Sandman

They "borrowed" one of Harold's.

Yes. Yes, it is. Titan has no employees, business model, industry sector, market share, facilities, product lines, services or reason to exist at all. And yet these fools are constantly at war over its phantom "business." Edited to add: Okay, maybe the worldwide coin laundry thing.

Schmoopy Teens with Random Tantrums could be the subtitle of the show.

I have no idea what happened in that scene. My entire attention was taken up by horror at the ... thing on Eve's head. Just ... no.

I'm so glad somebody remembers the early seasons better than I apparently do; if there were an Easter Egg quiz I'd be flunking out of Coulson Academy. I did really like that the solution was not firepower, but empathy. They turned all the Chronicoms into Enochs! (How often have I wished for an empathy bomb! Think of how many problems we could solve if we could just drop some emotional ordnance over a big city, and suddenly everyone understands what it's like to be on the business end of stupidity and selfishness.) Did the ex-Chronicoms get recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. (or S.W.O.R.D.)?

I was wondering why it looked familiar -- I thought it might have been an early 084 that I'd forgotten about. I was glad that everyone (except crazyass Garrett) got their happy ending, and I probably should be miffed that Daisy's self-sacrifice was of a strictly temporary kind; it felt a little cheap (along with Agent Davis's "oh, ain't no thing" return as LMDavis) -- but I'm feeling so much affection for the characters I can't really feel upset about it. The return of Lola inclines me to forgive much, too. Even Kora's sudden Heel-Face Turn probably worked better than it ought to have. Too see Fitz and Simmons alive, together, and radiantly happy seems deeply right -- surely no characters on the show deserve it more than they. Again, I should probably find this creepier than I do -- I'm just happy to see Piper and Davis again.

Like so many, many things about Elvis, it was gross. (Talk about power imbalances!) JS "stifled as an artist"? Oh, brother! Chemistry is not skill, JS, you twerp. (Sorry, but Scott's self-adoration always raised my hackles. He always struck me as lazy, and nowhere near as brilliant as seems to think he is.)

It's very, very wrong that I think it would have been great if Harry had shouted "That's not what Jung meant!" isn't it?

Well, that was awkward. Heh. And more importantly, can we make him teach other people in town to take responsibility for their choices? And also make him get a decent haircut? (I don't even mind the scrubby starter beard, but Will looks more like an inmate now than he did when he was actually in prison.)

So a malignant narcissist and a guy with burgeoning borderline personality disorder (possible schizoaffective features) walk into a campus bar; misinterpret Nietzsche; hilarity ensues. Oh, wait... Pullman and Bomer, as well as Hecht, deserved better material than this superficial, sophomoric treatment, though they did what they could with it. Bomer, in particular, I think, was ill served by the script. Jamie's motives as a response to existential terror always seemed shallow and kind of ... undercooked. I liked the final sequence for Harry and Jamie well enough, though as payoffs go, it felt like an awful lot of contrivance had to be worked into a froth to get them there. I wish I hadn't had the sense from about Part III onwards that the writers think that mental illness is somehow communicable. ETA: I'd never heard the name "cootie catcher" for Jamie and Nick's favourite fortune teller game. I find it interesting, given, as I suggest above, that the show seemed to think that "crazy" was a form of cooties one could catch.

Oh, I can't wait either; I just wish it would happen faster. I hate them without finding them interesting enough to want them onscreen. (Also, Nathaniel: yelling at underlings because you want to play pretend that the organization you put together isn't viciously hierarchical is just short-sighted, dude.)

Nope; not just you. Not at all. This show had trouble casting villains. They're often either so boring I can't take them seriously, or so torrentially, over-the-top vicious (and stupid) that I'm left wondering how their own people haven't slapped them to death already.

Really, we might as well assume that at least one person in town is brainwashed at any given time. Except ShutUp! Rafe! There isn't a washer available with a small enough capacity, or a placid enough Gentle cycle, to handle that rinky-dink little brain cell of his. Also, I think Kate's loyalties depend entirely on the demands of the plot; sort of like Darling Julie's principles, or choice of which family member she's kind to this week. Kate's Marlena's ride-or-die pal (somehow) ... until she isn't. She had enough of Stefano's manipulations to last a lifetime, and protecting her beloved stepson is important to her ... except for that one time. And then that other time. She would never let Will come to any harm, but she doesn't actually remember he's married to Sonny that regularly.

Bwah!

Well, she actually does care about Chad -- I don't think we can say that about the other two. (Or, you know, possibly anyone else ever, including some of her children. Even Will she sometimes ... forgets about?)

Ha! Can you imagine? Yo-Yo: "So, who? Who's on this list?" Kora: "Grant Ward." :: DUN DUN ... fizzle :: Together: LMDPhil: "Cool." / FeelyMay: "Works for me." / Daisy: "Oh, f***, yeah! Best. Mission. Ever. " I'm actually more invested in this final season than I ever thought I could be, especially after the alternating drudgery and horror of the "S.H.I.E.L.D. In Space" season -- a personal low point for me. But Nathaniel and Kora are both too whiny to be really chilling villains. Kora in particular seems to switch in and out of having emotional responses to anything. The actress's performance seems to hint that everything is manipulation with her, in ways that I'm not sure I find convincing.

I believe that's as close as Wilson's likely to get to subtext. So Eve just ran out of Fs to give, and no longer cares that someone else's daughter might be at risk, as BOllie goes to jail for murdering somebody? Thanks, Eve -- at least I won't have to take you seriously anymore. I know I asked for Sonny to be given a point of view, but the way the dialogue constantly emphasizes how Allie was going to give Will and Sonny the baby serves to make Ranty Sonny sound entitled and pissy, rather than morally outraged. Why is everyone awful?

At this point, I'd be happy with Martin Short and a budget drawn from the change in the couch cushions of the Kiriakis drawing room set. I definitely feel there's something stilted about a lot of Sonny and Will's conversation -- I mean, a LOT of conversation on the show is pure exposition, but it seems greater than ever with them; like upwards of 80% of Sonny's and Will's purpose on the show is reporting on the activities of other characters -- to the point where the term "exposition fairy" occurred to me, but which seemed retrograde and cruel as well as the cheapest kind of on-the-nose.

I agree entirely. The only thing more ridiculous than Will being friends with his murderer (not "would-be murderer," show, but actual killer) is Marlena's apparent cherishing of her beloved grandson's killer. Don't even get me started on Sami's therapeutic re-strangling idea.

I fully expect the father to surface and make a claim on the baby, even if (or maybe especially since) this plot was just executed with Rafe and David. (Crazy idea: what if the father were one of Sonny's brothers? -- but I forget how much older Alex and Joey are than he.)

It's too bad Rafe doesn't get more time with the Salem brain. He can be a compassionate and big-hearted person (though the comment upthread about how he's only now noticing that conflict of interest is a thing is very apt). I don't understand SamI's motives at all: why does she want Will to raise Allie's baby so badly, but for reasons she can't possibly discuss rationally with her daughter? Why did she encourage her sister to flee the country? Is it just that Sami has to have a scheme or an angle, because otherwise she has no character at all, and the writers don't know what to do with her? And is it just me, or have most of Sonny's lines felt like filler for a while? Since Will got out of prison, anyway, he hasn't really had much story. He's either running exposition, or feeding Will lines for his response in discussing whatever story of the day they're marginally involved in. Even Sonny's declarations about his occasional emotional responses seem more like a summary than actual experience. I mean, Sonny doesn't have a job or friends (even though he's related to half the town) or any interests beyond the gates of the Kiriakis pile, so I can't be too surprised, but would it kill these writers to give him a point of view? Being grateful to Allie was as much life as he'd had in months.

Maybe smugness is like chemistry, and it's perceptible subjectively? I'm not as sensitive to it from Konefal, I guess. No argument on any of the above from me! The show's way of "dealing" with Ben is ruinous on several levels, IMO.

I think there are some things Konefal handles well. In particular, I found the exchange with Hope about "if it were Daddy, you'd never give up" to be surprisingly moving and effectively played by both actresses (though I admit I'm sentimental when it comes to Bo and Hope). By contrast, I don't find Keegan all that interesting -- I don't think she's any better served by the writing, but if Claire's mental health is meant to seem ambiguous, she's not putting it over very well. ORK just indicates "bug-eyed crazypants" all. The. Time. (Also, Claire whines.) Sorry, but I don't understand all the praise heaped on her, nor the absolute vilification of Konefal.

What's worse, once characters have been established -- or rather, declared -- to be good, they're constantly praised and described that way, regardless of how they actually behave. It absolutely is infuriating.

Which position Darling Julie is clearly prepared to defend to the death.