Let's Talk Television: and that's what we call growth.

Maybe it’s time to start listening to her instead of telling her she’s wrong.

New This Week

• FBI (Paramount+)

• FBI: Most Wanted (Paramount+)

• High Potential (Hulu) —season finale

• Elsbeth (Paramount+)

• Law & Order (Peacock)

• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Peacock)

• The Pitt (Max)

• NCIS: Sydney (Paramount+)

The Good

These are the episodes I recommend watching.

High Potential

This season finale episode leans into Morgan’s (Kaitlin Olson) Sherlockyness (that is totally a word) and provides a “worthy opponent”. The games are literally afoot as the team is provided clues to track down kidnapping victims who all attend the same grief group. Oz (Deniz Akdeniz) is also a member; he joined after his father died. Fathers are a through line. We get some backstory on Morgan’s dad, who was smart like her, and her childhood, which was lonely like Elliot’s (Matthew Lamb). And the case to find Morgan’s ex/Ava’s dad, Roman, moves forward with a visit from Gio (guest Domenick Lombardozzi) and Karadec (Daniel Sunjata), getting additional intel from Ronnie (guest Jocko Sims) and the FBI.

Most excitingly there is a fancy police gala so we get everybody dressed up and dancing. Morgan is stunning, and Karadec is stunned and openly flustered. They dance, which is charming, and he convinces her to let him take over meeting Gio because Gio is a criminal and Karadec is overprotective. But this is somehow also charming, and Morgan agrees because she trusts him, which makes me swoon. Then he passes her off to Tom (JD Pardo), the former janitor now nurse, because the show was renewed, so the Karagan slow burn is back.

Their night at the gala is interrupted by another kidnapping riddle, this time to save Oz, and the tension is played just right, though I never believed Oz was in any real danger. We get some great character stuff for Oz and his relationship to Daphne (Javicia Leslie), as well as family fluff, more Ronnie, more Gio, and more Tom. I liked all of that, but it was overstuffed. The pacing is rushed, and there are two separate cliffhangers in the last seconds. First, Morgan’s Moriarty (or Joker as Karadec calls him) is not who they thought he was, and has identified Morgan as his Sherlock (or Batman). And second, Roman is alive.

Overall, it was a solid first season, but this show is a good argument for the “no filler episodes” crowd. Those weeks I slotted into Bad, aka Boring, didn’t feature Ava or further the Roman plot line, nor did they provide more insight into the characters or relationships the way the “pro filler episodes” crowd suggests they were made for. They were not—bottle episodes traditionally save the series money and allow for a focus on character, filler episodes are just filler, and in this case, they could have avoided the pacing issues of the last two episodes if they’d spread out both the plots and the character growth. I do think the show spun its wheels because it wasn’t sure they’d get a second season, but that was to its detriment, and as much as I hate perpetual cliffhangers due to cancellation, shows that tell their story with confidence are seldom boring. This episode is good enough to get to Good, but the others in Good are better.

Law & Order

In this very special (for me) episode, the victim is a model/influencer who was killed by her father to cover up the fact that he was sexually abusing her for years. However, she recorded a damning video confession/accusation against him. After the video is played in court, the dad grabs a bailiff’s gun and shoots himself in the head. But the video said the victim’s mother knew about the abuse and didn’t stop it, so Baxter (Tony Goldwyn) decides to go after her. Brady (Maura Tierney) gets the mother to admit she showed her husband the daughter’s video, which led to him killing her, so they put the mother on trial for murder.

The defense has evidence the mom was sexually abused as a child and emotionally and physically abused by her husband, but the prosecution gets it squashed for not being relevant to the case. Sam (Odelya Halevi) objects strongly—she found independent corroboration of the defense’s claims and believes that the mother is a victim who was incapable of going against her abuser. Nolan (Hugh Dancy) agrees that the abuse was horrific but believes the mother’s actions led directly to the daughter’s death, and Baxter says if they go easy on this murderer, society will collapse (in his own words, but that’s what I heard).

Sam calls Nolan out for an unnecessarily harsh cross-examination and tells him he’s not being fair. He, of course, pulls a Nolan and says she’s wrong about the law, and he refuses to budge on his moral superiority. He starts to walk away, but for once, Sam bites back. She lays out why she’s the expert in this instance and straight up accuses him of having no respect for her (accurate). Sam storms off angry, and Nolan heads to Baxter to ask permission to make a deal. He admits that Sam’s passion has persuaded him, but Baxter is stubborn and says again that it’s bigger than just this case. In response, Nolan defends Sam’s expertise and says, “Maybe it’s time to start listening to her instead of telling her she’s wrong.” And I lost my mind.

This one line has thrown this entire season of Law & Order into a new light. What if they knew what they were doing?! What if they looked over the last three years and thought, hmmm, we sure do have Nolan talking down to Sam all the f*cking time and wrote the scripts to build to this moment???? Because they. . . do???? This season spent time on Sam and Nolan’s relationship and took steps to position Baxter as the hardest hardass to allow both Sam and Nolan to defend each other to him. The baby steps were going somewhere, and I am ded.

In the end, they make a deal, the mom pleads guilty to child endangerment, and will serve one year plus probation. Sam tells Nolan, “Thank you for hearing me,” and I want to CRY.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

In this week’s episode of Gossip Girl, the squad uncovers an underage nudes factory, which is exactly as perverted and gross as it sounds. A fancy college admissions advisor pretends to be his students on an app to collect nude selfies. When he’s caught, he wants to trade his customers for a sweet deal. Carisi (Peter Scanavino) is in, but Olivia (Mariska Hargitay) is incensed. He wins, and they set up a sting to lure all the pedophiles to a hotel. It’s slow going at first, so the initial perp trades the app “Witch Crafter”, some kind of online game, and they get a whole lot more. The arrests are icky and great. But the last is a mentally disabled man, Matthew.

Silva (Juliana Aidén Martinez), who’d suspected there was something off about this one even when they were online, goes to bat for him. She convinces Olivia that it’s not fair to prosecute this man, and Olivia convinces Carisi and finally DA Baxter, whom she calls a friend who owes her. No one ever accused Olivia Benson of a lack of self-confidence (actually, I think I did, but it works here). The charges are dropped against Matthew, and he makes a date to play Skyrim with his new friend, Amy, aka Silva, which is sweet. Bruno (Kevin Kane) agrees to teach her how to play it, which is also sweet.

There are a lot of nice moments in this one. Angry Liv is one of my favorite Livs. Everyone listening to her argument with Carisi and then pretending they weren’t followed by Liv calling them on it is comedy, and I want it to happen every week. The Olivia vs Baxter scene is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it after so much hype, but I like it, especially the part where he calls her a pain in the ass who is personally invested in each and every case. So true, and also goals.

And this is a full-on Silva episode, and it’s a good one. We get more mentoring of Silva by Olivia, Bruno, Fin (Ice-T), and even Velasco (Octavio Pisano) gets in on it. But she proves that her instincts are good, and she’s willing to speak truth to power. I really like Silva now. They did a great job of building her up before giving her a spotlight, and it worked well.

What’s going on with Carisi is working less well, but I’m willing to wait and see. I’m still convinced he was a better character before he was elevated to the second most important character on the show. But I’m willing to wait and see.

In other news, the first kid caught is named Eli, and Fin says, “that’s organized,” about the crime. Later, Olivia tells Fin she has other friends than just him and tells the victim, “It’s not the mistakes that define us, it’s the choices that we make afterward that do.” I feel attacked, but I admit I have an Elliot issue.

NCIS: Sydney

All you really need to know about this episode is that there are PIRATES. There are so many swerves, shenanigans, and shippy moments (in all senses of the word shippy). The pacing and tension are great, so I’m not going to say anything more and just encourage you to watch the episode. It’s fun and frothy, with little nods to questions of military morality and colonialism. A+ work and worth your 42 minutes. During these chaotic times, sometimes you need to relax with pirates.

The Bad

Bad equates to “I don’t have much to say about this.

FBI

The good news is this is an OA (Zeeko Zaki) episode. The bad news is that OA has to explain racism to Maggie (Missy Peregrym) yet again. I know I sound like a broken record about this, but so does the show. I loved watching SVU marathons on USA, but sometimes I think they trapped that show and every other Wolfverse show in a hell of their own making. And me, too. Making every episode accessible for someone who’s never seen an episode makes those episodes less compelling for those of us who watch them all. There is a part of me that accepts, and even supports, using accessible crime shows to promote vaguely progressive ideas such as “racism is a problem” and “rapists are responsible for rape” to the mainstream law and order conservative crowd. But OA needs better friends, and Zeeko deserves better scripts.

Anyway, in WTAF news, Isobel (Alana de la Garza) got married two months ago, so all my shipping hopes are now on OA and Maggie (who do deserve them, as they are adorable and always have been). The team gets the bad guys, and Maggie invites OA for drinks to unwind, but instead, he brings dinner to the shelter at the center of the case. The episode got to be in Bad instead of Ugly because that moment paid off for OA, and I teared up.

FBI: Most Wanted

The good news is this is a Hana (Keisha Castle-Hughes) episode. The bad news is it does not provide anything new. The case revolves around two foster kids on the run, one killing people and the other one trying to stop him from killing people. That setup is stretched out to fill the whole episode until we get a standoff with the kids, and Hannah pulls a Remy to talk them down using her own story. A story that we ,the audience, already know. But whatever. This FBI is saved from Ugly because it depicts foster parents (and adoption) in a shockingly good light for these shows.

Elsbeth

Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) befriends a Scottish musician, Angus (guest Ioan Gruffud), through a streaming portal set up in front of a coffee shop in both NYC and Scotland, and together, they solve the murder while flirting wildly and adorably.

Angus witnessed the victim fighting with her boyfriend just before she died of a drug overdose. He’d been watching her for a bit, had seen her meet up with another man a few times, and made up a cute little story about them with the server at his coffee shop. But they ultimately learn that she was a whistleblower meeting up with a journalist, and her boss killed them both. The show is much more interested in the romance, and of course I am, too, but it means the case is more a parade of characters than a mystery. It is all very, very cute and sweet and a lovely little Valentine, but not much of a story.

“Elsbethian Detours”, however, is a great name for a travel series based on this setup, and if I had the means, I would totally make a YouTube channel for it.

The Ugly

Don’t bother.

The Pitt

Before anyone freaks out, I do actually think you should bother with this series/episode. But this week it made me angry, so here we are.

There are three new patients: an influencer treated by Samira (Supriya Ganesh) and Javedi (Shabana Azeez), a man with a bad heart treated by Whitaker (Gerran Howell) and a huge team of specialists, and an autistic man with a bum ankle treated by Langdon (Patrick Ball) and Mel (Taylor Deardon). The latter is a nice story about Mel teaching Langdon how to listen to patients and residents. The first two are ultimately a set-up for Robby (Noah Wyle) and Collins (Tracy Ifeachor) to argue. Whitaker’s patient needs ECCMO therapy, which causes Robby to flash back to his mentor’s death. Samira has a hunch that what appears to be a psychiatric problem could have a physical cause, but Robby doesn’t want to hear it, so she presents to Collins instead. Robby approves of Samira’s diagnosis but is annoyed that she didn’t trust him to listen. Which is rich since he’s been pointedly not listening to her all shift. But he’s even more annoyed that Collins went behind his back or over his head and the most annoyed that she calls him out for being off his game today, the day his mentor died, which is 100% true.

We also check in previously introduced patients. The parents of the braindead teen aren’t ready to sign off on organ donation. The elderly schizophrenic patient is starting to notice that her daughter is gone. The Good Samaritan wakes up and talks to the Nepali woman he saved, and she gives him a presumably Nepali guardian charm. Robby gets Christie, the pregnant teen, out of the bathroom and into a quiet room without her mom, while Collins intervenes with the mother and convinces her to allow the abortion.

Santos (Isa Briones) has the most interesting storyline, but it’s also part of my problem. Her patient’s family was sketchy last week and even more so in this one. We learn that his wife was putting progesterone in his coffee to kill his sex drive because she thinks he’s molesting their daughter. Which, yikes! Santos wants to report the dad, but without proof or an accusation from the daughter, they have to report the mom for poisoning her husband instead. Her back to the wall, Santos goes feral. Asking security to watch the door, she heads into the dad’s exam room to accuse him directly. She pretends the security guard is the police to threaten him and says if he ever touches his daughter again he will be arrested and raped in prison, and gives him two options: blink twice to agree to her terms or once if he wants her to let him die. He blinks twice, and she tells him she expects a high patient satisfaction score, which is dark and delightful. Santos is UNHINGED, and I love her! However, 1) stop using prison rape as a threat to stop rapists, and 2) stop using past sexual abuse to “explain” cocky young women. It’s very clear Santos sees herself in this situation, and I’m not opposed to the storyline, but trauma does not need to be the only motivating factor for everyone ever, especially not for women who do not fit into a pretty little feminine box.

But the big reason this is over in Ugly is that Collins has the miscarriage I called last week and very much did not want for her. I hate being right. But I hate even more the suggestion that it’s due to her being shoved by the pro-life mom. And I hate the most that the whole storyline might end up being more about Robby than Collins because they dated, so it’s the baby they might have had if they stayed together, and he’s the protagonist, and they’re already fighting. This is projecting and potentially unfair. But the fact is, she lost her baby, and we are learning who Collins is through this awful trauma she’s going through, and I don’t want to. I wish we already knew and cared about her before they did this storyline.

Also Watching

The final episodes of Cobra Kai are out on Netflix. The show knows exactly what it is and goes for broke with no shame. Peak terrible television, and I love it.

Mental Illness Sidebar

The Pitt has some interesting things to say about mental illness and emergency care, but I think I want to see where the patients end up before I delve too much into it.

Ship of the Week

Karadec and Morgan dance, but so do Morgan and Tom, and Roman is apparently alive, and Ludo, the father of her other two children, is her nanny. Morgan has many options.

JD (Todd Lasanse) and Mackey (Olivia Swann) continue to flirt pretty openly. Remy (Dylan McDermott) asks after Hana’s druggie boyfriend and she doesn’t say it’s over so I guess that’s still happening. I already addressed Robby and Collins.

Elsbeth is all about Valentines and romance this week and while it is very heteronormative (they throw in one gay couple to show they care, but it includes one of the murder victims so), it is also very cute. Elsbeth and Angus are for sure the ship of the week, and I hope he recurs.

Show of the Week

I’m not sure Law & Order is actually the best this week, but that one line cleared my skin, watered my crops, and cured my depression.

What are YOU watching?