And the Middle East. And Africa.

23rd place for my first time out isn't bad, I think. Especially since my original ballot had This Is Us on it, and since I picked Code Black as my veteran show to be cancelled (seriously, how). Thanks for all the hard work, Franko!

Congratulations, iZombie writers, you've come up with the one brain that could make people wish for the return of hot mess girl from last week. There were some good jokes here and there, but overall this was a supremely annoying brain, and didn't seem to contribute much to either the case of the week, or the…

My feeling is that Justin pretty much has to be spying on Major, Liv and Ravi for Fillmore Graves, because as this episode pointed out the show has already gone to the "dead boyfriend" well twice with Liv, and since there's no way they're going to let anyone but Major be her endgame, there has to be some way to get…

No, she was a brunette. It's in the boat party flashbacks and the opening credits animation.

I actually thought Candy, of all people, was pretty fucking justified. Don E is just as much of a scumbag as Blaine, but Candy hasn't hurt anyone, and in this episode she's the only person who tries to stick by Blaine. And because he's a self-absorbed, self-pitying douche, he rewards that by treating her like crap. …

With Elementary off the schedule, there literally isn't a single thing here that I'm even interested in giving a cursory look. I'm clearly not CBS's target audience, but even so there used to be shows - Elementary, The Good Wife, Limitless - that has some appeal for me. This is older-dude-with-military-hard-on…

fantasy evils, even those that derive some of their power from real world analogs, aren't the same thing and aren't normally treated as such.

Once again, you're not responding to my actual criticism. The point isn't "does it make sense that Kara, when confronted with this dilemma, chose to ally with Cadmus?" I've already agreed that it does. My issue is with the writers for having chosen to write this dilemma as if it were nothing more than a common…

I think gender plays a huge part here. If the roles were reversed - if Philip were the crazy-eyed, murderous true believer and Elizabeth was depressed and having doubts - we wouldn't have any trouble reading him as a monster. Hell, we might even have found him too unlikable to keep rooting for.

Unless you're including the prisoners who worked in the Sonderkommando, everyone working in the death camps was a member of the German military, if not the SS. The comparison to a teenager in occupied territory who has just seen her entire family slaughtered doesn't hold.

I've been thinking that the major world event we'll see Philip and Elizabeth respond to will be Chernobyl. That was basically the Soviet Union admitting to the world (mostly by refusing to admit it) that it was no longer a functional nation, and that its systems, instead of promoting the greater good, were in fact…

I've never thought that Elizabeth would change - it would require reexamining too many of her core assumptions, the things that make her who she is. What happened in this episode is that she finally saw herself for what she is, not a soldier for justice and a better world, but a compassionless thug. Natalie…

Given his proclivity for math and fondness for computers, I think the most likely future for Henry is in Silicon Valley. Which is good, because if he does decide on a career in government/law enforcement and his parents are exposed, his prospects will not be great.

"You're the greatest kid in the world, Henry."

I don't disagree with any of this. My point is just that "I don't like you, you don't like me, but…" has a different meaning when the "you" in question is a Nazi. And in a season that has made so much hay out of opposing racist violence, to have Kara join forces with Lillian without seriously considering the…

If Kara was choosing to ally with Lillian in order to save the world, I might understand her reasoning. But she isn't - her motivations are entirely personal, to save Lena and Mon-El. And that prioritizing of the personal is even validated by Cat's bizarre Eat Pray Love speech, which basically comes down to "love is…

See, to me that actually makes it worse, because it implies that the reason Kara was wrong to ally with Lillian was that she would be betrayed. When the real reason it was wrong is that Lillian is a racist mass-murderer. Superhero stories always prioritize the personal over the communal - see this very episode, in…

I'm usually on the same page as Caroline, but I thought the way this episode tried to tie together the season's themes was its biggest misstep, undermining what was otherwise a strong hour. The "aliens as refugees" theme, however well-intentioned, is something the season has struggled with, often allowing the urgent…

I've been assuming that the plan was to bring it back for a shortened season, since they'd really like to save money on it and the cast no longer has a lot of give. Not surprised that they're holding off for midseason, since no one is expecting it to do huge numbers anyway, but the decision to put Inhumans on Friday…