Past Purges
Parks and Recreation "2017;Ron and Jammy"
It's back. It's back! IT'S BACK! IT'S BACK!!! Oh, how I've missed Parks and Rec. The only downside is that I won't have it for much longer.
So far, the time jump has been a complete success. Last season's finale tied everything up so well, that the three years of off-camera character growth has given them plenty of new material.
Ron and Leslie are at odds over something called Morningstar. It makes me sad to see them as enemies, but it was always an inevitability. Ben is still happily and successfully the City Manager. Tom's Bistro is a complete success and I couldn't be happier that they are bringing back Natalie Morales (regardless of how contrived). April and Andy have become a boring married couple and are now determined to put an end to that (Lucky for the viewers!). Donna's getting married. Jerry is Terry. Craig is apparently MIA. I'll have to come up with a more effective way to cover these blocked episodes, but for now, I'll just stick with saying that this was excellent and a perfect reminder of why this is one of my all-time favorites.
New Girl "Coming Out"
The joke machine wasn't working as well as it has been other times this week. Jess and Ryan coming out as a couple ended exactly how I expected (claims of favoritism, followed by over correcting, then saying "I'm being objective, dammit"). That wasn't very dense with jokes. I didn't find Schmidt's reactions to his ulcer as funny as I was meant to. I like a lot of the stuff with Nick and Tran's granddaughter simply because the lazier Nick is, the funnier he is. I completely missed what I was supposed to enjoy about Winston and the crystal. Just 'crazy Winston' I guess. Coach being jealous of Ryan's attention was simple but effective.
The Mindy Project "San Francisco Bae"
I really want Mindy back in New York. Don't get me wrong. Guest star Lee Pace was funny and got a lot of great lines ("We should go. She won the secret hunger games we billionaires have.") to go along with all the good ones Mindy already gets ("I have a billionaire's sense of entitlement."). I simply have far less interest in the regular cast without her. She's one of the more vital leads of any comedy on TV.
Cougar Town "Full Grown Boy"
What's the point of Cougar Town without Bobby Cobb? I'm only accepting it because this is already the last season and the baby related humor of the next few episodes should be entertaining enough. No more Bobby is a big hit though.
The Middle "A Quarry Story"
This was a weird little episode. Frankie's back at the car dealership. Axl is being helpful. Sue is throwing a party and getting in trouble. Brick pretending to be a game show host felt like a note card from an idea board the writers finally got to use. None of these things were bad. Mike and Sue stories are always good. They just about exhausted the jokes to be had from the broken sink, so it was time for that to go. A solid and unspectacular episode.
Modern Family "Big Guns"
Does it make me a bad person that the only parts of the episode that I found funny were the parts when Lily pranked Cam? There are episodes in which I couldn't relate more to Mitchell if I tried.
Blackish "Martin Luther sKiing Day"
Look, I like the idea of Dre looking for racism in his very pampered life and failing. The execution was all off though. He was annoying and little else. I liked Bow acting as the counter-parent for this. That was fun. Dre though. So annoying.
A to Z "L is for Likability"
Did they change the length of the relationship in the opening credits? I thought it was originally 7 months and this week it was 5.
Parenthood "Let's Go Home"
With only two episodes left everything now is build up for the finale and I'm cool with that. Drew and Zeek have become one of the emotional cornerstones of the series somehow and get a good talk. Sarah and Hank get engaged. Joel and Julia get back together. As I said last week, I'd rather have a satisfying ending than a surprising one, so I'm fine if these episodes have the feeling of checking off items on a list.
Archer "Three to Tango"
I've lost track of all the recurring characters on Archer. I don't remember Conway Stern at all, but thankfully they got the point across that he was the one who literally stabbed Archer in the back.
Girl Meets World "Girl Meets the Master Plan"
Don't tease me. How much Shawn are we getting? He doesn't seem to be going away and I'm at nostalgia overload. I don't care if the under 20 crowd is lost by it. Make all the references to Sean looking through a girl's purse that you want.
Saturday Night Live "Kevin Hart; Sia"
Let's see, we got five good minutes of Kevin Hart standup (I love when comedians host), Kate McKinnon dusting off her Justin Bieber impression, a near breakdown when the monitor broke for the Instagram sketch, and some overall irritation over Selma not getting more Oscar love. In short, it had a little bit of everything that I needed.
Mulaney "French Roast"
Football cutoff a big chunk of the show and it's telling that Fox didn't even bother catching people up. On the plus side, that meant there was much less episode for me to watch. Series hate-watching nearly complete.
Girls "Triggering"
Hannah's not going to survive Iowa. She has one day of having her shit together before falling back in to old habits. She handled the criticism of her work about as well as I expected. Her cockiness going into it made the evisceration satisfying and her insisting that the one classmate had been abused made it oddly funnier.
I love that Hannah comes in thinking that she has some special understanding of the world that the others don't, like how she adds the preface before reading her work or tells the undergrad girl "It's just, I've seen a lot of things. I'm 25 years old." (perhaps the most Hannah thing she's ever said). She and Elijah really do just have their way with that party. I was also happy that her bike did get stolen. I worried that the show would try to paint the Midwest as too nice of a place (coastal bias and all), so that was a good reminder that it's not.
Looking "Looking for Results"
Oh Patrick, you're such a hot mess of anxiety. I think my favorite parts of the episode were him dealing with the health care professionals. Otherwise, this was a pretty serious episode, with Augustin spiralling a little more out of control, leading to an uncomfortable reunion of Patrick and Richie. I wonder if that was a one-off appearance of Richie or if they plan to keep him around in some capacity. Patrick's affair can't have a long shelf life, so we'll see where things are heading next.
Gotham "What the Little Bird Told Him"
A lot of relationship drama going on this week. Falcone learns about Eliza (RIP) working for Fish, just as it's becoming apparent that she kind of likes him. Edward fails to woo Ms. Kringle. Jim and Lee lock lips (It felt a little abrupt, sure, but c'mon, it's Morena Baccarin. How long do you need to be enchanted?). We'll see what the rest of the mod fallout is next week.
Scorpion "Forget Me Nots"
Gee, I sure hope that Sunday night's episode wasn't important or anything since football messed up the recording. Harumph! This is why I avoid Sunday CBS shows.
This episode was fine and all. They inch ever closer to Walter and Paige getting together. It was a great showcase for how all the individual genius can be used as a team (the scene when they get the top secret information out of the unsuspecting agent for instance). What I really want to talk about though is the beginning. Law and Order has the opening scene for a procedural down to an art form. Scorpion tried to mimic that opening with the guys discussing if something the guy did was cheating, but it wasn't right. It needed more broad character generalization. Where was the dog that got off its leash or the elderly woman nagging her husband, worried that she'll be late for the gala? Where was the joke that gets abruptly cut off before the punchline? There wasn't a single street vendor or homeless man to be found. Step up your game, Scorpion.
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