S05.E19: Sabotage

[jewel21]

Quote

Olivia gets an exciting opportunity but has to decide if the timing is right for her to make a big leap. Coastal football training forces Spencer, Jordan and Asher to go look in on JJ who has been off the grid. Patience contends with major ramifications after she fails to heed Layla’s advice about her #1 fan.

Airdate: 05/08/2023

[KWalkerInc]

I was pleasantly surprised when Jaclyn Smith, my favorite Angel, popped up again.  It's nice that Laura's mom wanted to check up on everyone, and while I knew that they weren't going to have her back for the memorial episode when there wouldn't have been time for many scenes, I didn't know that they would bring her back at all!  Of course she has to provide this week's reason that Spencer and Olivia can't get back together.  Not that she was wrong.  Olivia should absolutely go to London, and Spencer wouldn't interfere whether they were a couple or not.  It feels like they will want more drama, which is why Olivia will probably be asked to go for more than the summer for some reason.

Doesn't Layla realize she can't trust Patience with the Miko situation at all?  I'm pretty sure that restraining orders can also include provisions about not contacting the person on the Internet either (I think?), so I don't know why they left that out.  I'm apprehensive about the finale, especially after Layla asserting that Miko is way more f-ed up than Carrie ever was.  Instead of having Patience be put in danger, they could have Miko kill herself and then maybe her family blames or even sues Patience for telling her followers to go after her.  The followers would have done it anyway just from Patience understandably naming her, but the specific instructions she gave will probably get her in trouble.  At least she got a nice moment with Coop. 

I would have assumed Professor Hill knew of Laura's connection to Coop, that it would have come up sometime during the interview when Coop was applying to audit the class, but apparently not.  It was nice of Laura to give her some help, and I guess they have come up with a storyline to bring her to the campus regularly too. 

I'm glad J.J. wasn't alone for the whole time that he had been away, even if it wasn't doing him too much good.  I'm not sure how he is even still in school, not just having to worry about one project in one class, but maybe he was doing some of his classes online a little bit or something.  It's good that he realized he needed to put football on hold at least.  Not only would he have sucked and gotten in trouble from the coaches if he tried to practice after all that time with nothing (and not being in a good place mentally), he probably would have gotten hurt.

If they had decided to age up Dillon a bit I'm not sure I would have even noticed, but he's still only 13!  I guess kids can mature at different rates so they're okay with having an actor who's turning 17 at the end of the year.  With how old all of the other actors playing teens on the show are, I guess they felt it was only fair.  It's cool that he's bonded with his stepdad, but surprising with Carter living in another part of the state most of the time.  I liked how Dillon didn't want Spencer's advice on girlfriends.

[Lonesome Rhodes]

Good stuff in this one.

The best part, for me, was that they dealt with the professor Kingsfield dude with ambiguity.  My take all along was that he was doing Coop an enormous favor in treating her like all the others.  I sat in on law classes back in the day and they were always a difficult time for the students.  The challenges came out of seemingly nowhere and if they didn't have a quick and well-reasoned response, they got skewered.  Just as they would in open court by opposing counsel or a jidge.  That we never saw this guy being tough on others does give cover to Coop's perception, though.  It was excellent to have Laura not show disdain or a dismissive attitude towards him.  

J.J. is making the right call to drop football.  However, he needs to stop the world, which means a gap year at school.  He'd also be wise to not live with the Vortex.  Great to have them around for support.  Not great to be around as they do young guy stuff that J.J. must avoid like the plague.

Patience almost certainly violated the terms of the restraining order by engaging Miko as she did.  I've been in an unfortunate situation involving a family member who was an addict.  On the infrequent occasions our mother agreed to take out such an order, she always sabotaged (hmm) it intentionally so that he could legally come home and she thought/hoped the rest of us would accept it.  We didn't because we saw through it.  To her dying day, our mother would not/could not cut him off completely.  I'll never not have the highest and deepest respect for the power of addiction.  There is a .00000000001 chance that Miko will call it a day. 

It's the right move to ship Olivia out unless TPTB wanted to bring Spolivia fully together now.  Spencer now officially has a completely open field on which to operate.  Not a bad way to end a season.  I hope they go there in the finale.