SadieT

There's no resolution. It didn't seem like they expected to be cancelled at all. The main mystery remains unsolved and it looks like the writers intentionally left a lot of threads undone, probably thinking they'd have time to fix things. Marlene has claimed she'll eventually do a podcast to tie up loose ends but it's been a while since she's said that and nothing has come of it. I still enjoyed the season but I do wish we got some answers.

Did not see that ending coming. Was trying to see if Madison had a ring on her finger in the flash forward but I couldn’t spot one and it seemed like the camera was intentionally not focusing on her left hand. I’m actually kind of bummed she and Kevin didn’t get married, I like them together, but it was the right call.

Same. If that were my child, I'm breaking every rule imaginable. I'm making up new rules to break if need be. I wouldn't care how big a hypocrite it made me.

Me too! Abby was one of my favorite characters and big reason why I watched the show. I think a lot of that has to do with Maura Tierney's own likability and talent. She's a great actress and people find her relatable. Same with Sam, the character was kind of a mess but Linda Cardellini is usually pretty good and likable in whatever role she's in. I think the writers knew what they had with the actresses and just decided to dump an unending amount of drama onto them because the actors could handle it and people tended to enjoy watching them.

Came here specifically to complain about the lack of Snoos when they were the all important catalyst to the big fight last episode. And I didn’t even know they still sold crib bumpers since no one uses them anymore.

When I was a kid I totally pictured living on a compound with my parents and my siblings and our spouses and children when we grew up. This is the second time I felt like I could really relate to Kevin and that scares me a little lol. It didn't work out like that obviously but we're still close. It made me sad to see Toby drawing a line between his family and Kevin's family. I get that each household is its own little family unit (although apparently not when it comes to covid) but I still consider my siblings my family and I would love if my kids one day had cousins their own age they could grow up with. Why wouldn't you want that experience for your children if its possible? Toby acted like cousins going on vacations together was some far-fetched thing when it's really quite common. The snoo conversation cracked me up. I'm currently pregnant with our first child and put a very reasonably priced bassinet on my registry as family has been asking for "a list" to choose gifts from. My sister completely disregarded said registry and sent us a snoo that just arrived yesterday. The idea of having such an expensive baby item, especially one that the baby only needs for a few months, makes me very nervous. I hate being wasteful and could never justify such a high expense on my own but my sister is very excited for us and it's something she really wanted to do. She called about 5 times to see if her "mystery gift" arrived. It's not something I would buy personally but I happily accepted it because I know she bought it out of a place of love and joy. I get Toby's feeling down about losing his job but sometimes people just want to give you a nice gift. Choosing to look at receiving a nice gift from a loved one as an insult must be exhausting and just shows you're insecure., which Toby obviously is at the moment but it's a baby gift, he didn't have to lash out and insult Kevin and Madison for having more than him. I'm actually kind of interested in seeing how Beth's mom changes the dynamic in their household. I feel like things with Randall and Beth have been kind of stale so their side of things could use a shake up. Would like if they'd interact more with the rest of the Pearsons as well but I guess it makes sense they don't since they're on the opposite side of the country.

I don’t get Randall’s family tree story that was seemingly supposed to come full circle with Deja being pregnant. If Randall doesn’t consider his parents and his siblings his real tree because they’re not blood related, does he not consider Deja a real branch because she’s adopted and technically her baby won’t be biologically like Randall either? Maybe it’s just me but that whole metaphor bothered me. I think Randall puts too much weight in the biology of his family when there’s a lot of different ways to have a family and blood isn’t everything. It’s especially odd because he adopted a child and I feel like he still sometimes acts like blood is the most important factor in determining family.

A few of the characters were wearing neck gaiters but we very rarely if ever saw them pull them up. Of the handful of shows I’ve seen recently that filmed during the pandemic and are now airing episodes set in present time, PD was the most lax about incorporating masks and considering the premise of the show is cops interacting with the public, you’d think they’d be better about it. But then again I’ve seen plenty of real cops not wearing masks as well.

Adam is Kevin's friend now and apparently he only needs the one. Seems they dropped the close bond Kim and Kevin shared in earlier seasons in favor of Kevin and Adam's partnership.

Was worried the fishing grandpa/granddaughter duo was going to turn into another pointless horse girl tale and got irrationally angry at first. But then I actually ended up liking their scenes together and the “twist” at the end with Randall’s birth mom certainly made it interesting. When the episode opened with young Kevin being weighed on a scale at the doctor’s office my mind immediately went to Madison and the fact that she has an eating disorder and is pregnant with twins. I wondered if they would eventually touch on that and then they did, so I was pleased to see they didn’t just forget that we were first introduced to the character at an ED support group. I’m actually enjoying watching Kevin and Madison learn about each other and really want to see if they’ll work out. When Toby said it seemed like the mother had combed through their social media to figure out their interests I couldn’t decide if that was meant to be super obvious foreshadowing, or if it was an intentional misdirect to make us think the pregnant lady is shady when she’s really not. Either way, Toby and Kate better be careful. Also the diaper fight felt more like a skit they had prepared for the birth mom's benefit to show how quickly they resolve conflict than an actual argument. At first I thought it was cute that Randall was so oblivious to a girl liking him and just didn’t seem interested in girls at all… then that girl said what she said and my heart sank for him. This show can be insanely overwrought at times but that scene was so subtle yet so effective in illustrating the prejudices Randall must have faced every day living as a young black man in a predominately white neighborhood. Fetishizing POC for their “exotic” features is so prevalent but rarely talked about. I don’t think I would have been as angry as Beth was about the video but I definitely think Tess needed to be punished, more so for her shitty attitude than for the video itself. But kids need to learn there’s consequences for their actions and they can’t just do whatever their feelings tell them to. The "did she call you a fascist?" line made me chuckle because I swear kids think any adult who tries to impose rules is a fascist. I hear that word thrown around so much by my younger cousins and nieces that its beginning to lose all meaning.

I didn't mind the show incorporating real-world events into the story but to see Randall shut his very loving family out because they're not black and therefore don't understand his struggle was just a whole level of sad I did not need at this time. I'm kind of into the Kevin and Madison thing although I wish they had allowed them to come together slower. Overweight couples who aren't rich and famous face a lot of obstacles when adopting, many foreign adoptions even have BMI restrictions. I don't think there's any official regulations on domestic adoptions in America but it's very unlikely that your run-of-the-mill middle class overweight couple like Toby and Kate would be chosen so quickly.

Yeah, for sure tv shows tend to drop the ball after the initial big dramatic event, but I actually feel like there was at least minimal follow up with Abby's kidnapping (ridiculous that more than 1 character on this show has been kidnapped). She's shown to have taken some time off, have had trouble sleeping, be jumpy and irritable, a handful of characters comment on what she went through and her being gone, she's shown reacting to a man shouting in the hospital and struggling a bit to get back to work. It's only for one episode so it's not like we saw her continued process of dealing with her trauma, but Sam got even less than one episode of follow up. It wasn't even made clear that she took any time off because the week time skip shows her standing around the admit desk acting completely normal, no one welcomes her back or asks her how she's doing (other than Luka who we know wasn't working) so it almost seems like she might have been at work earlier in the week. We don't see her struggling to get back to "normal", she just is all of a sudden. I know the show was infamous for it's catastrophic storylines with little follow through after the fact, but I feel like Sam's situation was particularly glaring. Maybe because I've always had an issue with shows having female characters get raped for drama or as a ratings stunt and then forgetting about it. Plus I feel like the show missed multiple opportunities to explore the realities of PTSD. There's at least half a dozen characters who experienced horrifyingly traumatic things, either in the ER itself or a way from it, and somehow we never got an in depth look at how post-traumatic stress effects people, which would have been fitting for a medical drama.

Going through the thread as I rewatch so apologies for resurrecting an old conversation but I just re-watched season 13 and I was shocked at how little attention was paid to Sam's horrific ordeal at the hands of Steve in Bloodline. She gets kidnapped, raped, and is driven to kill her abusive ex as her son sleeps 30 feet away...and then the following episode jumps a week ahead and she's back in the hospital like nothing happened. She gets a hug from Weaver when she first discloses the rape and I think Luka asks her how she's doing at one point, but then it's not brought up again until like a season or two later when she shares her experience with a rape victim in an attempt to comfort the patient and gets chastised by Wexler for getting too personal. The idea that someone would be able to bounce back from something so traumatic in a week's time and then proceed to carry on like nothing happened is baffling. I know there was ton of personal trauma spread around that ER but I feel like Sam's experience was one of the most egregious cases of lack of follow through. What was the point of putting her through that? More attention was paid to how it affected her annoying kid.

lol same. I started watching around Abby's first season so I always felt a connection to the character. Also she always had a lot going on so she was interesting to me. Luka had his moments, I wasn't as attached to the character himself but I thought he and Abby were a good fit. They both had pretty heavy lives and needed a partner who understood that.

This show should have definitely ended after season 1. Season 2, 3 and 4 just got progressively worse. This final season was an utter shit show and difficult to get through. And killing Justin just felt like a cheap way to make viewers emotional over the ending of a series that hadn't been good in years.