Xantar

I had the opposite reaction. This episode was dealing with a real diplomatic issue. Nobody's romantic life was stealing away screen time. Dr. Captain Army Candy Esq. CPA PhD Third Of His Name was holding down the domestic scene instead of being a globe-trotting superspy. The show called Madam Secretary was actually about the trials and tribulations of the Secretary of State. I thought it was great.

That guy is Anthony Ferraris, and the character's name is also Tony Ferraris. He is a real life firefighter. I don't know if he has any acting training, but if he doesn't that would explain why he doesn't talk much. I only know this because I looked it up on Wikipedia.

If Haley had turned out to be really dead, I was going to post about how little sympathy I had for the victim because she was basically the dumbest teenager in New York. Yes, let's go out dancing at a club, hook up with a guy in a creepy clown mask, and then get into his car without telling anyone. But in a refreshing twist, it turns out that nearly everybody was an idiot. The daughter for falling in love with her piano teacher and thinking it was realistic to run off with him; the mom for having an affair and never telling anybody that Haley was having piano lessons with her own father; the piano teacher for being an obsessed statutory rapist; and Vinny for just being a creep. Only the non-biological father came out of this looking any good. I wish Benson hadn't explained genetic sexual attraction as something that happens between fathers and daughters. It's actually between any close relatives who aren't raised together (it also happens with siblings who are separated at birth and then reunited as adults). I've been a fan of Philip Winchester ever since The Player, so I'm glad to see he's getting work. However, I hope his profile rises enough that he finds another gig because he's way too good for this show.

I thought this was a great episode. It was complex and nuanced, it all seemed pretty plausible, and personal issues were relegated to the C-plot as they should be. Dr. Captain Armchair Candy, Esq. was just doing housework instead of galloping around hostile countries doing espionage. BD Wong is always welcome on my screen. And maybe Matt will stop mooning after Daisy for a while.

I kind of wanted to see the team preventing Hamilton from seeing Hamilton, especially if there was a Renee Elise Goldsberry cameo. But I'll take Elvis driving Memphis crazy next week!

Am I supposed to feel sorry that the girl got shot and possibly died? She basically made the dumbest possible decision at every turn.

Wait, so Kidd didn't tell Zach that she was cancelling the date to go to a charity fundraiser but actually lied about having a migraine? Why? If there's anybody who would understand her doing that, it's him!

I liked this episode. It's standard issue in a lot of ways, but that's good. It's not all about the melodrama or the soap opera. It's just about exploring medical issues and presenting cases. That's all I want from my medical drama. The anorexia case was so sad. I also wondered how they managed to film that. Presumably they didn't get an actual malnourished actress to play the role, so how did they make her look so emaciated? Is makeup so good that it can actually subtract body mass?

Even if this wasn't an excellent episode, I would like it just for Trudy singing karaoke.

I actually quit watching at that point because I could tell they were going to turn it into vindication for the co-pilot. If the show is trying to increase awareness of rape culture, it's not going to accomplish that very well by portraying a woman who gets so hysterical that she seizes control of a plane. What? She didn't try to do anything when they were sitting on the runway?

I'm just wondering if there are some cut scenes where the strategy backfired. Something like, "I haven't seen you in so long. Because you slept with my fiance!"

That's assuming that he's observant and savvy enough to pick up on clues. I don't think that's a safe assumption based on the evidence we've seen so far. I'm just here for the bonkers rescue scenes. Apparently some of them are based on real calls. Really, this show is just straight up rescue porn. The only family drama I care about is Athena, and that's because Angela Bassett is just so good. I genuinely think she could turn the dictionary into a gripping spoken-word performance.

If the "real people" actually were just pulled off the street and they didn't know their family was in those cars, then that suggests that the people making the commercial found out who their relatives were, contacted them, and got them into the cars without the "real people" knowing. Which is really creepy if you think about it.

I know those Chevy "real people, not actors" commercials are usually discussed in the "enraged" thread, but this one genuinely perplexes me. It's the one where a bunch of the real people are walking up to the car and then are shocked to find their families inside. It plays out like one of those scenes from reality competition shows, but these "real people" haven't been sequestered away from their families. Why the hell are they acting so overjoyed? Some of them probably just saw their relatives a few hours ago.

One of the most annoying things that comic book writers do is come up with a concept or an end game and then fail to think through the details of how to get there. For example, "Laurel Lance is going to become the Black Canary. Oh, she doesn't know how to fight and her sister is a thousand times more badass? We'll just give her some boxing lessons and then brutally kill the sister." This episode was one of those times. In theory, Barry Allen getting put in the same prison cell as his father is a really neat idea. The problem is not only was the trial a joke of criminal procedure, it also left way too many holes open. I thought of another defense that hasn't been mentioned here: Why would Barry Allen, reportedly one of the most skilled CSI techs to ever work for the police, kill a guy with premeditation, leave DNA and fingerprint evidence all over the place, and then stash the body where it could be found in a way that would incriminate him? The judge might as well have said, "In my 30 years on the bench, I've never seen a murderer who was sooooo stupid." I did like Ralph Dibny's speech, though. He's a nicely balanced comic character with some pathos.

I liked it. In a lot of ways it was a standard hostage situation, but that meant there wasn't a lot of time spent on family melodrama (looking at you, SEAL Team). The operation was well-executed, and there was a person who spoke the local language actually there, unlike last time an episode was set in Latin America. The psychological issues for Jaz were nicely understated and didn't take up too much time. I just hope we don't end up with her freezing at a bad time during a future mission. I'm here to watch people being good at what they do and pulling off clever tactics. They said that Jaz's deployment is for another four months, so what is supposed to happen by that point? Presumably they don't plan to just send her home and have her actress sit around twiddling her thumbs. (Of course, we don't even know if the show is getting a second season, so it could be a moot question)

I am not a medical ethicist, but I don't think "her other patient's trust" was really relevant here. Natalie didn't reveal anything confidential about the mother's health. When asked if the mother knew, Natalie said, "You'll have to ask her that" which is the right response. Patients have a right to know about their own health, and the daughter had a right to know what had happened to her body. I think the idea is that if the paramedics send more rich patients to them, they will get more money in their budget. I'm not sure it's actually legal to give incentives to paramedics, but we'll see where this goes. Budget troubles are obviously a long-term storyline (and they hit kind of close to home considering that I work in the healthcare system and see far too many people without insurance).

Tan's storyline was a standard trope, but it was good to have him get some character development. David Lim is no Philip Seymour Hoffman, but he played the part believably enough. It's refreshing how much Deacon and Hondo support each other. It's a little weird how the coolest action scene was the beginning one that had nothing to do with the rest of the episode, but it was fun to watch anyway. Just one question, though: why were the SWAT people ordering around the detectives and telling them where to find evidence?

I could see chemistry between Cortez and the Commissioner, but no, just no. She made a big deal out of keeping her relationship with Honda a secret because he's in her chain of command. It would completely undermine her character if she started sleeping with her boss. I was wondering how they made those fake bars. I could maybe see it if they grabbed some lead and painted them, but how did they get those so quickly? As @Danielg342, it just seems lazy.

It wasn't clear to me, but I think in this universe American troops are still in Afghanistan and were participating in the upcoming military operation. Women's rights are hugely important, but how many American lives are the public willing to put at risk for that goal in a war that has gone for 15 years with no end in sight? I don't like the choice that the fictional US made here, nor am I really sure it's the right one. But I understand it.

The entire time that Robin and Connor were standing in the hall, I was shouting at the TV, "Go into her office and see if you can hear it too!" But at least she was able to admit to him that she was hearing something and wasn't in denial about it. And she was also able to do her job competently, too. Good for her! Now please stop trying to drop hints about Connor getting with the ambiguously-accented South African surgeon. I think one thing the writers have managed to get right about Noah is that he's an annoying person and probably not a great doctor but he is a really good brother. I can see myself getting to like him if he matures and grows over the course of the season. Right now I don't like him that much, but I don't think the writers intend for us to like him either. I had a Jewish roommate in college and went to a high school where the student population was about 40% Jewish. That was the one Yiddish word in the whole shpiel that I had never heard before.

Even if I were a beloved comedian and trusted news source, I still wouldn't have had the guts to confront Dustin Hoffman (or really anybody) in such a public manner like that. Holy shit. That may have been the ballsiest confrontation since Stephen Colbert hosted the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Was the final revelation really supposed to be a surprise? I called it as soon as they found the body. I feel sorry for Laurel's actress. She had some absolutely shit lines to work with. Meryl Streep herself couldn't have pulled off, "It explodes inside you and then it drips out down your legs into your toes and down your hands. JUST PURE HATE!" And those lines about how men are like cheetahs? Is this how writers think traumatized people talk? And the way she was directed to act infantile made me feel humiliated on her behalf. By the way, this is why it's a bad idea to let relatives act as their loved one's lawyer. So the defendant's lawyer gets emotional, storms out of the room, and then the detectives continue the interrogation without calling another lawyer? The defense attorney at the trial is going to have a field day with that.

She's South African. I think it would be much more interesting if Reese has a drink with Noah and then just blows him off because she realizes they don't fit. He needs to be taken down a peg. Besides, it's so rare to see a "will they won't they" in which the ending is they don't.

As a Vietnamese person, I like that they got a Vietnamese actress (instead of some other Asian ethnicity) to play the local woman. And she was able to correctly pronounce Ong Troi Moi (while everybody else realistically butchered it).