I am accounting for the character element when saying I "believe it will stick the landing."

While I've been a staunch defender of the show's decision to focus almost exclusively on building the Rust and Marty characters, I think we're starting to see the hazard of that decision.

Paul Adelstein is TERRIBLE. Brings down every scene. He's not right for this character at all.

It probably would have.

Who cares what Sepinwall thinks? Biggest hack (and worst writer) around…

Your rationale often applies to comedies. There have definitely been some recent examples of epic dramas stumbling in their second seasons.

They cut her episode count? I thought she was booked for six?

There's also a rumor that Santana is leaving — or at least going to have far less screen time late in the season.

Agree on most of this, but not on the Santana performance. It didn't work at all. The arrangement was weird (it's not like the rock rhythm line made this song more fitting for Santana), and Rivera's inflection skews more in the direction of soul and motown than theater. It felt too blunted in comparison to…

Weird to me that they didn't outright mash-up Titanium with Every Breath You Take. They basically used the former's instrumentals…

In the version of the pilot I saw, Ron throws up in Jessica's bag or whatever and ultimately storms off. Her sister (Sarah Bolger), however, feels bad for him and comes outside to bring him a glass of water. They start flirting a bit, and she agrees to go have a drink with him. That brings the pilot to its…

"Feet pointing out thing."

So does the outside rendezvous between Jessica's sister and the guy not happen in the final version of the pilot?

Fired Up is so incredibly underrated.

Also - I saw this as a screener a while back, but did I miss something (or was something changed) regarding one of the female characters? At the end of the pilot I saw, Jessica's innocent, naive sister meets the British dude outside. They go back in for a drink.

There were one or two funny lines, but I ultimately never BOUGHT what I was seeing. The "banter" didn't feel like banter…it felt like a show trying to convince me it was conveying witty, natural conversations.

Yeah, the callback aspect of the review was a bit strange. Technically, yes, the episode called back to some earlier moments - but it wasn't like the callbacks provided needed explanation. It's not like we needed to know that Marshall almost quit during the Bar Exam.

This was a delightful episode, but an A is pushing it. It was obviously not on the level of something like season 2's "Slap Bet" or season 3's "How I Met Everyone Else" (or even of a few of the better segments from this season).

Yeah. Baffling that the review focuses on all the clever callbacks but then acts as if Brad is just some random dude.

I've always been curious how Jeopardy contestants would defend their ignorance to very basic pop culture, entertainment and sports questions.