Let's Talk Television: subverting expectations
Michael Raymond-James stole the show and my heart.
New This Week
White Lotus (Max)
FBI (Paramount+)
FBI Most Wanted (Paramount+)
9-1-1 (Hulu)
Doctor Odyssey (Hulu)
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.
FBI: Most Wanted
Picking up the thread from our last episode, Hana (Keisha Castle-Hughes) brings her ex-boyfriend Ethan (guest Michael Raymond-James) to a VA hospital to check into rehab for his pill addiction. While in the lobby completing paperwork, a desperate vet, Dani (guest Ashley Crowe), pulls a gun on the front desk staff to demand that her paraplegic partner’s healthcare is fully covered. Hana and Ethan are taken hostage along with a handful of others. This story is both depressingly timely—the current administration is cutting large swaths of staff and funds for vet hospitals, which were already understaffed and underfunded—and depressingly familiar—when are the systemic problems of the US healthcare system ever not on topic? Does anyone remember the 2002 film John Q.? Denzel Washington plays a man who takes an ER hostage in order to get his dying son on the list for a heart transplant. In both that film and this episode, the demand is not extraordinary. They just want healthcare.
Anyway, the episode is incredible. It’s a showcase for Hana, who scrambles to work with the team from the inside, and Barnes (Roxy Sterberg), who leads from the outside. Both get big moments to affect the plot. Though in support roles, Nina (Shantel VanSanten) and Ray (Edwin Hodge) are also solid; the whole team is great at their job amidst increasing pressure to save one of their own.
But the MVP is Ethan, and the Hana and Ethan relationship. The last three minutes are shockingly good. In a last ditch effort to stop Dani from shooting anyone, including herself, Ethan talks about his own struggles while a hidden Hana and I sob. There are two writers listed on this script. Wendy West is a co-executive producer with 86 FBI: Most Wanted episodes under her belt and hundreds of other credits dating back twenty-five years. Jon-Alexander Gleason is a writing assistant who started on the series this season and it’s his only writing credit outside two short films he made himself. Gleason served in the Army as an MP and describes his work as “My characters are forced to confront the lifelong responsibility of their actions, and how it's affected others around them.”
This was the series 100th episode. Remy (lead Dylan McDermott) doesn’t appear and the story hinges on a recurring character and a relationship that developed almost entirely off-screen. The motivations of the crime are easy to understand but hard to parse and harder to fix. It’s both formulaic (they hit all the beats of a hostage crisis) and overly complicated (Dani is suffering from a traumatic brain injury, which compounds the issue—she, too, just needs healthcare!—but also confuses it; Ethan is going through a withdrawal the whole time). But it’s the best episode of the season and maybe of the series.
CBS cancelled FBI: Most Wanted. I’m now positive Remy will leave by the end of the season/series, and I’m mad that we won’t get any seasons with Sheryl fully in charge.
The Pitt
This week’s/hour’s main patient is a pregnant Black woman who arrives in the ER fully dilated and crowning. Robby (Noah Wyle) decides to deliver the baby in the Pitt rather than risk a delivery in the elevator. Collins (Tracey Ifeachor) and Mel (Taylor Deardin) assist and they’re joined by nurses, the two dads (she’s a surrogate for her best friends), and briefly someone from OB. There are echoes of TV deliveries past (including this one) but it manages to do something different. For one, they show the birth (using a realistic prosthetic and robot baby which is way cool) rather than hiding behind sheets and infant “actors”. There is nothing whatsoever sexual about it because there is nothing whatsoever sexual about birth (I have given birth twice, vaginally and surgically, I know what I’m talking about). There are complications, and they are scary, but everyone survives. The baby gets skin-to-skin contact with his dad (I grinned like a fool). No one shames the Black woman for her body or her choices and no one questions her pain. No one is homophobic or racist towards the biracial dads, no one tut-tuts any of the three for their decisions on how to conceive or deliver or raise the baby. Mel is adorably excited by the whole event. It’s a celebration of so many beautiful things.
And it leads to Robby and Collins having a heart to heart about the choice to have or not have a baby. I have been dreading this conversation all season but my fears were unwarranted. Robby is fully supportive of Collins from the moment he hears about her miscarriage, through checking in to make sure she’s okay with being a lead on the ER delivery and trusting her when she says yes, to telling her to take the last hour of her shift off. He listens to her sorrow about the difficulty and expense of IVF and a previous pregnancy she chose to end and he makes no part of it about himself. When she says she was pregnant before but it was the wrong time, a brief flicker of shock crosses Robby’s face but none of it shows up in what he tells her. He forgives her on behalf of a man who may or may not be him in a way that says she doesn’t need forgiveness. And they knock knees and shoulders in a display of affection that reminded me of both Doug/Carol (ex-lovers who belong together) and Elliot/Olivia (best friends who love each other) and it truly destroyed me. How dare! They subverted all my expectations and I could not be happier.
Other things that happened: Cassie (Fiona Dourif) confronted Chloe, the “bonus mom” t-shirt wearing, twenty-something girlfriend of her ex. Samira (Supriya Ganesh) coerces Whitaker (Gerran Howell) into going along with her ‘trick the patient into rehab’ plan and gets in trouble with Robby. Langdon (Patrick Ball, though he didn’t appear) blew up the phones in desperation to talk to Robby while Santos (Isa Briones) begged Garcia (Alexandra Metz) not to tell anyone about his drug use. And Dana (Katherine LaNasa), reeling from her attack and how much worse things have gotten at the Pitt since she was a volunteer in high school, when the patients were awful, but at least they weren’t mean, tells Robby she needs to get out. He says good for her despite not knowing what he’ll do without her. And then they get a report of a mass shooter at the concert that Robby’s (step)son and his girlfriend are attending. Chekov’s incel has finally gone off.
The Bad
Bad equates to “I don’t have much to say about this.”
White Lotus
When there’s more online discussion of Jason Isaacs’ dick than what happened in the episode, you’ve lost me.
I liked: Rick (Walter Goggins) telling Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) the truth about his father’s alleged murder. The White Women Who W(h)ine getting punked by Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius) and a few children with super soakers.
I don’t have anything to say about anything else.
FBI
It was suspiciously coincidental that Hana and Ethan were taken hostage at the VA hospital, but that is nothing compared to the absurdity that OA (Zeeko Zaki) and Gemma (guest Comfort Clinton) just happen to be on a train to Niagara Falls when it is hijacked. I love a good train heist, and the episode isn’t bad, but nothing surprising or exciting happens.
9-1-1
Chimney (Kenneth Choi) returns home with Buck (Oliver Stark) to find Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) missing. They worry she’s run again, like she did after Jee-Yun was born, but the evidence doesn’t add up. Athena (Angela Bassett) and Romero (guest Danny Nucci) do some detective work and learn the truth about Amber (guest Abigail Spencer). This episode seems to exist to show that Jennifer Love Hewitt is still GREAT at playing a badass woman in distress.
Doctor Odyssey
Boo! The wrap up to last week’s shark attack is not nearly as much fun. Mostly because nothing new happens. Max (Joshua Jackson) and Hot Shark Doctor Brooke (guest Adrianne Palicki) continue to flirt. Avery (Philippa Soo) and Brooke have to avoid death by orca but do. Spence (Marcus Emanuel Mitchell) proves himself. Rosie (Jacqueline Toboni) proves herself. Ray (guest Liam Johnson) proves himself, and the captain (Don Johnson) gives him an application for the Odyssey, but also promises Spence’s job is safe. There is a nice moment when Avery and Brooke bond over sexism in the academy/society and Avery kisses Tristan (Sean Teale) like she means it, but I am not convinced. Tristan deserves better.
Elsbeth
Kaya (Carra Patterson) is promoted to detective and gets to take the lead on this week’s case, in which a psychic kills the son of her client to maintain control over the client, the client’s company, and a merger that will make her gloriously rich. Elsbeth (Carrie Peterson) is assigned a new officer to work with, Niki (b). Both character and actor are genderqueer and I am excited to see them on the series.
Law & Order
I waffled between Good and Ugly for this one so it ends up in Bad, but should probably be in one of the others.
Remember the mysterious Kate mentioned in the last episode? Turns out DA Baxter (Tony Goldwyn) is dating a defense attorney (guest Maggie Siff). She defends this week’s suspect and it goes exactly as well as you imagine.
The vic is a senator’s son who planned to run for governor. He’s killed in the park by a reporter after an altercation about an unflattering article set to go to print, or after he tried to sexually assault her (in case it wasn’t obvious enough that this was ripped from RFKJr’s headlines, the vic was also left a dead wolf in the park once). Baxter recuses himself but refuses to pass off the case and pointedly keeps Nolan (Hugh Dancy) on it. It feels like Nolan continues to be Baxter’s favorite problem child, he gives him the toughest cases with high expectations and low trust.
The case comes down to a she said-he died. Circumstantial evidence that we, the audience, are privy to suggests the victim at least sexually harassed the suspect. The defendant claims the vic called her a whore right before he came at her. The vic’s father also calls the defendant a whore when talking to Nolan and an extremely unimpressed Sam (Odelya Halevi). The vic and his family are painted as entitled and threatening, and there are rumors of his sex-pest past threaded throughout the episode, but the trial is focused on the defendant’s sexual past. Both Kate and Sam call this out as blatant sexism. Baxter tells Kate the prosecution is gonna win anyway and Nolan tells Sam the defendant doesn’t get special treatment just because she’s a woman, which leaves her rightfully speechless. In the end, the jury dismisses the argument of self-defense and finds the defendant guilty of murder.
Nolan Nolans all over the place again, but his position is, as always, that murderers should be punished. Baxter’s shenanigans are much less defensible. He positions himself above the fray but is judgy towards Nolan and Kate, and he puts his political capital above them both.
I strongly suspect we will learn that Kate was a victim of sexual assault some time soon.
NCIS: Sydney
We get some more DeShawn (Sean Sagar) backstory when we travel to a wellness clinic run by a retired Navy Seal and his now pregnant wife. Another Seal visiting the clinic allegedly hung himself but was actually murdered by his friends to cover up the the cover up of the death of a Seal recruit who was given steroids that contributed to his death during hell week four years ago. The “friends”, two more Seals, discovered that he was talking to the press about the cover-up and the death, and killed him.
The Seals—and Evie (Tuuli Narkle) and us—learn that Deshawn went to Seal bootcamp (see GI Jane, it was name-checked) but washed out on the last day. At first, the Evil Seals are friendly with him, but it soon becomes clear that they are awful people, and ultimately murderers at least two times over, and when they realize NCIS is on to them, they bring Deshawn and Evie into the woods to be executed. But the good guy Seal, who started the wellness clinic to help people and wasn’t a part of the cover up, convinces them to play the Hunger Games (also name-checked) instead, and then turns on them to help Deshawn and Evie escape. Running and shooting ensue followed by fisticuffs with a monster on steroids. Good guys win.
The Ugly
Don’t bother.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Two people meet at a bar and have sex in a pool, and our job is to decide what crime occurred. The prosecution argues on behalf of a 16-year-old boy who doesn’t think he’s a victim and charges a 28-year-old woman who thinks that she is. This is a good episode about a messy case that highlights my babygirl Bruno (Kevin Kane). One thing landed it in Ugly and it’s the same thing I’ve been complaining about all season: the character assassination of Carisi (Peter Scanavino) to retain the status quo.
I find both the victim and the defendant credible and sympathetic. The kid was in over his head and the woman didn’t know she was committing a crime. Both made bad choices. Both did something wrong. Both were potentially rapists and both were potentially victims. The jury can’t decide who to hold responsible and it ends in a mistrial. Everyone is punished.
Carisi is obligated to prosecute the statutory rape. Benson (Mariska Hargitay) argues that the defendant was intoxicated, drugged, and therefore incapacitated so she was raped, too. As I said above, I find the defendant credible and sympathetic, but Olivia’s strident support for her and not the kid is also Ugly. And it’s part of the same problem, maintaining the formula of Olivia and the second lead argue over the case. Now that Carisi is the second lead, he gets stuck into whatever box the narrative needs to fulfill Olivia’s purpose.
But the ugliest Ugly bit happens at the very end. Carisi inexplicably throws sexism into his closing by directing the jury to imagine the victim was a girl and the defendant was a man. NO. 16-year-old boys can be raped. Full stop. This particular 16-year-old boy got into a situation that he was not equipped to handle. He is underage so he did not consent. Those are the facts of the case and Carisi spent the entire episode arguing them! But he had to “pretend you had to care about the victim” in order to win??
Even more egregious (and this is on the show, not the characters) Bruno confessed to Olivia that he was molested by an older woman when he was 15 like seven minutes earlier. We were literally provided with a teenage boy that we know and like to make the victim even more obviously a victim who deserves our attention and sympathy. Bruno straight up says “I see myself in this kid”.
The level of ‘we do not trust the audience’ that these choices make clear is unreal. I think the questions this case brings up are important and I love learning why Bruno ended up in SVU. Please stop sticking Carisi and Benson in the same tired circles. They and we deserve better.
Also Watching
Top Chef season 22 started! My very first recap assignment, long long ago, for a site that no longer exists, was recapping competition reality series and Top Chef is one of the best. With all that’s going on in foreign politics (gods help us), that the season is in Canada makes me laugh a lot. So as to avoid crying, but also, we get to learn all the great things about Canada!
Mental Illness Sidebar
9-1-1’s villain Amber is suggested to have dissociative identity disorder. DID is a very controversial disorder and this portrayal adds nothing to the discourse. In my opinion, using DID to tell a story is more harmful than useful, especially in a sensationalized trauma procedural like 9-1-1.
Ship of the Week
In the middle of the ocean, I am worried Avery is making choices that will hurt Tristan. Down under, JD (Todd Lasance) and Mackie (Olivia Swann) continue to flirt outrageously. In Thailand, I’m worried Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) will die or be arrested before he and Mook (Lalisa Manobal) ever go on a date. In Pittsburgh, I am now all in on Robby and Collins and all out on Santos and Garcia.
In NYC, Elsbeth is still mourning her Scottish fling, Nolan defended Sam to the victim’s gross dad but also Nolaned really hard while I never wanted to ship Baxter and Kate in the first place, Gemma got shot EXACTLY when I decided maybe I could care about her, and the hug at the end proves OA belongs with/to Maggie (Missy Peregrym) anyway.
Ethan and Hana are the clear winners and also my new OTP forever.
Show of the Week
The Pitt was excellent, but Ima give it to FBI: Most Wanted because they got cancelled to make way for FBI: CIA. CBS over here making NBC’s mistakes fifteen years later.
What are YOU watching?