I watch terrible television so you don’t have to.
A Quick Note About Programming
With the FBIs and Elsbeth premiering this coming week, I’m considering how many shows are too many shows to cover and may switch it up, but TBD. In the meantime, I will be in NYC for New York Comic Con Thursday through Sunday, so there will be no Let’s Talk Television until October 27.
New This Week
9-1-1: Lone Star (Tuesday, Hulu)
Marjan (Natacha Karam) survives! And so does everyone else despite numerous fake-outs. Is this going to be the new normal due to lastseasonitis? Now, I know the formula is baked in. It’s a first responder series, so I expect danger and life-risking behaviors, and it’s a 9-1-1, so I expect cliffhangers. However, we do not need to suggest that Marjan, Tammy (Gina Torres), TK (Ronen Rubenstein), Nancy (Brianna Baker), and Captain Strand (Rob Lowe) might die all in the same episode.
Anyways, the kid introduced last week, whose brother got a heart transplant, also survives, thanks to Owen and Judd (Jim Parrack). I was wrong about the other patient from last week mentioning him, instead Paul (Brian Michael Smith) figures out there was someone else on the train, and that ultimately leads to him winning the LT spot over Marjan. She takes herself out of the running and there’s a whispered exchange with Owen that suggests she would have gotten it— they made a point to show the whisper so it will definitely come back at some point. But congrats Lt. Paul!
And congrats probie Judd! That’s right, he’s back, but he’s back at the bottom. Judd is the team’s newest recruit and they start treating him poorly right away because that’s a thing that we do. Someday I will write my rant about awful labor practices TV portrays in a way that both promotes and rebukes.
The kid introduced two weeks ago in the cold open about a deadly gas cloud that I totally forgot happened also survives. Everyone survives except the reporter, who was in that same cold open I forgot about two weeks ago and was portrayed as recklessly ambitious last week. I have a rant in me about that, too.
Agatha All Along (Wednesday, Disney+)
There are two incredible scenes in this episode. In the first, our coven ride broomsticks. It involves a delightful ritual, pretty visuals, and builds on characterization and relationships. Teen (Joe Locke) gets to participate. Liliana (Pattie Lupone) gets to complain about patriarchy. And Rio (Aubrey Plaza) gets to cackle like the Wicked Witch of the West.
Second, at the very end, Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) tells Teen “you’re so much like your mother” and he immediately transforms into a baby Scarlet Witch cuing up the best use of Billie Eilish in a music drop ever.
As for the rest of the episode, plot happened. The mystery mysteried. I don’t trust anything. I feel nothing about Alice’s (alleged) death because I don’t think it matters. The ouija board confirmed Teen isn’t Agatha’s son, Nicholas, which led to her assumption that he’s Wanda’s son, Billy. They still have time to screw that up and if they take it away from me I will riot.
Chicago Med (Thursday, Peacock)
We start where we left off, with Mitch (Luke Mitchell) yelling at Hannah (Jessy Schram) for going behind his back to save his job. They’re still in a fight when we catch up with them at work the next morning which causes Archer (Steven Weber) to send Mitch home. He goes to see Sully (Daniel Dorr) in jail instead, and Sully tells him this is the right thing and he should forgive Hannah. Meanwhile, Lenox (Sarah Ramos) is doing an efficiency analysis of the ED and she thinks having an OB in the ER (aka Hannah) is maybe not the best use of resources.
But Hannah has a pregnant patient, a Black woman close to her due date who presents with swollen ankles and other various symptoms that can be explained by a “normal” pregnancy but she’s had four miscarriages and she’s scared something’s wrong. Turns out she’s right, she ends up in an emergency c-section and then after crashing another emergency surgery that she doesn’t survive. It is DEVASTATING to listen to her tell her newborn how very loved she is and that no matter what happens she will always be with her and then SHE DIES. Hannah is equally devastated. She has to be convinced to stop compressions and she breaks down in the elevator in the last moments of the episode. Jessy Schram proves why she’s my favorite. Hannah is silent walking away, she starts sobbing once alone, and then she forces her emotions under control to face the ER when she arrives. My heart broke and I sobbed right along with her.
Importantly there was a subplot about Black women’s pain and experiences being dismissed by doctors. Maggie (Marlyne Barrett) intercedes with Hannah and her patient, and to her credit, Hannah doesn’t freak out, but this could very well come back next week. And it’s also interesting that Hannah loses a patient in the episode where Lenox suggests she shouldn’t be there. This is honestly Chicago Med at its best.
9-1-1 (Friday, Hulu)
Athena (Angela Bassett) lands the plane. Not at the airport, of course, that would be too simple. She lands it on highway 110 after Bobby (Peter Krause) and Buck (Oliver Stark) clear a mile of road for it. Buck stops traffic all alone with two flares, which is unrealistic but great. The plane comes to a stop mere seconds before it would crash into Bobby’s borrowed fake firetruck with him standing steady atop it. Bobby and Athena forever.
AND the show avoids one of my least favorite tropes, redemption equals death, by having the criminal who killed Athena’s fiancé way back when survive saving her husband. He jumps in front of a bullet meant for Bobby but he lives to see release and his family, as well as Athena’s forgiveness.
Somehow this whole plane incident does not put Bobby back in charge of the 118. Gerrard (Brian Thompson) is still captain and still an abusive asshole to everyone but especially Buck, who he has decided to take under his wing. I’m scared.
Doctor Odyssey (Friday, Hulu)
Max (Joshua Jackson) and Tristan (Sean Teale) didn’t kiss. In fact, Max kisses Avery (Philippa Soo) again instead, Tristan knows, and the triangle is allegedly resolved because Tristan realized his crush on Avery was just Mommy Issues. I did not see that coming and I don’t like it at all. And they missed an obvious opportunity to show Max getting physical with a man. Or rather, they set up an obvious opportunity to show Max getting physical with a man, had Tristan straight up remark on it, and then didn’t do it. This makes Max straight-coded so boo.
The obvious opportunity was the introduction of a live action Ken, a man who had extensive plastic surgery to resemble the doll, who was on a series with live action Barbie, Skipper, and Alan (would watch). Watching the series got Max through his bout with Covid, aka the inciting incident of the series as it convinced Max to take the cruise-doctor job. While on the cruise Ken dies of sepsis due to his recent surgery and it affects Max deeply. Which is a good story that is kind to Ken and his cohort while also highlighting the risks. But whatever his sexuality, Ken is extremely queer and using him to show Max as Very Straight Actually is not to my liking.
In other news, Tristan’s mom has Huntington’s (does Tristan too? Is this another Thirteen on House situation?) and Avery has an in on getting the scholarship she needs to go to medical school on the ship’s dime.
Law & Order (Friday, Peacock)
In this very special episode of Law & Order, the part of ‘woman whom Nolan is determined to school on behalf of (his) morality’ is played by Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay). Because it’s OG, Nolan (Hugh Dancy) gets his guilty verdict despite Olivia’s impassioned speech and willingness to throw the NYPD under the bus. But it was fun to see him literally speechless in the face of Olivia’s ire on the stand.
The case involved a tech bro who started an AI boyfriend app called E.L.I. (naming it Eli is a crime against me) and tried to live out a romcom with a woman who was previously raped and then mistreated by the cops she tried to get help from (not Benson, obvs). Girl got stalker vibes out of his romcom desires and when the police ignored her pleas for help again, she killed him. But her victim past wasn’t the only controversy. Brady (Maura Tierney), or Jess as Olivia called her, used the “local database” of DNA to find the killer and her DNA was only in said database because she’d provided a rape kit. Olivia said, rightly, that victims are already afraid to come forward and if they think the state will use their rape kit to connect them to crimes it will get even worse. She eventually goes to the press and post-guilty verdict we learn that the DA is announcing PD will no longer use the local.
Nolan is right that murder is murder. And it appears the victim was guilty of cringe and being hoodwinked by romcoms and creating an AI that broke up marriages but was not an overt threat to the object of his affections. But Nolan is INSUFFERABLE about this every week and Olivia is right that we need to do better by everyone.
Olivia’s giant (“globally recognized” in the defense attorney’s words) presence meant that the woman Nolan normally scolds, his partner Sam (Odelya Halevi), did not say one word the entire episode.
Law & Order: SVU (Friday, Peacock)
So, right at the big climax, this episode became personal for me. While specifics are different, I feel simultaneously too close to it to write about and as if I am the only person who should. I’ve decided not to go into detail here in my column about the wonderful absurdities of television (that’s not why any of us are here) but I will say 1) I have been diagnosed with Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD), and 2) there are reasons I am so devoted to SVU.
The episode summary mentions repressed memories, and I was steeled for this to be a “both sides” argument about the validity of childhood memories that takes us all the way back to Freud (big yikes). Refreshingly, it was a more straightforward story with very clear victims (the girl who was abused and her two siblings) and villains (the important judge stepfather who abused her and her actually evil mother who covered it up). I prefer the nuanced version of SVU that realizes villains are also victims but in this case I appreciated the call back to old school SVU (this show has been on SO LONG). And the judge’s final scene with Carisi brought in the nuance.
The victim is a 31-year-old alcoholic who realizes she was abused by her stepfather, a federal judge, after finding a written account of it hidden in the basement. The defense tries to explain it away as an aborted novel (“Have you read Lolita?” is actual dialogue) but it eventually comes out that his wife, the victim’s mother, made him write it down as penance/blackmail. The wife is a pediatrician, which is horrifying, and she covered up the abuse for 23 years, told her daughter she was a bed-wetter and nothing happened, told her son he didn’t see anything, and tells Benson and Carisi that it was all her daughter’s fault because she has HPD and she seduced her husband. At eight years old. This woman literally describes the abuse of her eight-year-old child as her husband being unfaithful. Olivia and I almost have a rage blackout for real.
Anyway, the judge changes his plea to guilty and accepts a deal for 7 years imprisonment. The law can’t go after mom, but she can’t practice medicine, her kids will never speak to her again, and the only person she cares about, her husband, is in jail.
The show also (inadvertently?) makes a point about how society fails women. I can’t find the mom sympathetic in any way but her motivation is linked to her fear of raising three children alone. The lack of social safety nets like government funded universal basic income, healthcare, and childcare force women (and men!) to remain in abusive relationships. This is especially poignant when VP candidate JD Vance is out there vowing to end no-fault divorce, make childcare the problem of post-menopausal women, and enact a federal abortion ban, among other horrors. Vote like you’re Olivia Benson: for Kamala and reproductive justice.
Also Watching
Still watching Brilliant Minds but as I said at the top, I’m stretched thin in coverage. Star Trek: Lower Decks‘ final season is premiering October 24 and I’ll be recapping that at Antimatter Pod.
Mental Illness Sidebar
SVU’s shout-out to Histrionic Personality Disorder is very meaningful to me. When Bad Mom accused her daughter of always being attention-seeking and sexually provocative, I thought to myself, “Sounds like she’s blaming it on histrionic personality disorder.” because those are diagnostic symptoms straight out of the DSM5. And then Bad Mom blamed it on histrionic personality disorder! On screen in text! And Olivia acted like that was one of the worst things she’s ever heard in her life and I felt SO SEEN. (I will eventually write more about this.)
Sharon (S. Epatha Merkerson) continues to be judgy about Mitch’s psychiatric past and it continues to be too real and infuriating.
Ship of the Week
Bobby and Athena are back to claim their title.
Show of the Week
Difficult. SVU is certainly my favorite but it’s due to personal connections (even setting aside the storyline, the guest characters are played by actors I recognize and enjoy). Agatha All Along ends with a bang but the rest of the episode is meh. So, I’m giving it to Chicago Med, which is INEXPLICABLE because Chicago Med is SO BAD, but this episode is on fire.
What are YOU watching?