Sure, you could consider it a fitting memento mori or thematic counterpoint to the flurry of successes that just culminated, but I still think that it's otherwise very incongruous and a disservice to the story and characters. Morse has the musical background, but there’s been no prior suggestion that Bert Cooper does,…

Yeah, it was a nice moment they shared and I guess Sally's just more forward romantically than I'd previously assumed.

Especially acceptable without his glasses, making him cuter and much less inclined to point out that that cab has a dent in it.

Yeah, I tried to accept the shifting dynamics as part of the pendulum swings common within marriages, but like other aspects of the season, it was still annoying to feel like much of that shifting had happened off-screen.

Perhaps I did miss it — I try to think of Betty as little as possible. Anyway, Sally's clearly enough like Don to make surprise advances on a whim, consequences be damned. That's called harassment, Sally, and Dudley doesn't have to take it!

Good to know— thanks for clarifying.

Wait, no…"bad person"… Allison, the jilted secretary who threw the cigarette dispenser? In any case, if disliking a dance number negates my better qualities, then shit, I might as well stop holding back…That goofy sock-footed flourish makes me recall all the other shit that rang false this episode:

Sure, though I recall that scene first playing in Godfather I and illustrating Michael's odd idealism more than his brothers' traits, and II's replay underscoring the loss of Sonny and Fredo, with naive baby brother Michael now the murderous Don Corleone.

As I recall that wasn't a very happy flashback; they all balked at his enlistment and left him sitting alone, right? Yeah, reminiscing is cliched, but when a loved dies, that's just what you do.

Meredith?

Ah, the dance number that dared us to hate it—and I’m afraid I nearly did, as it seemed not only too long and too cute by half, but lacked any context for why Don would imagine it. It comes off like an inside joke and/or some ridiculous parting favor to Morse, plus perhaps a little “fuck you” to us quibbling viewers?

Don't worry— a lil' extra chromosome never hurt nobody.

This news just makes me wanna sing…

Before they start, I'd just like to say the campers you're about to see SUCK DICK.
Nevertheless, please…"welcome" them.

Wow — I should ask these PAWS folks if I can use this image for the cover of our upcoming Pets & Hobbies edition of Church of Satan Fortnightly…

He's going to speak about the purple annuals my wife just planted?

Actually, I propose that we reserve all of it for old people to inhale and then talk funny.

I got a 5-inch taint!

Hey, I'm just a guy between jobs dressed as Chuck E. Cheese outside a gas station with a skeeball machine, not a total fucking idiot. And besides, I don't have a shotgun.

Raggin' on the freelancers, huh? Well shit, if you can think of a better way to lure some kids to come play this stolen skeeball machine for a few bucks, then I'm all giant fuckin' floppy-ass ears to hear it. Otherwise, it's Charles E. Cheese to you, fucker.