"Carter's death was not the problem."

Alexa - Shelly wasn't a mole within the ISA (or an ISA employee), she was the handler of the Mole or Moles within the ISA. A teacher ; the show loves putting people leading double lives in Education.

When the lights turned off and the machine started communicating, there was this otherworldly eeriness… it was amazing. It’s extremely rare the sheer atmosphere of a scene holds sway, but at that moment, it was entrancing.

Carter's death. Suffice to say, it didn't go down well with the CBS crowd who expect their shows to be 20 years of static storylines.

Yep, sort of agree. With the exception of the Tony episode, good ratings, good reviews, and a massive swathe of positive comments deconstructing each episode.

It's very similiar. I'll never understand these criticisms of multiple story threads weaving in and out, separating and pairing together new characters. It's what GoT does, but whereas GoT get lauded for it, OB is strangely criticized for it.

Your criticisms, amongst others, is decrying a deepening of expanding of the mythology. Without backstory, over-arching plot and mythology, shows remain static. Which is the definition of your cookie-cutter NCIS.

Diamond Age has to be one of my favourite books. That is all.

Orphan Black's season 2 was indeed excellent. Sure, the Tony episode came at a very odd time, and I felt lost some momentum and rising tension as we raced towards the finale of s2, but overall s2 was gripping, gave us a deepening conspiracy and still had plenty of character development and drama. Scenes like the end…

Trust me, I'm also usually 100% more on board for Root then Reese too, but I really liked the psychological view of this episode.

I'm trying to think of shows/movies where the "hallucinate a friend" when the character is injured/near death/in mortal danger happens. Because I'm sure a show or movie recently did something very similar to this, where the character was wounded and hallucinated/dreamt a conversation with a friend that helped him live.

Re: the pacing of the season.

I'm not sure why you're under the impression this is a two-parter. The murderer is dead, the number would be saved the same time John is.

Wow, where to start.

Yeah the exposition is crazy sometimes, but I understand that they're trying to appeal to a baseline here. The actors sell it well, and sometimes they poke fun at themselves with the exposition, like the time Fusco says basically "I didn't understand" in Control-Alt-Delete after Finch dumps a mother-load of exposition.

Possibly, but the way the scene played out, it seemed that the potential killer was spot-recruited. But having contraband (or being handed contraband) in lock-up is most definitely viable.

I sometimes think that soundbite one liners for promo's or whatever are part of their contract, but I like your idea. Something like that is far preferable then if they were written earnestly as legitimate lines.

I'm under the impression that Samaritan targeted him personally both to take over his company, but possibly stepped it up after he discovered the purchase of all the diesel and the strangeness of that action. Investigating the schemes of Samaritan seems to be a surefire way for it to go hard at you.

Speaking of the prison, the guy in lockup/detention (whatever it was) just whips out a phone like it's no big deal. Kinda strange.

Root has always seemed like someone who could look after herself. She's no Shaw or Reese, but then again, I don't think Martine is either. Seemed like an even match up.