I'm with V.O.I.D., I don't really see much evidence that Nikki Bella was ever the long-term plan beyond assuming that, well, sooner or later all things come back to Nikki Bella. What I saw was just Nikki helping elevate the division by making the non-title feuds seem more important, while also making Carmella and…

That's what he's doing, he's just started making his Mania 34 entrance now. Getting from Orlando to New Orleans takes time!

This is the real reason Taker retired, he at last knew there were those worthy to carry on his most important legacy…

Well, my basic rejoinder to this (and hey, we'll probably talk more about this on the podcast!) is, "What's the point?" I don't buy the idea that just pissing off a significant fraction of the fans is an end in and of itself. If Roman is still booked to face heels and to emerge triumphant, then the heat he's getting…

I feel like you probably meant that last sentence as in "I don't understand Alasdair's grades," but I choose to take it as "Alasdair disobeys me with the grades he gives," because that's much funnier.

Nah, I'm doing good.

I get it if this isn't your thing — I've been known to skip ahead to the comments section plenty of times. It's just I don't really no of a way to review the show other than to dig into it and take it seriously. Like I say, I do understand if taking it seriously isn't what you're looking for.

I… never insisted it wasn't?

Yeah, it has some pros to balance out the cons, for sure.

Did, uh, did we ever get better?

That's probably fair. I do think they've genuinely committed to the ensemble in a way they never quite did even in season 2, perhaps *because* this is now a group that kinda has to be more than the sum of its parts to be compelling.

The flashbacks in seasons 3 and 4 got so bad it was easy to just treat them as not part of the show at all, like these weird non-commercial breaks to sit through. It's only watching season 5 (or remembering seasons 1 and 2) that one properly realizes how good it is when the flashbacks actually add something to the…

I mean, I think there's a decent argument that 24 did play a culturally significant role in normalizing torture during the Bush era. But sure, I'm generally as skeptical as anyone about how much impact ephemeral pop culture really has. It's more the principle of the thing to me than anything else, and I'd personally…

I think there is a difference between previous seasons, where the point was that Oliver could find the strength to go on from people around him but the story was still ultimately about Oliver doing it himself, and what we have this year, where Diggle's first advice to Oliver is to not do it all by himself. I dunno,…

I'd say he's generally fine at what they ask him to do, and maybe it's telling they ask him to do relatively little after five seasons. I dunno though, tonight just worked for me.

I think we might just want slightly different things from the show, which is totally fine. What grabs me about this season is how much it's committed to the theme of Oliver being made better by his team. I think Adrian can be right about Oliver as an individual — left to his own devices, Oliver probably is a monster —…

Episodic reviewing can be a weird beast, in that there's a serious forest-for-the-trees issue that can creep in. I came away from season three a lot less satisfied with it than I was watching it week-to-week. More or less the same phenomenon for season four.

For sure, this isn't Arrow going full 24 and having torture being this heroic thing that heroes do. I just would generally rather not have TV shows showing torture as anything but disastrous and error-ridden, if only to underscore the more basic point that it's inhumane.

Right, the main argument against torture is that it's immoral/inhumane, not that it doesn't work. It'd still be wrong even if it worked at some acceptable level of efficacy. But in a fictional context, I'd rather shows not casually indicate torture can work, as it's not as though there aren't already plenty of people…

Sweet vindication!