I Got Thoughts on Jane the Virgin: Chapter Fifty-One

-This week in titles: Jane The Guilty Catholic after Alba brings up her lapsed church-going and how she's responsible for Mateo's spiritual upbringing

-For the winter finale, "Jane" pays tribute to master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock as an assignment for Jane's writers group allows them to explore and play with his rules for "bomb under the table" suspense. This helps reinvigorate the crime plot this week as Rafael and Michael's investigation into Elena's secret bank account connected to an Italian convent benefits greatly from some Hitchcockian flair. The camerawork becomes more dynamic, the music more exciting, the lighting darker (particularly during the climatic trip to the convent and Rafael's final conversation with Jane) and the narration more intense. The writers also work in several delightful visual references to classic Hitchcock films like Vertigo and To Catch A Thief throughout the episode, which enhance the story without distracting from it. It makes for a very exciting winter finale that makes the wait for next year that much more difficult.

-The crime stuff is more engaging than usual this week but again it's the smaller, more personal stories that resonant most so we'll talk about that first. Jane's faith is brought to the forefront this week as she resolves to start attending church more (with Mateo in tow) when she realizes she hasn't been since before she got married. Rafael is less onboard with Mateo going to church so young however and in keeping with the new Jane/Rafael dynamic, puts up a fight about it. Faith is one of those big differences between Jane and Rafael that doesn't get touched on a lot so it's nice to see it brought up here even if it ultimately isn't explored that much.

-As someone who has a fair amount of church friends with children about Mateo's age, I can confirm that scene of him fidgeting and acting up in church is accurate with what often happens with my friend's kids. I find it cute though (mainly because I don't have to do anything but revel in the cuteness).

-Of course Jane suddenly becoming concerned about Mateo going to church is a cover for her real concern: why SHE hasn't been going to church lately. When talking to the nun she thinks is Mother Superior though she realizes that she's been angry with God ever since Michael was shot. Jane's faith is important to her and important to the character so watching her be so open about the doubt she's experienced is quite affecting. it's also good to see that the aftereffects of Michael's shooting are still being felt weeks after it happened. Something that big doesn't just go away and "Jane"'s commitment to exploring the aftermath thoroughly and honestly is refreshing. Jane deciding to work on her own relationship with God before working on Mateo's relationship with God is an easy way to curb the Jane/Rafael conflict about church for now but it also feels like the honest, mature thing for Jane to do.

-Michael's recovery also gets an interesting wrinkle as we learn that he failed his physical and can't go back into the field. Suddenly Michael being able to officially resume his detective work isn't as much of a given as it seemed even last episode. It's something that again keeps Rose shooting him from being something that's easily brushed off and promises to send Michael's arc in a new direction when the show returns from hiatus.

-Catalina is still around and Jane is getting tired of her. Suddenly the stories of her many exploits go from feeling exciting and glamorous to annoying and tiresome. It's impressive how "Jane" changes the context of how we see Catalina's behavior without changing Catalina herself.

-Jane gets suspicious of Catalina (Who goes from crashing at Jane's to crashing at the Marbella once Jane politely asks her to leave) from doing a little digging into one of the organizations she's supposedly involved with and noticing a lot of cash and jewels. Catalina has innocent explanations for all of this but it all turns out to be lies when we learn that she has a secret French lover who she stole the jewels from. I wasn't that interested in Catalina being shady last week but now I'm intrigued.

-Rogelio's quest to start a family and have a baby leads him to Darci Factor, The High-Roller Love Dealer (TM). This story mainly seems there to bring in the likes of Denise Richards, Carmen Electra, and Brooke Burke for cameos but takes an interesting turn when Darci and Rogelio decide to have a baby together.

-Darci is played by Justina Machado, AKA Vanessa Diaz from Six Feet Under (Which on an unrelated note, I watched for the first time earlier this year. Highly recommended.). She brings a lot of life and charm to Darci and is able to match the energy and ridiculousness of Jaime Camil perfectly (with a lot of chemistry there to boot) so I'm glad that she seems to be sticking around for a bit. Pairing Rogelio up with someone who's almost as bombastic and narcissistic as he is is also a good idea that I'm surprised hasn't been tried earlier.

-On a minor Rogelio note the show is going all in on it's product integration of Honey Bunches of Oats while also making fun of it and it's beautiful.

-Xo and Alba are mostly on the sidelines this week but Jane does learn from Rogelio about Xo's rekindled romance with Bruce that leads to the revelation that Xo did know he was married the first time she got involved with him. With that reveal adding to Jane's already present dislike of the guy, it's safe to say there's going to be a fair amount of Jane/Xo tension in the next couple episodes.

-I actually didn't think we'd be hearing about the cash discrepancies Rafael covered up for his late father again so I was pleasantly surprised when it came back tonight as we learned the reason for them: it turns out the late Mr. Solano trafficked in stolen paintings and had bribed the Italian convent Elena was connected to to steal some for him.

-While Rafael revealing the truth about what he's done but asking Michael not to say anything looked like it could create new tension between them, his decision to turn himself in at the end to hopefully break the cycle of the Solano's criminal activities for Mateo quickly solved that tension. It was good to see that Jane calling him out on his lack of morals combined with that other revelation (Which I'll talk about in a minute) had sunk in for him.

-I mentioned it briefly above but the whole scene with Jane and Rafael trying to find information at the convent was masterful and a great demonstration of Hitchcock's rules for creating suspense in action as it managed to build suspense, even as it took us step by step through what it was doing. The kicker of waiting until after the commercial to actually complete the "resolve the tension" step was also clever.

-In keeping with the "bomb under the table" method of suspense of letting the audience know things the characters don't, The Narrator shows us an envelope that he promises will change everything near the beginning of the episode. That turns out to be no exaggeration as the envelope contains Rafael's birth certificate which reveals that he isn't a Solano. His mother lost a baby around the time he was born in Italy and bribed the nuns to bring him over as a replacement.

-The reveal of Rafael not actually being a Solano is a great twist for a few reasons. It's a reveal that fits into the heightened Telenovella world of "Jane" perfectly and doesn't feel like a huge retcon. It also turns what could've been another dull crime story into a big personal character story for Rafael, which is very welcome. We've seen how Rafael's negative relationships with his parents and his struggling with their dark legacies has impacted and twisted him throughout the series so this twist is a smart way to bring that all back to the forefront in a way that the death of the mother he didn't really know wouldn't. It also parallels nicely with Jane exploring her family roots this season as Rafael now has the chance to find his real family. This opens up a lot of new avenues of story possibilities and I'm excited to see where this all goes.

-A few choice hashtags this week but my favourite was #nunsontherun , which later got followed with #nunsontherun-back

-Jane returns January 23rd. Ugh, that's such a long ways away.

I Got Thoughts On Jane The Virgin: Chapter Fifty

-This week in titles, "The Virgin" part of "Jane"'s title gets a bomb dropped on it, cleverly setting up a "bombing and bomb dropping" motif for the episode.

-After a brief video chat followed by unexpectedly showing up on Jane's doorstep last week, Jane's cousin Catalina gets a lot of focus this week. Sofia Pernas is a great fit into the world of the show and she makes Catalina feel as cool, sexy, and interesting as the show tells us she is, while making the reveal that she's probably up to no good (Which we all saw coming, but whatever) feel believable.

-The opening flashback does a pretty good job explaining why Jane isn't more wary about her cousin showing up unannounced by explaining how she always wanted a sister. It still seems like something she should be somewhat concerned about though. At least Michael is a bit wary.

-OK, so it's a bit of a stretch that Jane who was artificially inseminated and been caught up in a whirlwind of telenovella-style drama ever since would worry that her life is boring. I can see how the incredibly organized, incredibly romantic Jane would be jealous of Catalina's more care-free and spontaneous approach to life though and get caught up in that.

-Michael being concerned that Jane thinking her life was boring would lead to hear thinking he was boring was a lot more believable conflict. The resolution of him singing "Locked Out of Heaven" at the bar they were at and getting Jane to join in seemed a little weird though since he had just stormed off in a huff the previous scene. The number was cute though.

-Jane's efforts to be a bit more spontaneous lead her to go for an interview for a publisher's assistant job that her adviser recommended her for only to immediately almost blow her chance by deleting her potential boss' file after pretending she had knowledge of a computer program she didn't know. Catalina helps her figure out how to recover from that though by getting in with the other assistants, so that should help Jane's chances a good deal.

-Rafael and Catalina hooking up is definitely an interesting development. Also interesting is the choice to have Jane initially refuse to give Rafael permission to date Catalina. Even though that will probably turn out to have been the right choice in the end, Jane's doing it for the wrong reasons here and it's nice to see her flawed, human side come out more.

-Catalina even charms Alba before revealing that the whole family believes Alba stole Mateo from Cecilia (The truth was Alba never knew her sister's feelings). It was good to see the Jane/Alba tension hadn't completed evaporated from last episode and though they reconciled more fully this week, it felt earned here in a way that it wouldn't have last week.

-Is Catalina evil? I have my doubts. "Jane" doesn't have a lot of complete villains and I want to believe that Alba's family is more complex than how Alba paints them. I guess time will tell.

-Xo's plans to open a dance studio are sure moving along quickly with Rogelio stepping in to help speed things up. Also, after having him mentioned a couple times in the beginning of the series, it was nice to finally meet Bruce, Xo's no-good ex who she just can't resist. It was no surprise that she winds up involved with him again, especially now that he's apparently divorced but her keeping it from everyone is a nice wrinkle.

-The flashback to Xo and Ro's high school days as we see teenage Rogelio try and fail to convince teenage Xo that he joined her dance troupe for reasons beyond meeting girls was wonderful. Their efforts to recreate it in the present was equally wonderful and the reveal that Rogelio had actually joined the dance troupe to meet Xo was a nice one.

-I like when shows do product placement while poking fun at how they're doing product placement so I thought Rogelio's storyline where he has to integrate HBO (Honey Bunches of Oats) into his show so he can go full frontal in his movie was just terrific. Especially with the attempts to turn a key episode about the Cuban Missle Crisis into an episode set at HBO Creator Vernon J. Herzing's house.

-Of course Rogelio's storyline is really about him coming to realize he still loves Xo only to walk away when he sees her kissing Bruce (A move he criticizes when the writers on his Telenovella intend to have his character do it earlier) because he realizes how guilty he feels for not being part of Jane's life sooner and how much he does want those kids that Xo doesn't want. It seems like Rogelio is really going to be focused on trying to find someone to have kids with now, which should be promising.

-It's a bit disappointing to see the status quo of Rafael and Petra as equal partners in the hotel back again after Petra's major power play last week but the reveal that Scott's sexual harassment lawsuit was a set-up by Rafael was clever (To me anyways. I should have seen it coming but I somehow didn't.) and hopefully is setting up for more of a back and forth power struggle between the two before the inevitable reconciliation.

-I have to say I've never been a huge fan of Scott, but he's really come into his own this season. I like the idea that he's an oily schemer who collects favours and knows everyone's secrets. It makes him an interesting wildcard to shake up stories. Having him learn the truth about his relationship with "Petra" was a smart decision too.

-What did Scott whisper into Petra's ear anyways? The thing that makes the most sense is that he simply told her he knew Anezka had been impersonating her but wouldn't that give away that Rafael had given him that information? Maybe Petra has another secret waiting to be revealed, but I can't imagine what would be so bad as to get her to give in to Rafael like she did.

-Also what happened to Magda and Dot-Marie Jones' enforcer character? That feels like something that should be addressed at some point in the near-future.

-Faith M. Whiskers III! Finally! I've been waiting weeks for that cat!

-Petra telling Scott they are never, ever getting back together was a cute joke made better by the reveal that that was apparently Scott and Anezka Petra's song.

-A solid if unremarkable episode of "Jane" this week. Next week is the mid-season finale though so I'm hoping things will be taken up a notch.

I Got Thoughts On Timeless: Stranded

-Stranded doesn't waste any time getting to the action this week starting off in 1754, establishing the setting (The French/Indian War) and how miserable the team has been on this mission while they search for Flynn before one of Flynn's men damages the Life Boat and strands them there. It's a smart move that throws the audience offguard and helps get us to the meat of the episode quicker.

-The terrible conditions of 1754 combined with the fallout from the revelations from last week (And Wyatt's offscreen discovery of Lucy's deal to save her sister when she won't let him save his wife) lead to a lot of sniping and infighting from our team for the first 15 minutes or so, which isn't the most fun thing to watch but feels realistic. Also it helps that they explain why Wyatt is taking this so hard by emphasizing the team aspect of his Delta Force background as why it's important for him to trust who he works with.

-Hey, Wyatt killing people actually has tangible consequences this time out as his killing of a French soldier who's an officer's son makes their efforts to get the supplies they need from Fort Duquesne significantly more difficult. It's a clever way to take what other shows might treat as a throwaway kill and give it narrative weight.

-While I never came close to thinking that the show was going to kill off the team or strand them in 1754 for the remainder of the show, the scene after they're captured and tied up by Shawnee Natives where they face the idea of never going back home and their various regrets was an effective one and by the end of it, their reconciliation felt completely believable. Also Rufus' first desire when confronted with the idea of never going home again is to eat a Chocodile which felt very believable and very Rufus. Plus Lucy and Wyatt gifting him with a box of Chocodiles at the end was very sweet.

-I'm not familiar with Nonhelema but this episode made me want to learn more about her because she made a strong impression in her big scene. You could see why Lucy was so starstruck when she realized who she was.

-There was a lot of cloying speeches this episode meant to pull at the heartstrings a bit, but Rufus refusing to take the freedom Nonhelema offered if it meant his friends would die and pleading for their lives was the most effective one.

-Oh, Right It's 1754 Part 1: Everyone not on the team assumes Rufus is a slave and that earns him his freedom when the Shawnee mark Lucy and Wyatt for death. That assumption helps Nonhelema respect Rufus more when she sees him putting himself on the line for them.

-Oh Right, It's 1754 Part 2: Lucy getting around Wyatt's lack of French speaking by pretending he's injured and can't speak hitting a major snag when a doctor doesn't trust her treatment of him because she's a woman and then decides mercury and bloodletting is the best course of treatment for what ails Wyatt (Too much blood).

-Wyatt hoping the capacitor Rufus needed was a flux capacitor was cute.

-We actually get to spend time with Mason, Agent Christopher and Jiya this week as they try to figure out what happened to the team back in the present and complete protocol, which involves them digging up a note in a polypropylene bottle that Rufus buries three feet in front of the life boat. This was much-needed as those three have been barely developed or given much to do at all despite series regular status. Also I'm hoping this means the show is going to start doing more subplots with these characters while our heroes are busy tromping around the past.

-Agent Christopher remains fairly underdeveloped beyond establishing that she does like the team and wants to get them back too but now that she's suspicious of Mason, it's safe to bet that she's going to become a bigger part of the story in the weeks to come. Or learn too much and get killed by Rittenhouse to show us how serious a threat they are. Ugh, that better not be where this is going.

-Rufus' interest in Jiya was a small part of the pilot before basically getting waved off in the second episode but it returned here in a way that felt natural as both Rufus and Jiya got to express how they feel about the other and their frustrations with how things have been going since their date. Their relationship was built up well enough that when they kissed at the end of the episode, I felt invested in where this was going.

-Jiya got more to do than just worry about Rufus though. When a crack in the tube leaves the 262-year-old note destroyed beyond the words death and Millennium, it's Jiya who figures out that Rufus was making a Star Wars analogy (Of course he did) to explain to them what they were going to have to do to get the Lifeboat back home once it took off, as the navigation system was busted.

-Mason's relationship with Rufus got some much-needed context as well as he told Jiya about the first time they met and how he sees Rufus as a "genius with a sense of responsibility". This is also the first time in 7 episodes that I actually believe that Mason cares about Rufus.

-Rittenhouse Guy/Lucy's Father Benjamin Cahill briefly pops up to threaten Mason, remind us he exist and establish that Mason has noticed his interest in Lucy. It also turns out that putting Lucy on the team, despite others being more qualified was her dad's idea, which answers a question I never thought about but am glad to have answered because it shows the creative team has put thought into the story they're telling.

-It was nice seeing our heroes actually out grabbing a drink at the end of their ordeal. They definitely earned it. Having Lucy come clean that she is worried about writing that journal today and working with Flynn was a good character moment and Wyatt's rousing speech about free will and history being a series of choices was a nice note to end on instead of some tease about the larger Myth arc.

-Does Lucy's fiance still exist? Are we going to get back to him at some point?

-I actually really enjoyed this episode a lot. Timeless is on a nice little roll right now.

-Next Week: Moon Landing!

I Got Thoughts on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Why Is Josh's Ex-Girlfriend Eating Carbs

-After an emotionally fraught couple of episodes, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend goes a bit lighter this week as it sets up the next phase of the season.

-If there's a benefit to Santino Fontana leaving the show beyond not having to worry about Rebecca driving Greg to relapse, it's that the show can increase it's focus on other members of the ensemble who are typically pushed off to the side. Case in point: after sitting out the first three episodes of the season and almost all of the fourth one, Valencia made her triumphant return this week as Gabrielle Ruiz finally got to make use of the Series Regular status given to her before the start of this season.

-Valencia was a tricky character in season 1. Although she was granted some depth and nuance from time to time, especially in the later parts of the season, her (justified) hostility towards Rebecca and her abrasive, superior, and controlling personality made her come off as a one-dimensional shrew a lot of the time. She became one of those significant others who you couldn't understand why the love interest was dating them. Now that she and Rebecca are both broken up with Josh however, we have a chance to actually get to know Valencia as a person and finally get the Rebecca/Valencia friendship the show feinted towards doing towards the end of last season, which if the end of this episode is any indication will bring some fresh energy into the show.

-Of course Valencia started off the episode basically the same as she was in season 1 though it became quickly apparent that she was just putting up a front to avoid confronting her feelings about Josh even before the drug-induced dream ballet brought that to the forefront. So Rebecca kidnapping Valencia and bringing her to Electric Mesa (San Gabriel Valley's version of Burning Man) was the only logical way to get both of them to that location.

-The Triceratops-fueled Dream Ballet sequence was definitely the musical highlight of the episode this week (Though Thought Bubbles was a strong number). From the spot on musical choices for the two performances (I'm The Villain In My Own Story and One Indescribable Instant for Valencia, and I'm Just A Girl In Love and I'm A Good Person for Rebecca) to the clear differences in Rebecca and Valencia's Ballet abilities (Valencia is characteristically graceful. Rebecca not so much) and how both told the emotional journeys of the two and their relationships with Josh in clear fashion even before they explained what those journeys were afterwards.

-The joke about Rebecca's keys being kept in her underwear was all right but the strong implication that they were actually in, um, a slightly different place was hysterical.

-It was incredibly satisfying and cathartic to see Rebecca finally pissed at Josh for all the ways he's taken advantage of her this season.

-Also satisfying and cathartic? Rebecca and Valencia standing up for each other when confronting Josh and having that turning into the two finally bonding and building each other up. Was it totally earned? Probably not, but it was so satisfying I don't mind. Rebecca and Valencia becoming friends is much more interesting than them being at each others throats, even if it probably isn't going to last forever (Josh will probably get between the two eventually),

-Also satisfying and cathartic but in a weird way? Rebecca and Valencia peeing all over Josh's sound equipment. Honestly did not see that one coming.

-Having Valencia start off ever-so-slightly heavier in this episode and slowly get back to where she was as she got over Josh and regained her confidence was such a subtle neat visual touch that I almost wish the show hadn't kept commenting on it, but then we wouldn't have had Valencia being so confident that she stopped fixating on her appearance and that was the best part of that small story thread.

-Valencia and Heather make for a great combination. Having them both around to play off of Rebecca should be fun.

-Paula makes a new friend too this week! Parvesh Cheena makes a strong first impression as Sunil, a fellow older student at law school who quickly bonds with Paula in a way that feels natural and believable. When he responds to Paula accidentally blurting out that she had an abortion by casually admitting that his wife recently killed herself, it instantly endears you to the guy.

-What Sunil's introduction does is really highlight the imbalance of Paula and Rebecca's friendship (He sees Rebecca's selfcenteredness ever so briefly and assumes she's Paula's daughter because his much younger daughters are the same way). Watching the two interact and team up to steal a jerk student's note-taking app, it really feels like a friendship of equals where the pair is helping and enabling each other. That's something that Paula and Rebecca's friendship has barely ever felt like, even in the best of times, which the show kindly doesn't spell out for us.

-The divide between Rebecca and Paula is widening and you don't even realize it until the end where they're both at the same place with different people and worlds apart. Their friendship is still formally going but from the way they both interact and look at each other afterwards, it seems like it's ended and it's devastating.

-We get some insight into Josh this week as we learn something that explains a lot about him: he can't bare to be alone. Thought Bubbles, our only real song this week, captures this perfectly. Josh is someone who doesn't want to have to confront anything real or unpleasant so he runs from it by throwing himself into relationships or things to keep busy. When he's alone though he can't keep those dark thoughts out of his head but rather than deal with them like an adult, he keeps pushing them away. Until Josh can finally handle being alone, he's never going to be able to grow up and be the mature, responsible adult he wants to be.

-Josh's manager Alex was a delight this week. As I've said a couple times before, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is really good at making the smallest characters have something vital to contribute to the scene. Sherpa Alan also qualifies.

-The good thing about Josh being unable to be alone? Guest star Brittany Snow as Josh's new love interest! Brittany Snow is terrific and needs to be in more things so I hope she's around for a while.

-Daryl got his first significant storyline of the season as he goes with White Josh to Electric Mesa and realizes that White Josh has a certain type: older men. This allows for an excellent exploration of Daryl and White Josh's relationship as Daryl starts to feel insecure and replaceable. It turns out White Josh has similar insecurities though and when they're finally open with each other, they exchange "I Love Yous" for the first time.

-Rebecca actually gave Daryl good relationship advice! Rebecca isn't always the best friend to the people in her life but she definitely has her moments.

-The real sweet thing about the story though is how Daryl finally introduces Josh to his daughter Madison and the three wind up all holding hands as they leave to get Madison a stuffed Pegasus in addition to her new stuffed snail. I definitely choked up there. Daryl and White Josh forever!

-Season 1 would often segue to the theme song by having someone wonder why Rebecca was there which made the expositional theme song sort of a stealth punchline. Season 2's theme is different and can't be cued up as easily so when it got set up tonight with Rebecca remarking she must be crazy, I cheered a little.

-Rebecca apparently has a fetish about being choked by red liquorice. I expect this to pay off at some point.

-I'm hoping Rebecca having to give Heather and Valencia five dollars every time she mentions Josh becomes a recurring joke throughout the season.

-Solid episode this week. Next week: Girl power and more Rebecca/Paul drama! My heart is aching already.

I Got Thoughts On Timeless: The Watergate Tapes

I Got Thoughts is a point-form collection of my thoughts on episodes of television for shows where a proper recap is insufficient for expressing all the things I want to express.

-After an ugly and emotionally fraught 2016 Presidential Election cycle, I was actually looking forward for a trip back to the simpler days of the Watergate Scandal. The Watergate Tapes was less about Richard Nixon's America however (Though we did meet Deepthroat and the BLA) and more about finally fleshing out Garcia Flynn and Rittenhouse, while revealing Rufus and Lucy's own deceptions. We were definitely due for a mythology episode of Timeless and I'm mostly glad with all the developments in this one but it does feel like a bit of a waste of such an interesting backdrop. Oh well.

-I'm always a fan of when TV uses real history as part of it's mythology so the idea that the missing 18 and a half minutes of the Nixon Tapes are Nixon freaking out about Rittenhouse and how dangerous Rittenhouse is is delightful for me. It also helps make me much more interested in Rittenhouse than I've been up to this point.

-So Rittenhouse is some kind of secret organization that dates back to 1778 and its history and development is intertwined with that of America. That's something. We still don't know a lot about what it is exactly that they do or why they do it, which keeps the threat of Rittenhouse vague and ill-defined, but it's definitely more defined than it was previously so it's progress. We also learn that they keep no records, that people are born into the organization rather than join it, that they'll go to incredible lengths to keep their secrets and that Lucy is much more tied to the organization than we realized. That last one is crucial because huge mysterious threats on shows like these always work better if the characters have a personal connection to it.

-I actually forgot that Lucy and Wyatt weren't aware of the existence of Rittenhouse as anything more than the crazy ramblings of Flynn. I also forgot that Lucy had never told Wyatt or Rufus about the journals Flynn has that allegedly come from Future Lucy. By the end of the episode everyone's on the same page as we are though so that's positive. I appreciate Timeless not dragging out the characters secrets for longer than a few episodes. It keeps the story moving that much quicker.

-Flynn and Wyatt were the two weakest links of Timeless back when it started. Since then, Wyatt has really come into his own and become a much more compelling character while Flynn has remained more or less the same. Claims of doing all this in favor of a greater good do not make a character compelling. That changes this week though when Wyatt becomes Flynn's captive and we learn the truth about why he's doing what he's doing. Now Flynn is much more fleshed out and actually feels like a complicated antagonist, which is much better than us just being told he's a complicated antagonist.

-So what's the deal with Flynn? Turns out he took on some routine surveillance for the NSA a couple years ago, discovered large amounts of money being funnelled to Connor Mason as he worked on his time travel project and connected it to Rittenhouse. When he flagged it to his contact at the NSA, a few nights later Rittenhouse killed his wife and child and when they failed to kill him, framed him for the murders. So now he's trying to destroy Rittenhouse in an attempt to save his family and if that means taking out America in the process than so be it. It's a strong backstory for the character that also makes him an intriguing mirror of Wyatt, who is also hoping to save someone he lost through their adventures. Garcia Flynn is still a villain but now he's a more tragic one and that's going to be important for the future sustainability of the show.

-Lucy hiding the existence of the future journal and her occasional chats with Flynn seems like a small thing as far as secrets go, but the journal is used for much greater effect when it turns out to contain details about the death of Wyatt's wife and Future Lucy's opinion that Wyatt needs to "get over it", which is a much better justification for driving a wedge between Wyatt and Lucy.

-OK so the "dead wife" as motivator for Wyatt (And now Flynn) is still an annoying cliche and I'm not a fan of it. That being said the scene where Flynn reads Wyatt the stuff in the journal about his wife, revealing to us how it happened was very effective. Her turning up dead after a drunken Wyatt left her on the side of the road following a big fight gives us valuable context into why Wyatt wants to go back and save her so bad. It's good character development even if it's relying on a dumb cliche.

-So how long until we learn that Rittenhouse was behind the death of Wyatt's wife? I'm thinking episode 13 (Which would've been the finale if not for a full-season order) tops. You don't establish a conspiracy board without it paying off at some point.

-Seriously Wyatt is such a better character now. When he talks at the end about not being able to trust Lucy or Rufus, my heart actually broke just a little.

-Now that all three of our heroes and Flynn are interesting, fleshed-out characters, can we start fleshing out Connor Mason, the NSA agent and that other girl at the lab please? They're regulars but they never seem to get much to do, particularly the ones whose names I can't even remember.

-The Doc being a person and not a document was a good twist. It also reinforces how ruthless Rittenhouse is as they were actively trying to destroy her for sending her family away and trying to escape. I'm curious to see if she'll show up in the present day timeline at some point. I hope so. She made quite an impression with her brief screentime.

-Lucy and Wyatt finding out that Rufus has been spying on them for Rittenhouse was a surprise. I figured we were a few more episodes away from that reveal but it's all out in the open now. Whatever trust was between the three of them has definitely been severed. Hopefully we'll get to see the fallout from that get explored in the next couple weeks. It would ring false if they were all back to being friends again in a week's time.

-It was good to actually meet Rufus' mom this week and learn some details about his family. It helps enforce why we should care about Rittenhouse threatening them.

-The juiciest revelation we got is that John Getz's threatening Rittenhouse guy is named Benjamin Cahill. Also, he's Lucy's real father. Again as I said above, that makes Rittenhouse more intriguing by giving Lucy a personal connection to it even if she isn't aware the connection exists right now. My main question is does Cahill know the historian he's spying on is his daughter? His phone call at the end leaves that ambiguous.

-It seemed weird that Rufus didn't seem to know much about Watergate or Deep Throat, but his ignorance on the situation did lead for some funny moments, particularly his joke about knowing the porn version of Deep Throat.

-Solid episode this week, even though I would've preferred more Watergate stuff. Next week has them in the 1750's and tackling the "stranded in time" trope, which could be very cool.

I Got Thoughts On Jane The Virgin: Chapter 49

I Got Thoughts is a point-form collection of thoughts on episodes of television for shows where a proper recap is insufficient for expressing all the things I want to express.

-So it looks like "Jane" is going to be replacing "The Virgin" part of the title card with something new every week to reflect her situation. Fun fun! This week we get Jane The Happy Mom due to her joy about Michael and Rafael going on a "man date".

-The recaps on Jane The Virgin can get fairly long so the part towards the end where the narrator tries to remember what else is going on before landing on Jane and Michael moving which means there might be boxes in scenes was a good meta-joke about their need to explain everything.

-I always knew Yael Grobglas was extremely talented, but I'm not sure I realized how talented she was until real Petra returned tonight incredibly distinct from Anezka pretending to be Petra. There's a certain power to Petra that Anezka doesn't have but it wasn't obvious until Petra got back in action.

-I wasn't expecting Petra to become unfrozen halfway in the episode and I certainly wasn't expecting her to cover for her sister and go through with the plan to sell the hotel shares (Until a speech from Scott convinced her to go against her mother's plan and try to get Rafael completely out of the hotel with her having total ownership instead). I'm a bit torn on the return of Petra as an antagonistic force because I enjoyed her slowly becoming a decent person last season but it does make a lot of sense. After Petra's struggles with postpartum depression, bonding with her children and worrying she was a bad mother last season, I can see how her hearing Rafael's comment to Anezka Petra about worrying for a minute that she didn't have the "mom gene" would set her off. Couple that with her being trapped for three months as everyone around her failed to notice what had happened and I can see why she regressed. I'm not totally on board with the regression yet but I'm willing to give it a chance and see how this plays out. Scheming Petra is a lot of fun to watch, I must admit.

-Also not sure how I feel about Petra branding Anezka. She definitely deserves punishment for what she did, especially if Petra isn't turning her in to the police but branding seems extreme.

-I do know how I feel about Xo's "Beauty School Dropout" fantasy that convinces her to open her own dance studio though. It was delightful! "Jane" does a lot of musical performances but full-blown musical production numbers are rare. So this was a treat, especially with how it utilized Gina Rodriguez, Jaime Camil, and Ivonne Coll's wonderful voices.

-It's also nice that the show remembered Xo teaches dance lessons, because opening a dance studio seems like the perfect career option for her. That should be a fun story to watch play out.

-49 episodes in and Jane finally has her first significant conflict with Alba. They've had conflict before but Alba's anger with Jane after the most indirect conflict with her family leads to an out of the blue phone call from her long-estranged sister was genuinely shocking. After two seasons of Xo/Jane or Xo/Alba conflict though, it was a bit refreshing to have an Alba/Jane conflict with Xo being the peacemaker for once.

-Also the show did a really good job of setting the conflict between Jane and Alba so that you could see both sides of the argument. Jane grew up with a loving family, but a very small one and the letters from Cecilia reveal a huge tapestry of uncles, aunts, and cousins that Jane never imagined was there. One of the first things we learn about Jane is how passionate she is about family and that's been consistent throughout the show. How can she resist reaching out? On the other hand, Alba's mother died not talking to her because of what Cecilia did. Her entire family turned on her and to expect Alba to suddenly let them back into her life after all the pain they've caused her isn't fair. Jane crossed a line she promised not to cross and Alba is absolutely right to be angry about it, which the show acknowledges.

-The flashback to young Jane convincing Alba to let her go to Disney World for a day was good at how it reflected the Jane/Alba relationship up until now. Jane has always wanted her grandmother's approval and Alba has always been willing to concede to Jane. The thing is now that Jane is an adult, that kind of relationship isn't sustainable anymore. Jane has to be able to make her own decisions whether or not Alba approves and Alba has to accept that. So Jane is going to continue trying to connect with Alba's family, which is exciting. It's a bit similar to how the whole Xo/Alba abortion conflict played out a couple weeks ago but it feels fresh because it's an entirely different relationship under strain this time and it's about something that's not easily brushed away.

-Of course right after Jane decides to let some of Alba's family into her life her cousin Catalina unexpectedly shows up on her doorstep. That should be fun.

-Also Jane's Facebook chat with Catalina made me remember how much I like the way social media is naturally incorporated into the world of the show.

-The "man date" between Michael and Rafael at the gym was awkward in all the best ways. Rafael and Michael are two very different guys with a very complicated history and though I'm as excited as Jane is at the prospect of the two becoming friends, it's not something that will come easily to them or happen overnight and the "Jane" writers know that.

-They did make some big steps tonight as Michael's freakout after thinking Rafael was sleeping with a married woman brought up one of the plot points from the start of the show that doesn't get acknowledged much anymore: Jane was Michael's fiancee and Rafael pursued her despite knowing that. Nothing actually happened between Jane and Rafael until her and Michael broke up but he still came between them and that's not something Michael can just drop without an honest apology (which he does get).

-Another early plot point that got revisited tonight: Rafael having cancer, which was used to explain why he tries to hard to be in control of his body now. Was this whole storyline an excuse to have Justin Baldoni show off his admittedly terrific physique? Probably but I don't care. Rafael and Michael are on the road to becoming friends now. Yay!

-Rogelio tricking Michael and Rafael into getting into his car for a "Man to Man to Man to Man" (Mateo was there too) talk was hilarious. Also I'm on board with Rogelio constantly pointing out how handsome Rafael is as a running joke.

-Rogelio was kind of an afterthought this week but the idea that he has to do his network a favor now in order for them to allow him to do a full-frontal scene in an American movie could be interesting.

-Apparently Mudder's "Angels Guard The Son" message was code for a bank account number (Which rich guys Rogelio and Rafael immediately picked up on). Which is anticlimatic if that's all it is but this is Jane The Virgin. There's always more to it.

-Jane stealing the narrator's "It feels like straight out of a telenovella" catchphrase was cute.

-Scott actually got a fair bit of depth this week, which was surprising. Also the show's definitely setting up for a Scott/Anezka/Petra love triangle in the near future, right?

-Strong episode this week. What else is new?

All-Time Faves: Booze Cruise Gave The Office Something To Believe In

All-Time Faves is a new feature I'll be doing on occasion where I talk about some of my favourite episodes of television and what makes them special. To kick it off we'll be looking at my all-time favourite episode of my all-time favourite show: Booze Cruise, the 11th episode of the 2nd season of The Office, which originally aired January 5th 2006.

"Never, ever, ever give up"

There are many episodes of The Office that serve as good entry points for the show for someone who has never seen an episode. The Pilot is a pale imitation of the British originals pilot and nowhere close to what the show would become but it introduces the main characters well enough and if you haven't seen the British version, it plays better. The season 2 premiere, The Dundies is a better entry point. The writers have figured out the tone that works best for writing Michael and for the show, and it's packed full of great little jokes and character beats plus the first "kiss" for Jim and Pam. My first episode back in the day was the episode that follows this one, The Injury. It's hands-down one of the funniest episodes the show ever did and it gave me a good sense of what the characters and comedy of the show were like, instantly making me want to see more. However if you were to ask me what episode of The Office to start with, I would point you to Booze Cruise each and every time.

Written by Greg Daniels who developed the show for American Television, and directed by Ken Kwapis who directed several crucial installments of the show, including both the first and last episodes, and Casino Night, Booze Cruise is my absolute favourite episode of The Office. It features an incredibly funny first half with classic joke after classic joke before seamlessly seguing into a second half that's heartbreaking and introspective, but still hilarious, a perfect blend of everything The Office was so good at in its prime. It has not one but two of the very best scenes the show ever did. It's a key turning point in the Jim/Pam relationship, but also a turning point in the Jim/Michael relationship. Also, unlike some of the other best episodes of the show, it requires no previous knowledge of The Office to be impactful, which is why I recommend it as a starting point. Casino Night (my second-favourite episode) is incredible television and arguably better than Booze Cruise, but it's also the culmination of the season that preceded it, full of callbacks and pay-offs to character relationships that are going to mean nothing to you if you haven't seen at least part of the season up to this point, particularly Booze Cruise, which sets up the emotional through line for the back half of the season. By the end of Booze Cruise, you have a good idea of who Michael, Jim, Pam, and Dwight are, a good grasp of the actual office dynamics, a clear understanding of Jim's feelings towards Pam, and most crucially a reason to believe in their love story beyond "the show wants us to".

The trick Booze Cruise pulls though is that if you were to go into it having heard nothing about it, you'd have no idea how important it was. The first half is standard Office, largely focused on Michael's antics with the rest of the Dunder Mifflin team reluctantly along for the ride. This time, Michael has planned a top secret "first quarter camaraderie event", which turns out to be a January booze cruise (When it's cheaper) along Lake Wallenpaupack. It's not just another party though. Michael has also planned what he hopes will be an inspirational presentation on leadership (which is entirely based on the word ship being part of the word leadership as it's "derivation"). That desire to be an inspiring boss who is going to turn lives around with what he has to say is what becomes Michael's motivation for the episode and what keeps his antics from feeling too grating. Michael's intentions to inspire though bump up with the intentions of Captain Jack, the ship's captain and "party captain" who takes both of his jobs very seriously. Portrayed by Rob Riggle in one of his best performances, Captain Jack is one of the best one-time guest characters The Office ever had, a reasonable guy with the right amount of "loudmouth alpha dog" typically found in a Rob Riggle character who just wants to do his job and have a good time, and who becomes increasingly firm on shutting down Michael's presentation when it interferes with his schedule. He's given enough personality to feel like more of a character than the plot device he could've been reduced to and that makes his pseudo-power struggle with Michael all the funnier and an episode solely based on that power struggle would still have been one of the better episodes of The Office. Just when you think you know where the episode is going however, Pam steps away from her fiance and the snorkel shot crowd for a minute to talk to Jim.

The best 30 seconds The Office ever did contains no jokes and barely any dialogue. It's so strong I had forgotten it happens at the episode's mid-point instead of near the end. It starts when Pam jokingly asks Jim what it's like to date a cheerleader. Jim chuckles and starts to answer but then just doesn't. He simply stares at Pam as if he wants to tell her what he really wants while she waits for him to say something, anything. For 27 whole seconds neither of them say nothing at all, but those 27 seconds tell us everything. Greg Daniels has said as he watched the scene in the edit bay he was yelling for Jim to kiss Pam and you can't blame him. The episode has stealthily reminded us that Pam's engagement has no end in sight and that Roy just isn't a good fit for her. You get the sense that if Jim were to kiss Pam then that would be it and Pam would break it off with Roy while Jim broke it off with Katie and they would get together at last. Except Jim isn't ready to let Pam know what has been clear from the start so he doesn't kiss her because he can't do it now. He just can't. So Pam breaks the silence, makes an excuse and leaves. The moment has passed. It's a beautiful sequence from beginning to end with some of the best acting John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer ever did, but it's also a lot more than that.

It was always easy to root for Jim and Pam. Krasinski and Fischer had terrific chemistry from the beginning and the source material of the British original gave it a real and relatable hook: the struggles of being in love with someone who loves someone else. The best Will They/Won't They romances need a big obstacle to make the question an actual question and Pam's engagement was a big one. The thing is, as easy as it was to root for Jim and Pam, it was easy to get the sense that you just wanted them to get together because that's how shows like this works and that's what The Office wanted you to do. The attractive people with strong chemistry get together because why not? Yeah you were invested, but you had to be invested. What makes the 27 seconds of silence on Booze Cruise so powerful is that it sells you on the idea of a powerful emotional bond between Jim and Pam that transcends television conventions and writing. You believe Jim is in love with this girl not because he's the romantic lead of a television sitcom, but because he deeply, truly loves her and when you believe that, you believe in love. Suddenly rooting for Jim and Pam isn't an obligation but something you actually truly want to see in your heart of hearts. And that honest investment is crucial to the success of the back half of the season, which I know from experience. When I originally watched the 2nd season of The Office, it was on DVDs I rented one disc at a time from the video store that I viewed in the odd order of discs 3-4-1-2. So Booze Cruise was actually the last episode of the second season that I watched, and once I rewatched the second half of the season (which I believe I did immediately), all the Jim/Pam moments that I liked before became that much more powerful. The Casino Night confession, rejection, and kiss became that much more powerful because it actually felt like it meant something. Those 27 seconds are some of the most meaningful seconds The Office ever did and they become amplified by the heartbreak that happens next.

Up to this point, Pam's engagement had been nothing but a plot device, a contrivance to keep Pam unavailable and Jim pining, letting the pair have sweet moments while also giving them a good reason to never do anything about their feelings. It was a reliable story engine but there was no stakes to it, no investment in the idea of Pam actually marrying Roy beyond occasional lip service to the idea and no reason to assume that this would change anytime soon. Even after those 27 seconds, shortly followed by Jim's private assertion to the camera (and to us viewers) that if the office was on fire he would save the receptionist (the closest he's ever come to verbalizing his feelings), it feels like we're about to go back to business as usual. So when a very drunk Roy is inspired by Captain Jack's story of marrying his first wife the day after he got back from Desert Storm and finally decides to set a date for the wedding, it's a bigger shock than it should be. Suddenly Pam's engagement isn't something that can easily be cast off, but a very real thing that feels urgent and can't be ignored anymore. We had a reason to believe in Jim and Pam's love and now suddenly we don't. That moment between them happened two minutes earlier but now it feels like an eternity ago. Tellingly, Jim and Pam don't interact for the remainder of the episode and Pam doesn't even look at him, caught up in the rekindled passion of her engagement. Jim doesn't say much but just like before, his face tells us everything. This is the worst night of his life.

If Booze Cruise has a false note it's the episode's treatment of Jim's girlfriend Katie, who is played by Amy Adams of all people. Katie was introduced in the season 1 finale Hot Girl as pretty much that, a hot girl for Jim to date so we knew he had a love life outside of pining for Pam. She was never going to stick around the show for long (Adams was weeks way from her first-ever Oscar nomination for Junebug when this aired) so the show never bothered to define her or make her more than "Jim's temporary girlfriend". It's not the worst thing in the world, but Adams brought so much personality and life to what little she was given that it feels like a waste when a heartbroken Jim callously breaks up with her. Hindsight also definitely plays a part in why the Katie break-up feels so off. The Office definitely wasn't the first or the last show to have a disposable love interest, but the fact that Amy Adams became such a high-profile actress winds up drawing a lot more attention to how superfluous Katie is than it would with someone lesser-known in the role. It's a small blip and doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the episode (It is my favourite after all), but it always manages to take me out of the episode for a moment. Just a moment though.

Because the Jim/Pam/Roy triangle becomes such a huge part of the episode, it's easy to forget how funny Booze Cruise is. It starts with a classic Jim prank on Dwight where he puts all of his stuff in vending machines and doesn't let up from there. Jim and Pam feigning ignorance about the movie Titanic ("I think you're thinking of The Hunt For Red October" is one of my all-time favourite lines). One of Steve Carrell's best line deliveries as he responds to Daryl's suggestion that if the office was a ship the sales department would be the sails with an incredibly ignorant and condescending "Yes Daryl, The sales department makes sales". Captain Jack letting Dwight "steer" the ship and Dwight having no clue it's a fake wheel. Michael tearing up the dance floor. Even the bittersweetness of Pam and Roy setting a date gets a comic boost from Michael's power struggle with Captain Jack leading him to suggest that he give Pam away at her wedding. There is a lot of comic brilliance in this episode which helps keep it from getting bogged down in the melancholy, emotional moments while also making those moments more potent. The comedy does tone down once Jim and Pam have their moment and Pam reaffirms her engagement but it never goes away totally and it comes back in full force when Captain Jack sneaks off for a quickie with Meredith and Michael takes control.

The mundane setting of Dunder Mifflin means that big-scale comic set pieces were rare in The Office, particularly the early days (After Dwight's insane fire drill in season 5's Superbowl episode, they became more frequent). So when a frustrated and seasick Michael decides to finally kick off his presentation by announcing that the ship is sinking, the chaos of the moment was still a relative novelty. Even after seeing this episode dozens of times, the scene still never fails to be funny because of how well-constructed it is. We know what's going on and the annoyed employees of Dunder Mifflin know what's going on, but as Captain Jack reminded us at the beginning of the cruise, the Dunder Mifflin employees are not the only people on the boat, and once Michael tells people that "Captain Jack is gone", those poor confused souls stop listening and start panicking. It's a brilliant scene that builds and builds, getting more absurd until someone literally jumps overboard, paying off a joke quietly set up earlier when Captain Jack explained where the life preservers and emergency exits (anywhere over the side) were. Michael had good intentions with what he wanted to accomplish, but he let jealousy and poor judgement get the best of those intentions until they turned to cringe-worthy chaos the way they often do. So it's no surprise that Michael ultimately winds up in the brig, complaining that the boat wasn't as "corporate friendly as advertised" and unaware that he's done anything wrong.

If Booze Cruise were to end on a dark note with Michael's best intentions falling apart spectacularly and Jim miserable, it would still be one of the best episodes the show has ever done but it would probably not be my all-time favourite. It's a great, great episode but the thing that pushes it over the top is the ending. Trying to get away from the girl he loves and the girl he broke up with, Jim goes to the front of the ship where he finds Michael. They talk a bit about what a terrible night it's been and when Michael points out that at least Jim's friend got engaged (She was always engaged but Roy claimed the first one didn't count), Jim admits how he really feels to an extent. He says he used to have a big thing for Pam, much to the surprise of Michael who never would've put Jim and Pam together. This episode really is a tour de force for John Krasinski as he delivers yet another all-time great Jim performances just minutes after the last one. Before this episode Jim has never said a word about how he feels about Pam and now he's done it twice, and he's told Michael of all people, even if he tries to play it as in the past. We have never seen Jim so vulnerable before. This is big but it's nothing compared to what Michael says. "Well, if you like her so much, don't give up". It's a line Steve Carrell delivers with a shrug, said as casually as if they were discussing the weather and it throws Jim off. "She's engaged", he says but Michael shrugs that off too. "BFD. Engaged ain't married". Then the casualness is gone and suddenly Michael sounds like the inspirational speaker he's been trying to be all night. "Never, ever, ever give up" he says, and you can watch every one of those words slowly sink into Jim's face.

The thing about inspiration is that it's not something that can be planned or manufactured, it has to come from the heart. Michael wasn't trying to inspire Jim or prove what a great boss or friend he was. He simply reached out as a human being talking to another human being and tried to say something encouraging. He had given up on trying to inspire only to do it without even realizing what he had done and in that moment, we have our reason to believe in Jim and Pam back again because we have been given hope. With those words, the dark night suddenly turns into a hopeful one and a new friendship is forged between Jim and Michael that will persist until Michael finally left to get his own happy ending, his words paying off for him at last. As for Jim and Pam, Jim doesn't give up. He tries to distance himself from Pam but he still puts it all on the line on Casino Night. When he fails, he tries to. He moves away and he moves on but he doesn't really give up. Eventually he gets his chance. Eventually Jim and Pam date and marry and have children together like we all knew they would and it all comes back to that moment on the boat where he decided to not give up.

"Never, ever, ever give up". From the moment I saw Booze Cruise almost a decade ago that line hit hard and in the years since, it has stuck with me. The world can be a hard place and it's not easy to get the things you want most in life. It takes a lot of courage and a lot of effort and a lot of hope. The Office was not a hopeful show in the beginning. It was about compromise, wasting your potential away, giving up on your dreams, the drudgery of daily existence and the small things you did to try and make it better. It hid all this with a laugh and a smile and never explored it the way the British version did (And even the British version had a happy ending) but it was always under the surface. Even in the later seasons when the show became about finding happiness and family and beauty in the unlikeliest of places, that early darkness never truly went away. Booze Cruise is the most hopeful that The Office has been up to this point and it's remarkable because it suggests that even in your lowest moments, there's a light at the end of the tunnel if you're willing to find the strength to fight for it, to never, ever, ever give up. It's a powerful sentiment and one that we all need reminding of from time to time, especially in trying times like these where fear seems to have overrun everything. "Never, ever, ever give up". Things will get better, but they won't if you give up. You need to have hope. That's why Booze Cruise is my favourite episode of The Office and why it's the one I show to people trying to start watching the show. There's a lot to love about the episode, but in the end it all comes down to a pure and earnest hope that elevates everything else and makes it all better. The Office was great at being cringe-worthy and cynical, but when it looked through all that darkness and cringe to find a bit of honest hope, that's when it became special.

Superstore Ends The Year On A High Note With Seasonal Help and Black Friday

Thanks to Thursday night football, tonight was the last we get to see of Superstore until January. That's a shame because Superstore has really come into it's own over the course of this second season so far, becoming one of the funniest shows on television right now and I'm going to miss it while it's on hiatus. Thankfully, we got not one but two episodes tonight that were packed to the brim with comedy, good character moments, and a couple of major developments that left me excited to see what happens next.

The biggest development in these episodes belongs to Amy, who finds herself having to finally confront the problems in her marriage. This starts in Seasonal Help when Adam gets hired as a temporary employee. Right off the bat there's issues as Adam embarrasses Amy at the staff meeting by calling her by her pet name "bean" and revealing that she used to sleep naked. This frustrates Amy and the frustration only continues when they're on the floor and Adam takes Amy's suggestions on how to do things better as criticism.We haven't seen a lot of Adam over the course of the show, but what we do see speaks volumes. He's a nice guy, but he would rather work on his constant stream of projects and dreams than actually help support his family and he's very defensive. His and Amy's marriage isn't a good one, but when Glenn has the audacity to imply that and it becomes clear that everyone else thinks that too, Amy sets out to prove them all wrong by becoming very affectionate towards her bumbling husband. This leads to the two hooking up in the photo lab, though not before Adam tries to start another fight when he learns Amy lied about Cloud Nine having a Large-Format printer back when he was trying to get his travel agency off the ground. They still hook up but it becomes clear that putting up appearances isn't going to fix the problems in Amy's marriage or bring the spark back and Amy is forced to deal with this truth when she gets sick on Black Friday and becomes concerned she's pregnant.

The smartest thing Seasonal Help/Black Friday does is not make Amy's marriage woes about her relationship with Jonah. He's the one that suggests Adam get a seasonal job at Cloud Nine and he becomes a support during her scare when he inadvertently overhears Amy trying to get a pregnancy test but he's not an active player in Amy's story. Amy's marriage woes aren't because she's pining for Jonah or because Jonah helps her realize that Adam isn't right for her but are because of problems that existed long before Jonah came into her life at the show's beginning. It makes the story of Amy coming to terms with her unhappiness her story, not one that's shared by anyone else and her unhappiness is something that she gets to discover on her own. When she realizes she isn't pregnant, she becomes relieved even though she always saw herself having two or three kids. She stops herself from saying maybe she just doesn't want them with Adam, but when she finally gets the chance to tell him she's not pregnant and blurts "I'm not happy" instead. She corrects herself quickly but there's no hiding her problems anymore.

The Amy storyline that runs through Seasonal Help/Black Friday is weighty and heavier subject matter than the show typically deals with and the show maximizes it's effectiveness by sandwiching the stories between bigger comedy stories. Seasonal Help has Jonah turn a friendly wager over which of the terrible temp workers will quit first into a serious competition that has everyone going to extreme lengths to get their chosen temp to quit first. This leads to a very funny montage of the staff going all out to win the bet using tactics that range from Dina making her temp scrub the parking lot to Mateo and Cheyenne sexually harassing the book-reading temp they both hate to Mertle trying to knock her pick Opal off a ladder (Opal is the oldest person at the store at 90 years old, which Mertle is not happy about.). It's much more extreme than Jonah had expected, but since he upped the stakes of the wager and actively encouraged Isaac (played by a very welcome Steve Agee) to quit kicking it into overdrive, he can't complain. It turns out Jonah has a bit of a gambling problem, a welcome detail that helps expand his character beyond the "privileged white boy hipster" box he's usually put in. The dark comic twist of the plot though is when Jonah wins the bet and learns that the majority of the seasonal workers were hired from a "Last Chance" program at Glenn's church. These are troubled people trying to turn their lives around and Jonah and the rest have been messing with that. This leads Jonah to do the right thing and give Isaac the 200 dollars from the pot he's won but the heartwarming sentimentality of the moment is severely undercut when Isaac immediately makes a deal to go buy meth. There are lots of shows out there that try to tack on a feel-good ending when there's not one to be had, but Superstore is not one of them. You will not find false sentiment here.

As out-of-control as the bet in Seasonal Help is, it has nothing on Black Friday. The opening sequence of a massive line-up outside the store at 3AM and still-green Jonah being the only one excited about the day help establish what hell this holiday is for retail workers. Then after setting up Amy's pregnancy scare, everyone's hatred of this day and Glenn being on Xanax to relax, the doors open and we get a taste of merciless deal-hunting customers running amok. Almost every scene becomes packed with frantic motion from something or another. Cloud Nine essentially becomes a warzone and just when you think you know where things are going, the real cause of Amy's sickness is revealed when the entire staff comes down with food poisoning from something at the pre-opening potluck. The mass food poisoning takes an already fraught event to even greater comedic heights as over half the staff has to go home and the rest are all sick and miserable. Eventually they all wind up in the break room as customers run wild, sniping at each other. Jonah tries to rally the troops but a Xanax-taking Glenn cusses him and everyone else out in the episode's funniest moment. Eventually Garrett suggests they bail and everyone agrees, even Dina.

 The thing about Superstore is that it isn't a very sentimental show. It's a cutting look at the stresses and disappointments of working retail and it tends to undercut the nice moments when they pop up, as demonstrated in Seasonal Help. This is to the show's benefit though because when they do go the sentimental road, it feels earned. Garrett spends most of Black Friday trying to avoid working on a register by stretching the announcements out as long as possible (His trick? Recounting the plots of every Tom Hanks movie.) mostly to spite Dina. He's also the one that suggests they all just bail and go home. When everyone moves to leave though, he's the one who gives the pep talk that Jonah with his generic "all in this together" sentiments couldn't give. The thing about Garrett is that he hates his job but it's his job so he does it, even if it's only the bare minimum (which it usually is). He's not going to stop doing his job even if it is Black Friday and even if no one else is with him. So as Busy Earnin' plays in the background, Garrett goes on the floor alone, gets behind the register he said he wouldn't work and gets to work, inspiring everyone to finish out the day. It's a strong character moment for Garrett, adding new depth to a character that has been happy to stay the same up to this point in the show. It's also the most moving scene that the show has done since the season 1 finale and watching the characters push back against the chaos that their lives have become on this day feels cathartic. The triumph of the moment and the relief when the store finally closes can only last so long though. Amy's confession of not being happy to Adam is a stark reminder of that.

That confession alone is enough to make the wait for January hard but then the show throws another twist. Dina and Garrett hooking up is a twist that isn't super surprising but feels like a natural development that the show's been building to since as early as the Olympic Special. Garrett's attraction to Dina during Halloween was played as mostly related to her costume, but you just knew the idea of something happening between them was too good for the writers to pass off. Given that the relationship between the two is prickly at best, I'm curious to see how this will play out come the New Year. It's a terrific capper for a terrific mid-season finale and combined with Amy's compelling marital drama, it leaves you wanting more. We'll have to be patient though. After all the Black Friday havoc, I think they need time to restock.

Memorable Moments

-Best Interstitial(s): For Seasonal Help, a short woman struggles to reach an item. A tall man seemingly grabs it for her, but then takes it for himself. For Black Friday, a brawl between two grown men in a aisle that seems aimed at young girls.

-Glenn spends Seasonal Help auditioning for someone to play Santa Claus. When it turns out the job doesn't pay money though, he's left with warehouse worker Cody who promises to be the "best BLEEP-ing Santa".

-After a simple but grueling Megan's Law search, Glenn narrows the candidate field from over 12 to 6. Then he gets a text and it becomes 5. It's a super dark joke, but a very funny one.

-Jonah's elaborate betting system gets simplified to "pick one". "It's a pari-mutual betting pool with live odds, no rake, and I'm open to exotic bets, okay? You know, exactas, trifectas, quadrellas, or 'quaddies.'"

-Amy and Adam rehash an old fight. "No, Adam, your business failed because nobody uses travel agencies anymore due to a little thing called the Internet". "Oh, here we go with the Internet again, huh? Yeah, because it exists."

-No one gets prescriptions filled on Black Friday so Tate spends the day working on his screenplay. "It's about a pharmacist, obviously, who invents a pill that allows you to use all of your brain". "Oh, like 'Limitless.'" "Not like "Limitless"! All right. Why do people keep saying it's like "Limitless"? It's inspired by 'Limitless.'"

-Brett continues to be one of the best minor characters without saying a word. Here he simply throws Jonah's video camera that he's documenting Black Friday with in the garbage.

-Cheyenne and Mateo have a lot of fun little moments together in these episodes with the best being when Mateo learns Cheyenne is "war profiteering" the store's Pepto Bismo supply.

-Garrett's speech in full: "Yo, I don't like working here. But it's my job. I do the bare minimum, but I don't do less than that. And I'm not about to let a bunch of deal-hungry rubes trash our store and make me feel bad for Dina, which I did not think was possible. So I'ma get out there, and I'ma finish my shift. And yeah, I'ma cut corners, and I'ma phone it in, but it'll never be said that Garrett McNeill did not do just enough to not get fired."

-Cheyenne brings Black Friday home. "Attention, shoppers, the store is now closed. Not, like, "Bring your items to the front" closed. I mean, like, "Get the hell out." Thank you. Oh, also, if anyone happens to find a little green hair thing, it's mine".

I Got Thoughts On Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: When Will Josh and His Friend Leave Me Alone?

I Got Thoughts is a point-form collection of my thoughts on episodes of television, when a normal recap just won't do.

-Just when you think Rebecca can't sink any lower than she has, she sets her house on fire and a 911 call of her freaking out about Greg and Josh while pooping in her backyard gets put online, quickly going viral. Ouch.

-So apparently Santino Fontana is leaving Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, though they're not ruling out a possible return guest appearance some day. That's a bit disappointing as he was always terrific on the show, bringing all kinds of depth to what could have been a one-note character. It's also the right decision. The end of Greg's arc was always him finally getting out of West Covina and pursuing his own happiness. It was also clear that prolonged exposure to Rebecca would be detrimental to his recovery. Keeping him around, especially after last week's episode would've felt disingenuous. So it's sad to see him go, but it feels right. Greg was never meant to be a big part of Rebecca's story, even if she wound up being a big part of his.

-If this is the last we ever see of Greg, at least he got to go out on a (figurative) high note with the Frank Sinatra-esque "It Was A Shitshow" (or BLEEPshow if you're trying to be network friendly.). It's a brutal but perfect summation of Rebecca and Greg's relationship. As much as Greg loves Rebecca and he does love her, this thing between them was never healthy for either of them and pursuing it was never going to end well. He doesn't regret it and he would never change that it happened but that doesn't mean he should stay in West Covina. It's a beautiful, tragic number and one of the best the show's ever done.

-The other striking thing about "Shitshow" is that it's one of the few musical numbers on this show that isn't presented as heightened or in a fantasy. There's no dancing or elaborate change of scenery, just Greg and Rebecca in the airport as they share one last moment before Greg ascends to the next part of his life. It's incredibly effective.

-Real Greg makes his exit early but a "memory spirit" ( Definitely not to be confused with a dream ghost.) of him pops up a couple times to remind Becca of Greg and what she's lost before she's finally able to say goodbye to Greg at the episode's end and move on. A memory spirit of Josh also appears so the two can do a merry, hilarious tap number called "We Tapped That Ass" about all the times they had sex with Rebecca all over her house. It's a strong number about how hard it can be to get over a break-up when you have constant reminders of what you had in your face all the time. It also provides a good impetus for Rebecca accidentally setting her house on fire when she decides to burn all the reminders of Greg and Josh that she has.

-Sometimes being brought to your lowest low is what it takes to make you snap out of denial, take a good hard look at yourself, who you are, and to figure out the first step to being OK again. Other times, it sends you spinning even deeper into denial and causes you to do something drastic to try and project the idea that you're doing OK. Guess which one of those things Rebecca does?

-Yael Grobglas popped over from Jane The Virgin tonight as Trina, the CEO of Miss Douche, a feminine hygiene product company that's trying to take back the word "douche" as an empowering thing and reinvent themselves. Trina also clearly has some issues that need working out which Grobglas plays subtly and beautifully. It's a good parallel for what Rebecca's going through and the contest serves as a catalyst for her big makeover.

-The thing is there's a huge difference between reinventing your image as a company and reinventing your image as a person. Rebecca's post make-over blonde hair and extensions is horrifying and hilarious, but it also takes one run-in with Josh to expose it how desperate and fake the whole thing really is. Even Rebecca's making it to the finals of the contest is only because she spent $5000 on bots to buy the likes she needed. You can put a fresh coat of paint on a house with a rotten foundation, but it doesn't fix the fact that the foundation is rotten. Rebecca spends the whole episode trying to convince people that she's OK, but the one person she can't convince is herself and when she's finally confronted with the question of "Who Are You?" at the contest after an episode of running away from it, she has the breakthrough she needs to get past her denial.

-Trying to figure out who you are outside of other people is tough and scary but it looks like Rebecca will have some great help with that. After being in the far corners of Rebecca's world for much of the show's run, it looks like Heather is being brought right into it's centre. That's great news because Vella Lowell has always been great on the show and her detached cynicism and common sense is a much needed counterbalance to Rebecca's desperate optimism. The show also makes fun of how little we actually know about Heather after all this time by revealing that she still lives with her parents and that her last name is Davis, but Rebecca has apparently never noticed, despite having met her parents plenty of times before.

-Mr. and Mrs. Heather (As Rebecca calls them) are a delight and it's fun watching them be hyper-supportive of Rebecca as she spirals. The episode is also smart to point out why this hyper-supportiveness isn't actually good for Rebecca or Heather (Who just might be the support system Rebecca actually needs). Mr. and Mrs. Heather provide unconditional support but they don't push back or encourage follow-through or improvement. They enable Rebecca on her quest to become Miss Douche, but when she wants to give up, they accept it. They've let Heather quit everything she's ever tried which is why she still lives at home. They're good, loving people, but Heather and Rebecca need more than that in their lives if they're ever going to succeed.

-That being said, I do want to see more of Heather's parents. Hopefully they'll be popping over to Rebecca and Heather's new place often.

-Rebecca never found out about Paula's pregnancy, but she wound up playing a big part in Paula's ultimate decision by forcing Paula to essentially handled a whole case by herself, revealing that it will be impossible for her to both have a baby and do law school by showing how much her and Scott struggle with what they already have, but also by showing how good at legal work Paula is.

-Smart decision: We don't actually see Paula change her mind about going through with the pregnancy. We simply see her recovering from the procedure, before her blunt son explicitly states what's happening (Also the first time someone actually says the word "abortion"), which feels like a network note from someone worried viewers wouldn't piece it together but was funny enough to work.

-I thought the show was signalling trouble for Paula's marriage when she turned out to be pregnant, but Scott turned out to be loving and supportive of her dreams and the first one to bring up that Paula had "options". It was a very welcome turn of events. Far too many shows would make this about how Paula getting an abortion would affect Scott, but this isn't about Scott and he knows it. He just wants Paula to be happy.

-What does look to be in trouble though is Rebecca and Paula's friendship. That Paula couldn't bring herself to tell Rebecca about what she was going through, even after Rebecca was ready to open and pushing her to open up exposes how one-sided this friendship is in places. Becca can trust Paula with everything in her life, but Paula can't do the same because she doesn't trust Becca to be able to handle it. The show has collapsed Rebecca's relationships with Josh and Greg. How long until it collapses her relationship with Paula as well?

-Mrs. Heather trying her own version of a makeover song before "Makey Make-Over" was adorable though. And as for the actual song, I'm going to have "It's a Make-Over. Makey make-over" in my head for days so thanks show.

-This show is on such a roll right now and moving so much faster than I thought it would.

-Next week: Valencia is back after being kept offstage for the first few episodes. And she's eating doughnuts. That should be fun.

I Got Thoughts On Jane The Virgin: Chapter 48

I Got Thoughts is a point-form collection of my thoughts on an episode of television for when a normal recap just isn't enough to express everything I want to express.

-Well it's official. Good-bye Jane The Virgin, hello Jane The Virgin. I'll keep using Jane The Virgin in the title of these posts though for convenience sake and "Jane" in the posts for when I'm talking about the show and not the character.

-Chapter 48 was a bit of a comedown episode for "Jane" after the big emotional highs of last week, serving more as set-up for future episodes than anything else. That's to be expected though. Jane can't lose her virginity every week. And "Jane" is still very good at making set-up episodes entertaining in their own right.

-Now that Jane's finally had sex, she really likes having it whenever she can. That sounds like her.

-With all that went down at the end of last season and the beginning of this one, I totally forgot Petra secretly leasing Jane's house and paying half the rent was a plot point until it suddenly resurfaced tonight.

-Watching Jane and Michael get into a fight over budgeting was hard, but it felt true to life and exactly like the kind of fight those two would have. Television marriages can be tricky because plenty of shows don't seem to know how to have a strong, happy marriage still be dramatic and interesting. "Jane" seems to get that Jane and Michael can be married and happy but still have fights sometimes and deal with challenges though and that's cool.

-If this whole storyline turns out to be a ploy to get Jane and Michael back in the Villaneuva household for a bit longer while they look for a smaller house, I'll be slightly annoyed but only slightly. I already miss Jane not being in that house.

-Alba imagining a young Jane as a guide to help her navigate her dealings with Xo this episode was a nice device. The opening flashbacks of all the times Jane almost left the Villaneuva show also highlighted the not always easy relationship between the two and it's good to see the two trying not to go back to that now that Jane is gone.

-A thing I like about Xo trying to find a career for herself outside of singer is that it gives Xo a substantial storyline that revolves around her for once and not her relationship with Rogelio or Jane or Alba (Though of course they're involved because why wouldn't they be).

-I figured Alba would find out about Xo quitting her bank job before the episode was over but didn't think it would happen as quickly as it did. That was welcome.

-Rogelio's storyline with Rafael seemed like goofy filler at first until it turned into Rogelio "babysitting" Luisa and took a turn for the poignant as Rogelio used acting techniques to get to the bottom of Luisa's desire to drink. Luisa is often treated as a walking trainwreck and a joke by this show so it's heartening to see her plight be taken seriously. Hopefully her decision to go to rehab signals a positive turn for the character.

-That being said, already calling that Rose is going to be working at the rehab facility. Also I'm still not convinced that Luisa really ended things with her.

-Also I very much want to see more of Rogelio's old telenovella Addicted to Love, which was mainly used to telegraph the Jane/Anezka catfight. And him using his telenovella experience to try to relate to Luisa's real experiences is such a Rogelio move.

-Also I'm on board with Rafael and Rogelio finally bonding and becoming friends now that Rafael's no longer in love with Jane. And if this leads to a new bromantic triangle between Rogelio, Michael, and Rafael, all the better!

-The Anezka as Petra storyline is starting to run out of steam, and Jane's constant declarations of being done with Petra are starting to get tired. To the show's credit though, it seems to recognize this and is pushing it along to it's conclusion which is welcome.

-The dinner scene with Anezka and Scott at Jane and Michael's was as delightfully uncomfortable as the show wanted it to be. Also the pay-off of Anezka immediately knowing what Jane met by "Milos situation" after having to fake knowing what Jane was talking about for much of the episode was good. The way Anezka's earlier slip-ups come back again in the end when Jane starts piecing things together was even better.

-Scott is much more interesting as a #dicktator than the early days when he was just another hotel employee for Jane to bounce off of.

-The possible hotel walkout storyline only seemed to exist to create a slight conflict between Jane (Who refused Scott's bribe) and Lina (Who took it) that was immediately squashed, but I did like how it came around to inform the Jane/Michael budgeting story as Jane realizes she does want her and Michael to make it on their own without stressing about living beyond their means.

-The double subversion with whether or not the catfight was actually happening or not was clever.

-Hey Dot-Marie Jones! I haven't seen her since she was elevating Glee through sheer force of will. She doesn't get a lot to do as the enforcer Magda sends to keep an eye on Anezka beyond be imposing, but she does it well. Hopefully there's more in store for her.

-Also Jane Seymour was back! Her character hasn't been around since late season 1 (As demonstrated when she identified Rafael as Jane's boyfriend, which he hasn't been since around the last time she was on the show). She wound up being there to mostly be a plot device on the way to Rogelio and Rafael bonding, but watching her throw herself at Rafael was amusing.

-So we finally find out what Alba does for a living just so she can quit for a different job two episodes later? Typical. I wish we had gotten to see a bit more of her working situation beyond "mean boss" so we had more of a sense of what it means for her to suddenly quit her job after all this time. Sure when she tells Xo she didn't want her to be miserable at a job she hates, we can infer she was projecting but it feels a bit empty. That being said, her working at the hotel gift shop gives her the chance to be involved more with the Marbella stuff, which could be promising. I'm hopeful about her new love interest at the gift shop as well.

-Mutter's last message hidden in the bible she was holding when she was found was "Angels guard the son" (Or is it sun?). The crime stuff is still the weakest part of the show, but that's cryptic enough to be possibly promising.

-So Rafael's big secret that Scott gives to Anezka is that he covered up illegal doings by his father after his death. Not the most exciting revelation, but a fairly logical one that tracks with what we know about Rafael so it works.

-Jane's onto Anezka now so hopefully that means we get Petra back next week. To borrow a phrase from the Narrator, "it's about damn time".

I Got Thoughts On Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: All Signs Point To Josh... Or Is It Josh's Friend?

I Got Thoughts is a point-form collection of my thoughts on episodes of television. When a normal recap just won't properly allow me to express what I want to say or when I just don't want to organize my thoughts in a cohesive format, that's when I Got Thoughts comes in.

-Wow, it did not take long into the season for everything to blow up now, did it?

-Towards the end of All Signs Point To Josh... Or Is It Josh's Friend?, Rebecca lays down a summary of what the romantic comedy version of her and Greg's story would be to Dr. Akopian (A wonderful Michael Hyatt). "So I move to West Covina in love with someone else, and he's the sarcastic messed-up bartender who calls me out on my stuff, and I ignore him but we have undeniable chemistry, and now Josh and I break up, and it's about me and Greg". In the lesser romantic comedy version of this show, this would be more or less accurate. In fact, it's what it seemed like the show was going to inevitably set up in the early going, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has turned out to be more ambitious with more to say than that version of the show.

-The ideal end point for Rebecca's journey isn't that she winds up with Josh or Greg, it's that she winds up alone and OK with herself. The right guy can come after that. The problem with Rebecca is she refuses to accepts this and would rather interpret coincidence as signs from the universe. She keeps trying to work events that happen in her life as part of some grand narrative, but narrative isn't real and trying to turn life and random events into narrative the way Rebecca does is only going to lead to havoc for her and for the people in her life.

-"All Signs" not only deconstructs the idea of love triangles and looking for signs from the universe, it completely blows up the triangle Rebecca believes herself to be in because she was looking for signs. She may have been able to explain away her "I moved her for you" confession to Josh, but telling him she's pregnant, immediately getting her period right after, and then trying to sweep it all under the rug with a rousing song about period sex? It's going to be hard to come back from that one. And Greg sees the only sign that matters, the danger sign next to the incredibly romantic bridge Rebecca is waiting for him on and decides to do the healthy thing and get out of West Covina.

-Is Greg actually moving to Atlanta? Don't get me wrong. He really should get the hell out of West Covina, but as much as it loves to deconstructs tropes and challenge narrative conventions, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is still a TV show and Santino Fontana is a regular. He could still leave but it seems early in the season for the show to be done with Greg as a character. Still though, I doubt whatever Rebecca is going to tell him at the airport is going to change his mind. Hmm.

-Also the "run to the airport" is another classic romcom convention that the show plays with tonight. It's a beautiful gesture in the movies (and in the last episode of Friends). In real life? Very over dramatic and creepy. We'll see how this plays out next week.

-We only got 20 seconds of "Period Sex", but that's about all we'll ever need. The brevity is what keeps it funny. Josh suddenly stopping her also sets up that the people in her life aren't going to just go with the narrative she's trying to create anymore.

-The Math of Love Triangles was the only real song in the episode tonight, but it was a great one. A pitch-perfect parody of Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend that shows Rebecca getting carried away with the idea that she's at the centre of some great love triangle (The song also reminds us that a proper triangle has multiple centres). The chorus of men actually being there to teach Rebecca's baby-voiced Marilyn Monroe impression about literal triangles was terrific. As was this exchange: "Is this a triangle?" "No, that's a shoe". "Is this a triangle?" "No, that's you." "So I'm a triangle?" "What?! No." "One two three six eight three, go!"

-There are a lot of scenes in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend that are hard to watch but Rebecca convincing herself that she's pregnant and then telling Josh she's pregnant was the hardest one yet. I couldn't stop wincing. Vincent Rodriguez III was great in that scene though, playing Josh's fugue state, followed by him breaking up with Rebecca perfectly.

-Also great was the farewell between Josh and Greg at the airport when Josh admitted that he hasn't been a great friend to Greg the last few months. It'll be interesting to see if this marks the start of a more self-aware Josh Chan.

-Chris' goodbye scene to Greg was sweet and set up the joke of Hector also having his mom waiting for him in the red zone well.

-While looking for signs on who she should be with, Rebecca stumbles upon an ad for Signs 4 and wonders how she missed the last two Signs. It's a dumb, silly joke and I loved it so much.

-Rebecca and Greg totally ship White Josh and Daryl. As we all should.

-More Guardrail tonight. Yay! If Greg actually goes to Atlanta and we follow him there, I hope we get to meet Barry (Who is an actuary, not a biker. Way to stereotype, Greg).

-A lot of the score in the show is instrumental reworkings of the various songs that have been in the show. It's a neat trick for underlining or establishing the inner thoughts of the characters during scenes  and it was especially effective at a couple key moments tonight. First was when "You Stupid Bitch" started playing after Josh breaks up with Rebecca, underscoring how much she hates herself in this moment. Second was when "Settle For Me" started playing as Greg considers meeting Rebecca at the bridge, underscoring the mistake he'd be making by settling now instead of going to Atlanta.

-The show acknowledging the fact that Rebecca and Paula will often leave work for no reason and Rebecca should probably be fired at this point was appreciated.

-Oh Daryl. One day Paula will realize that you're the best friend she deserves, even if your grand gesture this episode only exacerbated her crisis this episode.

-Rebecca's fake pregnancy scare leading to Paula actually being pregnant was very well done and devastating. The scene where Daryl surprises her with the early admission to law school he's arranged for her is bittersweet and devastating, and Donna Lynne Champlin does some of her finest work on the show yet as Paula realizes the impossible position she may be in and that she can't put off not knowing any longer.

-Now I realize that those previous scenes of how well Paula's marriage is doing was quietly setting up what could be an incredibly rocky period if not it's ultimate destruction if this leads to Paula choosing to get an abortion.

-If Paula gets an abortion, she'll be the 3rd character on a show I watch to get one in a month. Abortion's a real hot topic right now apparently. That's good though. It's a part of life and it deserves to be explored honestly.

-It's telling that the show chose to end on the Paula pregnancy cliffhanger and the serious drama in her life instead of the false drama of Rebecca confronting Greg at the airport.

-Frick, this was a good episode of television. Next week is going to apparently take on the classic romcom trope of "the makeover" so that should be fun.

-Rachel Bloom also did this today. You should watch it. It's funny AND important.

The Good Place Clashes With The Bad In "...Someone Like Me as a Member"

Nine episodes into The Good Place and I'm running out of ways to talk about how good this show is every week. It feels like every week I talk about how the show has delivered it's best episode yet or continued it's hot streak and I could say both of those things again about "...Someone Like Me As A Member", which gave us a lot more of the bad place, told a satisfying story that felt like the culmination of eight episodes worth of build-up, and was super funny to boot. So instead of just talking about all the things I liked about this episode while recapping it as I typically do, I'm going to list them in no particular order (And then talk about them.). Thrilling, I know. So let's get to it.

1. Adam Scott is Still Great at Being Awful: After being introduced to Adam Scott's smarmy demon bro Trevor briefly in last weeks episode, we get a lot more of him here and he's just as hilariously awful as ever. In a show full of perfect people The Good Place hasn't really had much in the way of antagonistic jerks and Trevor fills that role nicely. From endlessly hitting on Eleanor to clipping his toenails and ordering wine just to send it back without tasting it at dinner, Scott really throws himself into the character, making him funny but also giving him the hint of menace he needs to be an effective villain and despite being all about being bad, he doesn't feel one-dimensional either. When he talks to Eleanor about how she'll probably be happier in the bad place, even though she'll be totally miserable because she won't have to pretend like she belongs, he has a valid point. He's someone who's totally comfortable with who he is and that makes him more nuanced than he might be otherwise.

2. Real Eleanor is Here and She's Delightful: She was briefly shown at the end of last week's episode, but "...Someone Like Me As A Member" gives us our proper introduction to Tiya Sircar as the real Eleanor (A great running gag through the episode has people keep referring to our Eleanor as "Fake Eleanor"). Sircar is great in the role, making Real Eleanor feel authentic and believable. She immediately feels like the saint we've been told she was everytime she's been brought up and has none of the condescending haughtiness that Tahani has. She has no grudge or illwill about the mishap that caused her to spend weeks in Fake Eleanor's personal hell (An endless baby shower for a woman she didn't know that she also had to organize and got an electric shock if she couldn't remember names) and her endless kindness is both amusing and refreshing. She also has immediate chemistry with Chidi. They seem like they could be soulmates (Which makes sense, seeing as they're supposed to be soulmates.).

3. We Finally Get Some Answers: Why did Fake Eleanor wind up in the good place instead of Real Eleanor? Well it turns out that besides having the same name, they both died in the same thousandth of a second in the same place in the same accident (Real Eleanor was attempting to push our Eleanor out of the way of the truck. She feels very bad that she failed) and the good/bad place people don't have access to faces so there was a mix-up. After all that mystery, it's a simple solution but it's funny enough to work and the continuing presence of Jason suggests there still might be more to this mix-up than we know. Additionally we learn more about how the bad place works. It seems that just as each resident of the good place is put in a house that's perfect for them, the bad place residents are put in their own perfect nightmare. Plus there's flying pirahana's, lava monsters, college improv and constant Jazz music (At least that's what Real Eleanor experienced). They even have a bad Janet (Also D'arcy Carden) who doesn't answer questions and just texts while insulting people. This helps us get a good picture of what the bad place is like without us actually having to go there (Though that seems like something that'll happen at some point) and helps to flesh out the greater universe of the show. Nine episodes in, this is very welcome.

4. Eleanor Finds A Group She Wants To Belong To: The title of the episode refers to that famous Rodney Dangerfield line of not wanting to belong to any club that would accept someone like him as a member and the flashbacks show that sentiment is something that Eleanor has been practicing her whole life. She refuses to join in with any groups in high school, would rather buy her own ticket to Spider-Man 2 in a terrible section then buy tickets as a group with her roommate and declines a position at a friendly-seeming company because she doesn't want to be part of a team environment (A big part of the reason she takes her job at the fake job company). For whatever reason, she has always been resistant to letting people in, possibly because deep down she's never felt like she's belonged. In the good place, watching Chidi bond with his actual soulmate and seeing how perfect Real Eleanor is and it starts to get to her, She's better than she used to be but she still doesn't belong. She even gets to the point where she's willing to go to the bad place, and Kristen Bell's resigned "aight'" to Trevor's pitch is some of her best acting yet.

Luckily before she can finalize that decision, Chidi pushes back when she tells him he doesn't have to go to the negotiation, letting her know that he's still going to be there for her even with Real Eleanor around. They're a team. That refusal to give up on her after she pushes him away is what gets Eleanor to change her mind about going to the bad place. She doesn't belong in the good place but for the first time, she's found somewhere she wants to belong. It's a good direction for Eleanor's arc to go and very illustrative of how far she's come. She started out wanting to stay because the alternative was an eternity of torture. Now she wants to stay because she actually cares for these people and she's part of the team. And she's willing to fight for that.

5. Michael Stands Up For Himself (Eventually): Michael spends the episode trying to stand up to a delegation from the bad place and failing. As the bad place crew snorts powdered time and does karaoke to famous hate speech, Michael sits there and goes with it while Tahani tries to get him to stand up for himself. It's a funny story, but where it really gets good is the pay-off. Eleanor's speech inspires Michael to make a stand at the negotiations when Trevor asks for something good. He tells them they get nothing and no matter what they throw at them, he believes Fake Eleanor belongs in the good place and he's not going to give her up. Then he tells them to "Get the fork out of my neighborhood", using the kind of covered expletive that typically only Eleanor uses. It's a strong moment for Michael, crystalizing once and for all where he stands when it comes to his people and it makes the wait for the next episode that much harder.

6. Tahani Wises Up: Also making the wait for the next episode hard is where this one ends. Jason, who up to this point hasn't done much in the episode beyond bond with a still recovering Janet, walks into his "bud hole" to discover Tahani waiting for him. She's finally pieced together his secret and knows he isn't actually a buddhist monk. This complicates things a lot now as The Good Place moves into it's third act in January. We now know why Eleanor wound up in the good place, but why did Jason? Will Michael be willing to protect two people who don't belong? How will Tahani react when she realizes Eleanor and Chidi knew this whole time? Like most of the twists on this show, this one opens up a whole bunch of interesting directions for the story to take. Only time will tell which one they land on.

7. There's An All Powerful Judge Out There. And His Name Is Sean: Ok, lastly this episode had maybe my favourite joke of the series yet that doubles as brilliant world building. During negotiations, Trevor threatens to bring Sean into all of this much to Michael's horror and everyone else's confusion. Who is Sean? As Michael puts it, "He's the wise, eternal Judge who sits on high, has the final say on all disputes between our two realms." Tahani and Chidi are still perplexed. "And his names... Sean?" It's absurdist jokes like these that make me love this show. Of course the all powerful judge in The Good Place universe has a mundane, ordinary name like Sean. Of course he does. The best part is now it seems inevitable Sean will show up to mediate this dispute. Who will play him? If I was a betting man, I'd say Nick Offerman or Jon Hamm. I'm willing to be surprised though. Because the surprises on The Good Place are always the best kind.

Memorable Moments

-Besides Sean, my other favourite joke in this episode was Eleanor's reaction to being asked to see Spider-Man 2. "They made a second "Spider-Man"? What is there left to say?"

-Trevor compares the Eleanors. "She's like a perfect ball of light, and you're like a... wet pile of mulch."

-Fake Eleanor was a child of divorce. Real Eleanor? She was abandoned at a train station in Bangladesh, adopted by a nice couple who died of bird flu when she was 4, had her orphanage burn down, and then made her way to America, learned English watching Seinfeld and put herself through law school. So both have had tough lives.

-There's a sweet moment during Eleanor's speech when she says she wants to be like the people there, Real Eleanor says "You can, Eleanor", and Eleanor simply says "Thanks, Real Eleanor".

-Apparently the bad place has a four-headed flying bear. Now I kind of want to see that before the season ends.