first three seasons of TWD excellent. And then it began to trod in circles, with a new bad guy each season, a few deaths and no one getting anywhere. I dropped out after season three, maybe a couple into season four. I read this recap because, duh, a recap! And it appears the show continues to trod, except now it does so even more glorily gleefully. Which is a shame. And a waste. And not shooting the enemy when you can? It seems to be spreading.

Ok, I’m out. I tried to stick with Supergirl but it is too much of a soap opera about relationships and silliness. 45 minutes of that before anything interesting happened. It felt like one of those shows I never watched, like Dawson’s Creek. It’s off my DVR. I wonder if Flash and Arrow are next.

I'm beginning to think Frank ain't so smart. Yes, the legit authorities aren't after you, Frank, but you already know these guys aren't legit. So they are still after you. And Lieberman knows he tripped something. So Frank can tell legit soldiers from mercenaries dressed like soldiers? So he knows which ones to kill?

What. The Hell. Is this show about. Because it isn't about the Punisher I remember. Frank, Mr. Elite soldier who is now a superhero Punisher, doesn't suspect Billy *at all,* despite the fact Billy runs a private security company and Frank was attacked by (and killed) soldiers that he apparently had identified as being mercenaries and not gov't soldiers? Some random dude with PTSD is shooting at his dad and kills another vet who lied? Should I care about this guy? Does he become a villain or something in the comics? Every time he is on the screen, I browse my phone until we come back to the matters at hand. Meanwhile, Frank is being used and punished by everyone. I think his persona has the wrong name. Also, are the people who killed his family dead or not? A character said in one of the first two eps that those people were dead, and yet Frank says they are not. Is he just hunting further up the food chain now? Does he know something we don't, or is he just nuts or was the earlier character misinformed?

I struggled with this. Anyone who understood how important this moment was to Nicole would not let their one side comment ruin the moment. Marvin should have expressed support and then apologized for his earlier comment, noting it was a pun, etc. He unnecessarily caused his daughter angst by putting his own embarrassment above what he had to have known was a seminal moment in Nicole's life. While I think Nicole's story line is the best thing about this show, it stands out in tone from all the silliness. It feels inauthentic. Has the show dealt with any other meaningful theme this sensitively? It made fun of death. It mocked the relationship between Jessica and her dad before passing it off as one that works for them for some unknown reason. Cattleman's Ranch is one long joke. Also, Eddie seems to have grown the hell up fast - not physically, but in maturity. Pretty much since last season. That, too, seems weird, though I like this Eddie better.

This show should be called "The Punished," not "The Punisher," because it so far has consisted of Frank either being sad and maudlin or getting his ass kicked. Maybe we the viewers are The Punished. I hope so. They had one soldier saying something like, "I'm going to kill you!" to Frank so they made a weak attempt to clarify. But it could have been better. I had the same misgivings - were these just soldiers doing their jobs?

What did Eddie say about missing George Carlin? Didn’t Carlin die about 10 years later?

This ep may have been beautiful but it was also boring. So Elliot wants to live and undo the hack. That took a long time to get to. The scene with Angela was pretty but pointless.

Or his cell phone, which seemed obvious. And then later a cell phone becomes the catalyst. Sneaky Pete is variably sneaky, it seems. I've made it u to 5 episodes. My biggest issue is that I don't care about ANY of the characters. They are interesting to greater or lesser degrees, but if they all died I would shrug.

Aside from CERN, those all are corollaries to DA being terrorists that WR uses(and which make him a terrorist, with a plan). I'm assuming CERN is tied to Angela's mutterings, which as I said are the only interesting part of the show left IMO. Maybe I don't get it but I'm done with Elliott vs. Mr R.