Outstanding episode that shows how Michael, deep down, believes in what he does and the people he supervises, no matter how inept he may be at his job. There's lots of laughs in his embarrassing speech to Ryan's class, and lots of great human moments, like when he gives Pam the acceptance she needs when her art show's going poorly. Really great work on both the comedy and emotion front.
[9.5/10] Such a classic. An absolute masterpiece of cringe comedy that not only plays out the barely-restrained resentments between Michael and Jan, but adds so much weird detail to their lives together, until you get the most awkward party of all time. Everyone in the cast is on fire here, and it's reassuring that after the writer's strike, everyone put their heads together and came up with this bit of brilliance.
Lord knows that if The Office was going to get anything right, it needed to be Jim expressing his feelings for Pam, and boy does it pull that off here. The confession is harrowing, sad, and heartening all at the same time, with Pam's shock and reaction to something she, deep down, already knows, adds to the charged atmosphere. The rest of the episode is fun, as Michael inadvertently inviting two dates to the same event is a bit of cliche but still full of comedy, and the other antics around the work party are enjoyable. But it's that last moment, that pays off so much built up emotion and drama, that really makes this one great.
Pretty damn great episode. This show thrives on the fact that its characters are so well-defined that it can essentially just throw them into any situation and play out their natural reactions to comedic effect. The best example is Michael himself, who's basically a 12-year-old boy: well-meaning, self-centered, and not really understanding how misaimed and inappropriate his behavior is. And yet, it all works out in the end as despite the disaster that Michael turns the gift swap into, everyone eventually relaxes and has a good time. There's way more to it than that, but the various characters reacting and responding to all the little developments as we'd expect them to is really the highlight.
At the same time, I was stuck by how good the editing is on this show. It's not the kind of thing that really stands out to me in watching television, but the show has such a distinct rhythm to it, and preserving the superb comedic timing of the show with all the cuts that the editor makes is a real virtuoso performance in the editing bay. Great stuff.
For any brave soul following my write-ups on here, I reviewed this episode and the last one as one big finale, so my thoughts on what happened in part 3 are in the entry for part 4.
Hell of an episode, from Tony's attempt to show restraint and, as Melfi points out, some legitimate growth, and how everything believably blows up in his face. So many great scenes of just terrific acting. You feel for Adrianna, you feel for Tony, you even feel for Chris after he beat up Adrianna in a scene that nearly made me sick to my stomach. One of the things that makes this show interesting is that it's never shy about letting its audience know that most of its characters are bad people, but it also never holds back the fact that they're human beings, with sympathetic failings and emotional moments as well. And that end scene, so much said in so little words. Just great, great stuff all around.
This was probably the best balance of humor and pathos this show has been able to forge since it started. The emotional throughline of BoJack's inability to cry had a solid setup, a hell of a punch at the end, but then only surfaced in the main plot when it was necessary and fit in naturally. The same is true of Dianne's story, which was told with great economy. Her conversation with Mr. Peanutbutter at the end of the episode felt real and devastating.
And the "heist"-esque plot to get the Nixon shot was a hilarious comic premise, with Todd in rare form ("Was that Nixon's boyhood exit sign?"), Character Actress Margo Martindale taking a hilarious gun-toting left turn, and even the long-lost Nixon son being a fun comic addition. From random gags like Ethan Hawke to the discussions of sitcom characters becoming president, the show packed in tons of comedy without ever losing the pathos of the story. It's a balancing act that the show has trouble with, but got just right here.
Four seasons of marital tension blow up in one glorious episode. The scene in the home theater house in particular may be the peak of the series. The story with the lawyer is kind of weak, but all the Soprano family business was breathtaking. There's no mob violence, but Carmella and Tony continue taking shots at each other. Just such a raw, brutal episode that was wonderful in how it dove into the rot that had set in between husband and wife.
[3.0/10] A bad end to a bad season. Q's plan makes no sense. The effect Picard and company had on the timeline makes no sense. But most importantly, the emotional connections make no sense. This season didn't do enough to earn the bonds between Picard and Tallinn/Laris, or really any of the other characters, to make the whole "We're a family" bit feel the least bit earned.
The only real sentiment this one can generate comes from the goodbye between Picard and Q, and the thrill of seeing Wesley Crusher again, which owe little, if anything, to this series as opposed to The Next Generation.
Season 2 was a failure on so many levels. The dialogue, the plotting, the misunderstanding of the show's title character, the cheap fan service that abounded from beginning to end. What a waste. In the end, it's the worst season of Star Trek since Enterprise, which is an ignoble achievement if there ever was one.
[5.2/10] My honest-to-god first thought when the credits rolled on this episode were “what the hell was that?”
Sigh. Well, at least the first season of Castle Rock died as it lived, with tons of rambling and screwing around, glacial pacing, and an almost complete lack of payoff. There’s some vague revelations here -- mostly that Henry killed his dad to save his mom, and some vague hints -- like that there really is something devilish or sinister in The Kid (and maybe in his/Henry’s father). There’s some minor thematic work about doing something evil to stop a greater evil.
But that’s all pretty thin broth for a plodding, dull, and occasionally nonsensical final hour for this season. The best you can say is that Castle Rock stayed true to form through it all. But this was just anticlimactic and not nearly as spiritual on intellectual as it seems to think.
Overall, this was a lot of wheel-spinning until an underwhelming conclusion with cheesy florid voiceover to take us out, which seems fitting for this sporadically brilliant but mostly patience-trying show.
I absolutely loved the Jerry daycare storyline. There were so many fun little details as to the various Jerrys and the things that entertained or occupied them, especially how the supervisor treated them like children. But the main storyline didn't do too much for me. It's always nice to hear Jermaine Clement plying his musical trade, but the ending was a bit predictable. It's still Rick and Morty, there's lot of mad-cap scifi fun to go around, but it didn't have the punch of some other plots on the show.
[5.8/10] Hoo boy was this a rough way to lead into the finale. The show trying to quickly and clumsily introduce a third front in this war, make Picard's illness A Big Deal again, and even add in a never-before-mentioned Soong baby into the mix was just the pits. Everything was super rushed and felt strangely disconnected from a lot of what we've dealt with previously this season.
All the tearful goodbyes to Picard feel flat to me, mostly because we've barely seen these characters spend time with Picard, so much of the weepy breathlessness of it rings false. The twists with the Synth colony happen so fast and furiously that each comes of weightless and contrived. Don't get me started on how we're now in a weird "everybody's prejudiced and angry!" stance with things.
Frankly, this is my least favorite outing of the season. The dialogue is tin-eared and thudding, the plot developments are so sudden and often nonsensical, and just the individual scenes are boring and overwritten. My only hope is that this episode represents the show's creative team getting all this crud out of their systems so that they can deliver the goods in the finale.
I'm more bearish on this episode than some, but I do appreciate the way it starts to soften Michael a bit, showing him as still completely inappropriate, but also someone the audience can sympathize with, even if he's completely awful and misguided at times. It's also one of Pam's best outings in the early going, having her show some backbone for arguably the first time in the series, being unexpectedly kind to Michael (and receiving kindness in return via Jim when Michael doesn't give her the "longest engagement" award), and coming this close to expressing her feelings for Jim. This one starts slow, but its last act is outstanding.
The right balance between epic and moving. I appreciate that while the show didn't skimp on the expected third act fireworks, it didn't forget that this is ultimately a character story, and focused as much on what these events meant to Wanda and the processing of her grief, as they did on the MCU-shaking consequences. The the fights are exciting; the goodbyes are poignant, and WandaVision has rocketed up to being one of my favorite MCU stories ever, no small feat, but one well within the power of the Scarlet Witch.
[10.0/10] A practically perfect film, one that mixes humor, heart, adventure, and character into one delightful package. The performances are superb, the jokes are hilarious, and despite the frame story that might otherwise create some distance between the audience and the story, it proves to be a wonderful lens to both poking fun at the nature of storytelling but also telling a simple but sweet story about a grandfather and grandson. Nearly every scene of this film is a delight, which is no small feat, and few films anywhere can deliver as much comic fun, thrilling adventure, and compelling heart as The Princess Bride does. It's in a class all its own.
I really enjoyed this episode. I love the way Tony implicitly compares his brief time in Italy to his life at home, and finds it hard to come back to the grind of New Jersey. Paulie's American Tourist lionizing The Old Country is potent as well, though in a different, more amusing sort of way. Even Chris missing the entire trip to shoot up is a commentary in and of itself. I also liked Carmella talking to Big Pussy's wife but really expressing her own feelings and thought process. All-in-all it was a very well-done episode.
[8.2/10] A great episode. I love how this one teases out the relationship between Michael and Stanley, which has always been a bit tense. It shows how awful Michael is at towing the line between friend who laughs jabs off and boss who needs to assert his authority. And yet, the way Michael comes to terms with Stanley's view of him, while also earning the slightest bit of his respect for asserting himself as Stanley's boss, is really well done. It's a nice two-character study, and the bits with Pam's back-up glasses and Dwight flipping Andy's car are good for comic relief.
Now we're cooking. Cliffhanger aside, I loved seeing all the scenes from Marcy's life. Simon going away was heartbreaking. Her little girl companion was adorable and sweet. Plus, there was some superbly animated action with Marcy's fights with the fool and the wolverine vampire. I also enjoyed the music, especially little Marceline's song with her mom. That scene had a strange, almost Miyazaki quality to it in terms of animation.
If there's one thing this show does well, it's telling epic, time-spanning stories that pack in bits of heart without forgetting to be fun, and this fit that to a tee. The band of vampires Marceline has slain playing in a band together is an interesting twist, and I'm curious to know where they'll go with it. Plus, Marceline really losing her vampireness is an interesting twist as well. Excited to see where they're going with it.
(Still proceeding in chronological order.) Now this is more like it! There wasn't much to Anakin and Obi Wan's story, but seeing Ventress again and getting some exquisitely choreographed and animated light saber fights was pretty damn entertaining. The Clone Trooper mole story was much more interesting, both on a pure story level and on a thematic level. The blue and yellow clone troopers trying to solve the whodunnit and having to try to second-guess someone who thinks exactly the same way they do was an interesting conceit that led to some great story moments. On the thematic side, the mole questioning the morality of soldiers bred to obey the Jedi's commands was a little more depth than I expected from the show, and it's a compelling Star Trek-like twist to the clone troopers' story. Much better all around than the previous episode I watched (which is from S2).
[7.6/10] I've had my qualms about this season, but I enjoyed this as a final note to go out on. It's hard to think of something truer to the Star Trek ethos than the idea that the gravest threats are not solved with phasers or torpedoes, but rather forging a connection and appealing to sense of unity even amid the uncertain and unknown. There's some elements of convenience here -- mainly how quickly we go from exchanging pictographs with the 10-C to being able to have full conversations with them -- but the heart's in the right place on this one. Between back-to-basics plots like away missions and problem-solving, and this closing affirmation of the franchise's core values, season 4 has definitely felt like the most Star Trekkian of Discovery's run so far.
A highlight of an already stellar season. I loved the matryoshka doll nature of the various world, and Rick meeting his near-equal and mirror image, whom he also created, while being almost totally blind to it was a great tack to take with the story. Morty's bewilderment at Rick failing to see the irony was a good look for him, and the little details of each universe and how the creators had warped them (including the Tiny Scientist's reaction to the news) were great for both humor and heft in the episode. Dark and poignant and funny all at the same time, like the show is at its best, while taking a left turn every time you think you know where the story's going.
Summer's storyline in the car was a neat riff on the Asimov stories of "protect all humans" laws getting out of hand. The way everything escalated until the final twist was great comedic heightening. (The emotional attack in particularly was some amazing black comedy.) Summer's shell-shocked reaction at the end was the icing on the cake.
Best episode of the series so far. The flashback did a good job being both believable and funny, and also set the conflict in the present up very nicely. Bojack and Kazzazz had the kind of shorthand rapport (with the dark side of it to boot) that you'd expect, and it made the emotional stuff at the end land and feel earned in a way that the rest of the show hasn't been able to match. Great stuff.
The comedy really worked in this one too. The various meta-gags about period flashbacks while simultaneously making the most of doing actual 80s/90s-based humor was great, and Todd's mini-story with the celebrity robbers was thin but full of laughs regardless.
The main story with Rick, Morty, and Summer was great. The show showed off its sci-fi creativity chops with Rick dating Unity (hooray for Christina Hendricks and Patton Oswalt as a borg-esque collective), and Summer's do-gooder issues with trying to fix things were a great comedic twist. I loved the line "First race war, huh?" and all the Unity-related gags were great and inventive for both Rick and his grandkids. The Jerry/Beth storyline didn't work as well for me, though it did deepen Beth's character a bit, which was nice. Lots of laughs all around. Then, things get serious.
Rick's suicide attempt with the background music was, as this show occasionally is, heartbreaking. It's always powerful when shows like this show the well of emotion behind all the absurd humor. Quality episode for sure. Probably an 8.5/10 (the Beth-Jerry stuff dragged it down a bit).
[7.5/10] A nice start to the new half-season. I really liked the mystery of the episode -- whether Michael has really reverted via heel turn to his wicked ways or whether Eleanor is right to have faith in him -- and how it works as both a big question for the audience and a character moment for Eleanor. The little clues were fun to try to piece together at the same time Eleanor was, and the reveal that Michael really was trying to help them was cathartic. Plus, the humor was good too, with drunk Janet and bad Janet being a consistent source of laughs, and Derek talking like a pokemon being continually hilarious. Good stuff to kick off the back half of Season 2!
8.3/10. I appreciate the show being so bold as to have an episode that's basically just one big conversation between BoJack and Princess Carolyn. Sure, technically, there's the B-plot of the head of the restaurant quitting and everyone having to scramble to please the food critic. But for the most part, this was a deep dive into the relationship between two of the show's main characters, and I liked the raw nerve style the episode went with. As Mrs. Bloom pointed out, one of the issues with the show in the beginning was that BoJack and PC didn't really make sense together, but this episode helps shine a light on what would bring them together, and what would drive them apart. Another example of the raw humanity that is BoJack Horseman's stock and trade.
It's a shame Kazazz is dead, because his character provides so much emotional ballast to a show that's founded in absurdity and exaggerated characters. The cast of Horsin' Around reuniting to find Kazazz's "gold" created a great dynamic, and lots of opportunity for humor, but it also fleshed out the relationship between BoJack and Kazazz a little more, the strongest thing grounding BoJack's emotional journey. It's one of the best A-story's the show's been able to pull off for how it's able to balance that character development with a lot of great humor.
I also loved the B-Story of Princess Caroline having to make up stories about Kazazz at the encouragement of Mr. Peanutbutter and Henry Winkler (who is great and funny in almost everything he's been in over the last decade and a half). It's a simple comic premise, but Mr. Peanutbutter's guilelessness about the whole thing was great.
And the C-story with Todd was hilarious, as seemingly every story involving Todd is. Aaron Paul's goofily sweet everyman can carry even the silliest of sitcom throwback stories.
Superb season premiere for the show. It's a spiritual cousin to co-creator Dan Harmon's "Remedial Chaos Theory" episode of Community. The time splits were a neat gimmick, and what made it so great as a storytelling device is that each moment of "uncertainty" both created new problems for Rick, Morty, and Summer, but also told us a little more about them and how they tick. It was great fodder for creativity on a show that's filled to the brim with it, and they even fit in some heart with 1/32 of Rick attempting to sacrifice himself to save 1/32 of Morty. It was a fun kick off to the new season that played on last season's finale.
And I enjoyed the B-story to boot! It was much more down-to-earth (at least, in terms of this show) with saving the deer. It was nice to see a little focus on Beth as a character, and I loved both the absurdity of the story's conclusion and the fact that it tied into the tossed off line about Jerry's big tip at Coldstone. Throw in the amusing Einstein tag, and you have a hell of an episode.
Such a great episode. The main plot with Leslie's sex scandal, is a very funny satire of Clinton-esque scandals (replete with a riff on the Monica hug video). It builds up to a delightfully absurd conclusion with "no-mole gate" and manages to lampoon the media just as well. At the same time, there's emotional stakes to the story in Dave asking Leslie to come to San Diego with him, and I love Louis C.K. as the big awkward teddy bear.
Ron trying to do Leslie's job is hilarious, and has a great town hall scene. The budding romance with April and Andy is at peak adorableness. Mark and Ann are the only weak links as their pretty bland character, but otherwise every inch of the show has so much charm at this point. I always forget how hilarious this show is, and it's impressive they'd found such a great comedic rhythm by the middle of their second season.
This was a great episode, not only for the frenetic twists and turns of the going-on of the Purge Planet, but for the way the episode explored both how Morty's scolding or concerned reactions to the craziness of what he and Rick see masks a repressed anger and frustration that lies beneath, and that however jaded Rick is after all he's been through, there's still a part of him that has limits and can only take so much. It's a neat trick to show that Rick has a bit of Morty in him, and Morty has more than a little Rick in him.
The Summer/Jerry subplot didn't have much to it in terms of point or story, but it was funny, so I'm happy to give it a pass.
One of the best episodes of the show so far. The surrealness of the dream sequence was a little stock, but still engaging, and it was a nice opportunity to address the issue between Todd and BoJack in a way that not only avoided sweeping it under the rug, but helped lead to a realization for BoJack. The mommy/daddy issues theme continues to feel a little too simple and straightforward as an explanation for BoJack's lifestyle and personality, but the scenes with his possible life in Maine were legitimately endearing and ultimately heartbreaking. The truth in the moment of BoJack wondering if this is all he'll ever be was some of the most potent emotion the show has mustered thus far, and the finale at the ghostwriters convention (with the hilarity Patton Oswalt imbued in the scene) was stellar as a close.
