Traveller519

I'm legitimately bummed about that. I admittedly don't know much about Transparent or Jane the Virgin so can't comment on those. But to not see Veep or B99 on there stings. Happy Silicon Valley made it though.

After watching Paul Sorvino on last night's episode of The Goldbergs, I'd love for this show to cast him to play off Holt (or Jake in some non-work fashion of having another Holt). The man plays comedy so seriously in a way that just makes me laugh. They'll need to retire the ongoing Munch storyline or it would be too much, though.

Not as high as some on this episode but I did enjoy it. I thought the notion of going to the bar with your family for your 21st birthday was completely out of character for Hayley, but it's easily explained away by the fact this family does these types of things together and she's had her share of bar nights already. Claire was trying a little to hard for my liking in this episode, and Gloria's brainstorming didn't entirely work for me. That said, I enjoyed the Jay and Phil subplot. Phil displayed his competence, and Jay displayed his need to still be seen as the patriarch of the family. And the kids killed it! For as up and down as they've been this season, they all played to their strengths here. Luke isn't quite the simple cute kid anymore, he's a raging teenage boy, who is dumb. Manny's the ultimate feminist. Hopefully they continue to balance each other out to establish them both as quality guys. And I'm convinced Ariel Winter is the best actor of the whole lot, she puts on the Alex persona so well.

Barry blocking the screen was a great call out. I also laughed at that. "Here's a cheque, I made it out to cash." "When did you even write that?" Rob Huebel is great as these types of characters, a guy who should be a slimy salesman, but has a great amount of charm to back it up. And damn, if it wasn't cool to see Paul Sorvino kicking it with these guys, he plays grumpy comedy so well.

I'm interested to see where they take Skye's powers. They can probably co-opt a lot of the X-universe storylines about X-teens that need to learn to control and develop their powers. Thing is, I don't think SHIELD in it's current iteration has the capacity to do that. If she can't control them she becomes a liability to the team, and Coulson needs to send her off, but where? The showrunners would have legitimate balls to send her off for development which ties into the later movies (with Dr. Strange maybe; or maybe she and Bobbi get wrapped into the Avengers B Team as the fall out from Age of Ultron), and Avengers West Coast: The Netflix Series is born. Either way, for her to tie into the movies, Chloe Bennett is going to need to work on those acting chops. She's come a LONG way since Season 1, but acting across from the Avengers cast on routine basis is another level. (I think back to the Season 1 finale when Jackson, Gregg, and Paxton were in the same room. Along with Deathlock. Deathlock didn't get much screen-time.)

I get the notion of "of course the Black Guy had to die" trope, but I don't think it deserves a lot of scorn here. Agents of SHIELD and the greater MCU have been pretty multi-cultural and diverse on the whole. I think BJ Britt's schedule made it tough. He's been pretty ancillary this season, and then this hero episode and death kind of got shoe horned in. It probably wouldn't have been quite the smack in the face if in the last episode Mac had gotten outside of a SHIELD facility for the first time, and was alluded to have died.

It seems that with the positive reaction the Las Vegas Farce episode got last season (which was vintage Fraiser) the writers have attempted it a couple times again this season. The thanksgiving episode, and in limited amounts here with the projecting each of Alex's statements about the boys onto something going on in her life (I actually quite enjoyed that part in her bedroom, the looks Claire and Phil gave each other). But I agree that the show has run out of steam, it's a common issue for shows with college-aged children. The same thing happened to That 70s Show. It took them 5 seasons to get through the last two years of high school it seemed, then everyone just... floated. Hayley's life isn't interesting in this format, and nobody else is doing much of anything. The characters are stale, with flashes of the former aspects of the show we enjoyed.

Oh the cameos! Mr. Belding (Sorry Dennis Haskins, this is your name now. Just accept it); Billy Eichner, Barry Bostwick, and a random Outdoor Dave/Steve Agee spot to handle the product placement. The Schmidt/Cece and Winston/Nick storylines were working well on their own in my opinion. I think a stronger ending than the everyone off the planes (blech!) scenario would have been for Coach and Jess to address their issues of flying to family vs. running. But it's a sitcom, and I get the need for everyone to be in on the love fest.

I enjoyed the end game here of moving stuff forward and opening up more of the Marvel Universe, it will be interesting to see where they go with this, since The Inhumans movie is dang far away into the future and they've already opened up that Pandora's Obelisk (sorry) and the nature of TV seems to indicate. If the show goes the route of Coulson basically having to dismiss Skye as a field agent as she's too unpredictable, and Chloe Bennett goes off with Marvel Studios to get trained up for the big screen (possibly via a Netflix short) I'll be damn impressed with the courage of the show. My only real trouble with this (and really the last episode) was Coulson's whole plan to "blow-up the city." In the last episode they at least addressed that it was the anti-Fury thing to do, but it was really Anti-Shield mandate. 1) The size of that city, as we saw was huge, and covered a lot of the area of San Juan. collapsing the city would have some bad collateral damaged on all the people that lived above it. 2) They had no clue what the nature/power/science behind the city was. I know they wanted to keep Whitehall from it, but Coulson should know as well as anyone the powers these things have. Writing the city destruction added the drama, but didn't really play into the overall themes of the show in my opinion.

That cut sketch was really enjoyable. I think they actually managed to tackle the issue with some humor. They were obviously going for a more serious tone with the cold open and WU, I think this would have complemented it well. It would have made a hell of a ten to 1. I guess in the age of the internet, Lorne doesn't get the benefit of late night being a time to be as edgy. I'd rather the show tackled the controversial issues and stood by them to be honest. Comedians are finally standing up and refusing to apologize when something is taken offensively. I've actually gained a lot of respect for Bill Burr in that regard. He doesn't back off his material and stands by his comedic material not necessarily reflecting his personal views. I wish Lorne still had that.

Dave Kim is such a great character in Adam's circle of friends. Adding his mother to Beverly's Rogue's Gallery was a nice touch.

The worst part of Jim's character is he brings out the worst in each of his partners as well. Lisa became incredibly insecure and nigh intolerable around him, because he just went along with being into her while pining for Maggie. Maggie screwed up by acting outside her comfort zone trying to live up to what she perceived to be his standards. Hallie has become reactionary and impulsive living on the edge of his next not-so-subtle dig.

All of Sorkin's winking and nodding at his audience with the series wrapping up is taking away from was an actually very interesting original story with the documents. Maggie's quip about monologues on the train: "See guys, I know, I write a lot of monologues, I know this isn't how people really talk." The HR story-line that ultimately went nowhere: "See guys, I know I hook my characters up a lot in my workplace setting stories." Jim's self-righteous, holier-than-thou, Olberman-esque attitude towards Hallie: "See everyone, I've learned how bad my downgrading alternative media has made me appear." I can't wait for Jenna to visit Will in jail to tell him she's applied for and accepted a job at the BBC based on revised long-form essays she'd written and never let anyone read, and that she did so because his support of her let her be her very best. "See I know that women can achieve things of their own merits, and roles can be reversed." That wedding made me irrationally angry. Not only was it as cliche as TV tropes go, it was just as conceited as the planned wedding was going to be. These Juliard students, and priest all have the time and capability to make our rushed nuptials a semi-event. Enough complaining, though. The central plots I did find captivating. The scenes with the Judge were fantastic, and I think fairly presented both sides of the issue. And MacKenzie calling out Clea Duvall in the rain like that was bad-ass, as was the decision to pass along the story. Getting the writer out of the country was a tangible obstacle amid all the ethical issues, and Business Sloan is one of my favorite parts of the series. I would have bought the company on her sales pitch. And I never would have guessed I could find Reese so human. Damn I felt for him.

He does have good form

With respect to the HR plot, I really hope CaughtOnTape is right that there's a bigger end game. Because as we've all noted, right now it's ludicrous and weighing on the show. ACN is the most visible part of AWM's empire. The first action of a new VP or HR would not be to mess with the locations and work arrangements of on air talent. Sloan's not going anywhere. She needs to be on near Wall Street. Moving Don to DC, would incur the wrath of Charlie Skinner and Reese Lansing for fucking with the product, something an HR director shouldn't be doing if there isn't an issue. Let's hope there's a bigger payoff here. Maybe he just really wants to get Lutz a producer position.

Maybe I'm just a heartless old coot. But The Bruce and Selina scenes don't really do much for me.I think the Child actors just aren't strong enough to act off one another unfortunately. I do enjoy Bruce and Alfred and Jim. I enjoy Selina on her own and with Jim. I don't mind the narrative so far of showing the early basis of their relationship, but I'm not going to buy that being a central plot of the show. Let those two wander and deal with the other forces of Gotham. That said, there was still a lot to enjoy about the episode, and I'm eagerly turning in every week.

Yeah, I liked the concept. I mean White People LOVE Ted Talks, so finding a good way to skewer them was ideal. But it didn't come off great. Rewatching the sketches, The High School Theatre prodcution was probably one of the best live sketches they've done in a long time. Probably my favorite since "Your Love" and "Boss Baby 1." As much as I'm not a musical fan, I have to respect the fact that they can write these songs, learn them, and present them all within one week. All the Your Girls songs have been catchy as hell too. Bowls..bowls..

Lucky lucky, Winston. Alison Becker is a always a treat when she shows up. I am enjoying a lot more of this season than the pain of Season 3. The hi-jinks are fun.

Between the leg-pulling (holding?) and refusing to give up the list of names of people who collected the keys, I was fully expecting Danger to be on the inside.

Loved the A-Plot in this one, a lot of good rapport between all three actors (Helms, Samberg and Lo Truglio). Boyle is starting to come around as a character for me, but his best interactions are certainly with Jake. I hope this isn't the end of GigglePig though. I liked watching Rosa run the show. The B plot was just painful save for Gina's meditation techniques. The notion of having someone as borderline psychopath as Gina work to calm you into release from addiction is splendid. But everyone else just played out as though this episode was from the first season, very one-dimensional. There were some laughs, but this show has raised the bar for how we view these characters, and their characterization in this one felt lazy.

Normally I don't like when the show relies to heavily on recurring sketches, which this one had in spades. Ur Girls, Boss Baby, Chris Fitzpatrick, and Miss Meadows all came back for at least their second tour. But I loved each one of those sketches on this week's show, and I'd say Miss Meadows hit a high point for its run. The other's didn't quite, but were better than what we usually see in the exact same format. Little things like moving Boss Baby out of the office, or brining in a grown adult to read poetry in Miss Meadow's class made a lot of difference. High School Theatre was the best sketch of the night, and it seemed to me like Beck and Kyle were probably heavily involved in that one, it seemed right up their alley, and if so, Congrats putting out some great live sketch material guys. Nest-spresso really looked to be a Mike O'brien joint to me. I wish he could have been in it. Vanessa's "I don't know"s were delivered so perfectly. I agree that this was the best update of the season, but it was Kate's weakest outing as Merkel. That said, nearly kissing Colin saved it, and showed off some of his Charisma. I really wanted Che to go into a full Cosby rant. I think he has real things to say there that wouldn't go over so well on the network. And finally, the Cold Open, this was the second week in a row where they came up with a fun and original way to handle the week's news. Kudos, political writers.

Last week was a high for the show, and this one was a let down due to too many mini plots at the number of ridiculous scenarios that have been outlined in Tara's article. Also as a resident of Calgary, I can tell you Neal went through an awful lot of unnecessary travel to try and get to Cuba. Assuming he'd have to cross the border by bus, toronto is right there. Calgary, is at least two days by bus from Toronto, then you're flying back over all that land you just covered by bus. I believe Neal is a British national and would have a British passport though. But He'd still certainly be logged as flying within North America. The relationship police HR VP stuff is completely unnecessary and a weird Sorkin wink at his audience that he knows he has his workplace characters date each other all the time. I like Haillee a lot more than Jim, but maybe that's just the superficial male in me.

Kromm, I meant George Segal. A bit of irony I noted.

In a few of the home video shots we've seen (including this weeks) I'm always amazed at how close to George Segal's voice real Murray sounds.

"Stop joining in! I'm mocking you!"