As a musical director for a high school theatre program, I'd have to say you're all right, and you're all wrong.  I haven't spent nearly as much time in professional realms (though it would be a fun gig, my career aspirations are elsewhere), but I haven't seen anything in these characters that feels out of place in a…

Let's not forget Jonas is currently on Broadway.  The casting was clearly a nod to the real world.

The thing about the show is, there's no driving force.  For a series with an inherent serial plot, there's nothing happening to make us latch on for the ride; all the conflicts so far feel inorganic.  With that, what should be a serial plot is merely a vague, nondescript setting.

A lot of vocabulary words in there…

Hmm, maybe I saw wrong then.  Even then, either way you slice it, it still added grit to the scene.

Another nice touch I forgot about till your comment: the other cops in the background yelling at the neck biter perp about how they will "fuck [him] up" and "end [him]" and other really, seriously, fucking pissed off shit you'd expect a cop to say.  I forget if you have to listen through Liu's lines for that, but I'm…

I chalked up the almost leaving the camera crew behind bit as a request by the filmmakers for a good shot.  They've been asked to cooperate with the crew, and you can see the frustration grow through the day as they get tired doing special little things for the sake of good TV.

My mom has never been into Southland, but this episode she actually got into somehow.  That scene was indescribably visceral.  I [b]felt[/b] it.  I could feel that my mom felt it too, and normally she can't do action movies or horror movies because she can't handle "when stupid shit happens to someone and they can't…

I think that's another reason why it worked for me.  If only conceptually, it's something everyone can relate to.

Since they finally went with "will they," this episode was incredibly promising to me.  It's different, has the right amount of awwww… moments, but still is pretty solid.  Normally I can't stand the gross-out humor, as least common denominator stuff is ridiculously overdone in my opinion, but it was different enough…

You sound about the gist of my Twitter feed last night.  Except for mentioning the Mahershala-Ali-always-being-cast-in-series-involving-people-and-temporal-displacement thing.  (I also like how he shortened his name so it takes only a HALF a can of alphabet soup to spell now.)

You and me both.  [rocks back in forth in chair, arms wrapped around legs folded in front of torso]

Purple-wearing, potentially-closeted teenaged mutant ninja turtle: #ItGetsShredder

I wondered the same once, so I asked.  The cops I know say that's about right, in the bigger cities at least.  According to them, that's why cops like donuts so much—something you can eat fast and not worry about leaving behind if you get a call.

And let's not forget, some episodes back, the "My Name Is Earl: The Movie" poster outside the movie theater.  It's a complex, meta shared universe.

This episode.  The way it ended was through and through early ER/(Chulack/Wells).  The way it hones in on the characters, on the feeling that "hey, the majority of what we see is just their job, and there's still more to them then we realize"… suffice it to say the feeling I got as I watched this episode end was very…

"Burt, not the time."

THE WORLD NEEDS MORE MARIACHI GREENSLEEVES

As I said last week, if they can take the solid work they've been doing and throw in some more Hope-related storylines again like we had in season one, it'd be game over (and in my slang, that's a good thing).

Even if we watch this episode two weeks, two months, two years from now and decide then that it's lost its luster, the fact will always remain that, in the moment, the episode progressed very practically, so even when we see that Jimmy took Sabrina to the improv troupe's theater and right away figure out how the…